Torn between his passion for two women and his abiding attachment to his mother, young Paul Morel struggles with his desire to please everyone ― particularly himself. Lawrence's highly autobiographical novel unfolds against the backdrop of his native Nottinghamshire coal fields, amidst a working-class family dominated by a brutish father and a loving but overbearing mother. Lushly descriptive passages range from celebrations of na ...
Even those who have never read or seen Romeo and Juliet recognize the star-crossed lovers' names as symbols of forbidden romance. Shakespeare's enduring drama takes place during a sultry Italian summer, in a city already boiling with the enmity between two families. Tensions rise further when an irresistible passion develops between members of opposite sides and the play's mood alternates between hope and despair. Romeo and Juliet ...
As a young man, Silas Marner shut himself off from the world after being wrongly accused of theft and losing the girl he loved. Much later in life, the lonely, embittered weaver experiences two jolting events: he is robbed of his meager hoard of gold and he becomes the guardian of Eppie, a little orphan girl who makes her way to his cottage one wintry night. Eppie grows into a charming young woman who cares for the alienated Silas, helping him f ...
Seven of the best Lawrence stories, each turning on some facet of sexual feeling, attitude, or convention. «The Prussian Officer» focuses on an aristocratic captain's homoerotic obsession for his young orderly. «The Shadow in the Rose Garden» and «The White Stocking» deal with sexual jealousy. «Daughters of the Vicar» brilliantly describes two exceedingly class-conscious mating rituals. «The Christening,» «Second Best» and «Odour of Chrysan ...
By 1792, the idealism of the French Revolution has degenerated into a Reign of Terror. Ruthless mobs rule the streets of Paris, and each day, hundreds of royalists are sacrificed to the guillotine, with hundreds more condemned to follow. Their only hope lies in rescue by the Scarlet Pimpernel, the daring leader of an English faction that spirits aristocrats across the Channel to safety. This historical adventure tale first appeared in 1905, but ...
This poignant study of spiritual regeneration recounts the sins of a Russian nobleman, Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, and his attempts in later life to redress his transgressions. Tolstoy conducts readers on a harrowing voyage through Russia's corrupt courts and foul prisons that culminates in a ruthless march to Siberia. A powerful depiction of the injustices of the legal system, the novel assails the vices of petty officialdom and th ...
In common with much of his other writing, this work by the eminent English novelist and essayist E. M. Forster (1879-1970) displays an unusually perceptive view of British society in the early 20th century. Written in 1908, A Room with a View is a social comedy set in Florence, Italy, and Surrey, England. Its heroine, Lucy Honeychurch, struggling against straitlaced Victorian attitudes of arrogance, narrow-mindedness and snobbery, falls in love- ...
Switched at birth by a young slave woman attempting to protect her son from the horrors of slavery, a light-skinned infant changes places with the master's white son. This simple premise is the basis of Pudd'nhead Wilson, a compelling drama that contains all the elements of a classic nineteenth-century mystery: reversed identities, a ghastly crime, an eccentric detective, and a tense courtroom scene.First published in 1894, Twain' ...
Initially published in 1912 and the first of Zane Grey's many bestsellers, this stirring tale of adventure in the high country established the prototype for western novels of the twentieth century. The plot's focus is a proud young heroine who's determined to defend her Utah ranch. She stands alone against the villains who rustle and stampede her cattle—until a stranger rides into the territory. Notorious as the scourge ...
