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Books in Classic Literature series

  • Robinson Crusoe

    Daniel Defoe

    Audio CD (Jim Hodges Productions and Blackstone Audio, May 2, 2017)
    [Read by Jim Hodges] The year is 1659. You've been stranded on a desert island. How would you survive? Stay for 28 years, deal with cannibals, heartfelt spiritual awakenings, mutineers, goats, crops and human visitations, and you have one of the most widely published books in all history, Robinson Crusoe, often credited as the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. Before the end of its first year of publication in 1719, the book had already run through four editions. Join Robinson Crusoe, and his man, Friday, on an amazing physical and spiritual island adventure you will never forget.
  • The Three Musketeers

    Alexandre Dumas, Bill Homewood

    Audio CD (Naxos Audio Books, April 1, 1996)
    Just arrived in Paris and looking for adventure, D'Artagnan finds more than he bargains for. Within hours he has offended three of the King's musketeers - and has to duel with all of them! Within days he's in love...and embroiled with spies, politicians, English noblemen, and being seduced by the most beautiful - and deadly - woman in France: Milady de Winter! Filled with intrigue, mystery, passion, comedy and deadly peril, "The Three Musketeers" is the original swashbuckling adventure!
  • An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

    Ambrose Bierce

    Paperback (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, June 15, 2018)
    An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) is a short story by the American writer and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce. Peyton Farquhar, a plantation owner in his mid-thirties, is being prepared for execution by hanging from an Alabama railroad bridge during the American Civil War. Six military men and a company of infantrymen are present, guarding the bridge and carrying out the sentence. Farquhar thinks of his wife and children and is then distracted by a noise that, to him, sounds like an unbearably loud clanging; it is actually the ticking of his watch. He considers the possibility of jumping off the bridge and swimming to safety if he can free his tied hands, but the soldiers drop him from the bridge before he can act on the idea.
  • Penelope's English Experiences

    Kate Douglas Wiggin

    Paperback (Cosimo Classics, Nov. 1, 2005)
    I get on charmingly with the English nobility and sufficiently well with the gentry, but the upper servants strike terror to my soul. There is something awe-inspiring to me about an English butler. -from Chapter II Penelope Hamilton is a young American lady, genteelly poor, abroad in England with her friends Francesca, who is young and flighty, and Salemina, a sophisticated gentlewoman. Together they explore the British way of life, from the bustling Saturday-night street markets and the polite fiction of privacy courting couples enjoy on park strolls to elegant balls at which young ladies make their social debuts to the cheery innkeepers who take the travelers under their wing. First published in 1900, this is a long-forgotten classic from one of the most beloved authors of young adult fiction... the kind that adults enjoy even more than children do. Brew a pot of tea and settle in for a delightful read. American author and educator KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN (1856-1923) was born in Philadelphia. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 but is perhaps best known as the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903).
  • The Last of the Mohicans

    James Fenimore Cooper, William Hope

    Audio CD (Naxos Audio Books, May 1, 1996)
    The story of the intrepid frontiersman and scout, Natty Bumppo -- known as Hawkeye -- and his closest companion, Mohican Chief Chingachgook and Chingachgook's son Uncas, the last surviving member of the Mohican tribe.
  • Tom Brown's School Days

    Thomas Hughes

    Paperback (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, April 24, 2017)
    Tom Brown's School Days Thomas Hughes Tom Brown's School Days (sometimes written Tom Brown's Schooldays, also published under the titles Tom Brown at Rugby, School Days at Rugby, and Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby) is an 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set in the 1830s at Rugby School, a public school for boys. Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842. A main element of the novel is Rugby School, with its traditions, and the reforms that were instituted there by Dr Arnold (1795–1842), the headmaster of the school from 1828 to 1841. He is portrayed as the perfect teacher and counsellor, and as managing everything behind the scenes. In particular, he is the one who "chums" Arthur with Tom. The central theme of the novel is the development of boys. The symmetrical way in which Tom and Arthur supply each other's deficiencies shows that Hughes believed in the importance of physical development, boldness, fighting spirit, and sociability (Tom's contribution) as well as Christian morality and idealism (Arthur's).
  • Confessions of Saint Augustine

