Browse all books

Books published by publisher Digireads.com

  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame

    Victor Hugo

    eBook (Digireads.com, April 1, 2004)
    Though written at the beginning of the Romantic era, this remarkable French historical romance takes place in medieval Paris at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It is there that the deformed Quasimodo has gone deaf ringing the grand church's bells for his adoptive father Dom Claude Frollo. The severe priest, though he looks after the grotesque Quasimodo, ignores the public persecution that the man suffers whenever he leaves the Cathedral, and it is at just such moment of vulnerability that the lovely young Gypsy Esmeralda shows Quasimodo an act of kindness that leads to his inner transformation. Though still hated by everyone, Quasimodo's sleeping soul awakens and grows in an extraordinary conversion to the sublime, allowing him to care for and protect Esmeralda even as those who admired her come to fear and despise her. A commanding and epic melodrama fully utilizing the extremes of passion and religion in the bygone Gothic era, Hugo's novel explores social justice through the suffering of his characters, though with a compassion and melancholy that belies the author's conviction in the impossibility of salvation in his existing world.
    W
  • Fifty Famous Stories Retold

    James Baldwin

    eBook (Digireads.com, June 24, 2010)
    This timeless collection of short stories encompasses a vast history of famous literary heroes and their romantic tales of bravery, perseverance and compassion. Beginning with Socrates and the ancient Greeks, James Baldwin narrates the stories of larger-than-life figures like Leonidas and the Brave Three Hundred, Napoleon Bonaparte, Robin Hood, Sir Walter Raleigh, and George Washington. These stories illustrate the most celebrated protagonists of all time, and will entertain readers of all ages as much today as they have for centuries past. Originally published by American Book Company in 1896 as educational literature for grade schools, these stories will delight and educate children, laying the foundation for future literary studies as nearly all are frequently alluded to in modern poetry and prose. Children will take pleasure in having these stories read aloud to them, while older children will delight in reading them to themselves.
  • Fifty Famous Stories Retold

    James Baldwin

    eBook (Digireads.com, June 24, 2010)
    This timeless collection of short stories encompasses a vast history of famous literary heroes and their romantic tales of bravery, perseverance and compassion. Beginning with Socrates and the ancient Greeks, James Baldwin narrates the stories of larger-than-life figures like Leonidas and the Brave Three Hundred, Napoleon Bonaparte, Robin Hood, Sir Walter Raleigh, and George Washington. These stories illustrate the most celebrated protagonists of all time, and will entertain readers of all ages as much today as they have for centuries past. Originally published by American Book Company in 1896 as educational literature for grade schools, these stories will delight and educate children, laying the foundation for future literary studies as nearly all are frequently alluded to in modern poetry and prose. Children will take pleasure in having these stories read aloud to them, while older children will delight in reading them to themselves.
  • Fifty Famous Stories Retold

    James Baldwin

    eBook (Digireads.com, June 24, 2010)
    This timeless collection of short stories encompasses a vast history of famous literary heroes and their romantic tales of bravery, perseverance and compassion. Beginning with Socrates and the ancient Greeks, James Baldwin narrates the stories of larger-than-life figures like Leonidas and the Brave Three Hundred, Napoleon Bonaparte, Robin Hood, Sir Walter Raleigh, and George Washington. These stories illustrate the most celebrated protagonists of all time, and will entertain readers of all ages as much today as they have for centuries past. Originally published by American Book Company in 1896 as educational literature for grade schools, these stories will delight and educate children, laying the foundation for future literary studies as nearly all are frequently alluded to in modern poetry and prose. Children will take pleasure in having these stories read aloud to them, while older children will delight in reading them to themselves.
  • The Woman in White: ILLUSTRATED

    Wilkie Collins

    eBook (Digireads.com, March 30, 2004)
    Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White tells the story of two half-sisters, Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe who were embroiled in the sinister plot of Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco to take over their family’s wealth. It’s considered to be one of the first “sensation novels” to be published. Like most novels that fall into this category, the protagonists here are pushed to their limits by the villains before they finally got the justice they deserved.The story begins with Walter Hartright helping a woman dressed in white who turned out to have escaped from a mental asylum. A day later, he travelled to Cumberland to be a drawing master to the half-sisters Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe. While he was in their house he discovered that the woman dressed in white whom he helped was also Laura’s sister.
  • The Woman in White

    Wilkie Collins

    eBook (Digireads.com, March 30, 2004)
    Considered one of the first mystery novels, "The Woman in White" is Wilkie Collins's epistolary novel that tells the tale of Walter Hartright, who encounters a woman all dressed in white on a moonlit road in Hampstead. Hartright helps the woman to find her way back to London. The woman warns him against an unnamed baronet and when they part he discovers that she may have escaped from an asylum. Hartright travels to Cumberland where he takes up as an art tutor and meets two half-sisters, Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe, who are somehow entangled with this mysterious "woman in white".
  • The Woman in White: By Wilkie Collins & Illustrated

    Wilkie Collins, Lucky

    eBook (Digireads.com, March 30, 2004)
    How is this book unique? Free AudiobookIllustrations includedUnabridgedThe Woman in White is Wilkie Collins' fifth published novel, written in 1859. It is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of "sensation novels". The story is sometimes considered an early example of detective fiction with the hero, Walter Hartright, employing many of the sleuthing techniques of later private detectives. The use of multiple narrators (including nearly all the principal characters) draws on Collins's legal training,and as he points out in his Preamble: "the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness". In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for The Observer listed The Woman in White number 23 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time",and the novel was listed at number 77 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.
  • Pilgrim's Progress

    John Bunyan

    eBook (Digireads.com, March 30, 2004)
    Begun while John Bunyan was in Bedfordshire county jail serving time for holding religious services outside the auspices of the Church of England, Pilgrim's Progress is considered one of the greatest works of the English language. "Pilgrim's Progress" is a Christian allegory that concerns the path of one's soul to Heaven. John Bunyan published the first part of the "Pilgrim's Progress" in 1678 with a second part to follow in 1679. Contained here in this volume is both the first and second part of "Pilgrim's Progress."
  • Pilgrim's Progress

    John Bunyan

    eBook (Digireads.com, March 30, 2004)
    Begun while John Bunyan was in Bedfordshire county jail serving time for holding religious services outside the auspices of the Church of England, Pilgrim's Progress is considered one of the greatest works of the English language. "Pilgrim's Progress" is a Christian allegory that concerns the path of one's soul to Heaven. John Bunyan published the first part of the "Pilgrim's Progress" in 1678 with a second part to follow in 1679. Contained here in this volume is both the first and second part of "Pilgrim's Progress."
  • Pilgrim's Progress

    John Bunyan

    eBook (Digireads.com, March 30, 2004)
    Begun while John Bunyan was in Bedfordshire county jail serving time for holding religious services outside the auspices of the Church of England, Pilgrim's Progress is considered one of the greatest works of the English language. "Pilgrim's Progress" is a Christian allegory that concerns the path of one's soul to Heaven. John Bunyan published the first part of the "Pilgrim's Progress" in 1678 with a second part