    Saint Augustine Hippo

    Paperback (Wordsworth Editions, May 1, 2016)
    St Augustine s Confessions was written between AD 397-400. An autobiographical work, it was written in thirteen parts, each a complete text intended to be read aloud. Written in his early 40s, it documents the development of Augustine s thought from childhood into his adult life a life he considered in retrospect to be both sinful and immoral. He was in his early 30s before he converted to Christianity, but was soon ordained as a priest and became a bishop not long after. Confessions not only documented his conversion but sought to offer guidance to others taking the same path. Considered to be the first Western autobiography to be written, Augustine s work (including the subsequent City of God ) became a major influence on Christian writers for the next 1,000 years and remains a much-valued contribution to Christian thinking. This edition uses the classic translation from Latin by E.B. Pusey (1838) with a partial modernisation of the text to assist the modern reader.
  • Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe

    George Eliot, Mary Anne Evans

    Paperback (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, May 5, 2018)
    Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans). Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is the third novel by George Eliot, published in 1861. The novel is set in the early years of the 19th century. Silas Marner, a weaver, is a member of a small Calvinist congregation in Lantern Yard, a slum street in Northern England. He is falsely accused of stealing the congregation's funds while watching over the very ill deacon. Two clues are given against Silas: a pocket knife, and the discovery in his own house of the bag formerly containing the money. There is the strong suggestion that Silas' best friend, William Dane, has framed him, since Silas had lent his pocket knife to William shortly before the crime was committed. Silas is proclaimed guilty, however, after a drawing of lots. The woman Silas was to marry breaks their engagement and instead marries William. With his life shattered and his heart broken, Silas leaves Lantern Yard and the city for a rural area where he is unknown.
  • Robinson Crusoe

    Daniel Defoe

    MP3 CD (Jim Hodges Productions and Blackstone Audio, May 2, 2017)
    [Read by Jim Hodges] The year is 1659. You've been stranded on a desert island. How would you survive? Stay for 28 years, deal with cannibals, heartfelt spiritual awakenings, mutineers, goats, crops and human visitations, and you have one of the most widely published books in all history, Robinson Crusoe, often credited as the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. Before the end of its first year of publication in 1719, the book had already run through four editions. Join Robinson Crusoe, and his man, Friday, on an amazing physical and spiritual island adventure you will never forget.
  • Wings of the Dove

    Henry James, William Hope

    Audio CD (Naxos Audio Books, Dec. 30, 2006)
    None
  • A Princess of Mars

    Edgar Rice Burroughs

    Paperback (Cosimo Classics, Nov. 1, 2005)
    my feet I received my first Martian surprise, for the effort, which on Earth would have brought me standing upright, carried me into the Martian air to the height of about three yards.... Instead of progressing in a sane and dignified manner, my attempts to walk resulted in a variety of hops which took me clear of the ground a couple of feet at each step and landed me sprawling upon my face or back at the end of each second or third hop. My muscles, perfectly attuned and accustomed to the force of gravity on Earth, played the mischief with me in attempting for the first time to cope with the lesser gravitation and lower air pressure on Mars. ~~~ Edgar Rice Burroughs created one of the most iconic figures in American pop culture, Tarzan of the Apes, and it is impossible to overstate his influence on entire genres of popular literature in the decades after his enormously winning pulp novels stormed the public's imagination. A Princess of Mars, first published in 1917, is the first book in Burroughs' Mars series. Here, Earthman and Civil War veteran John Carter finds himself mysterious transported to the Red Planet, a world of strange men, vicious beasts, and beautiful women in need of rescue. American novelist EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS (1875-1950) wrote dozens of adventure, crime, and science fiction novels that are still beloved today, including Tarzan of the Apes (1912), At the Earth's Core (1914), A Princess of Mars (1917), The Land That Time Forgot (1924), and Pirates of Venus (1934). He is reputed to have been reading a comic book when he died.
  • Pollyanna

    Eleanor H Porter

    Audio CD (Naxos AudioBooks, Sept. 1, 2007)
    Mansfield Park is the longest of Jane Austens six major novels. Fanny Price moves from poverty to the opulence of Mansfield Park at the age of ten when she is adopted by rich relations. But as she grows up she finds she is constantly contending with the burden of her past as her relatives try to keep her in place.
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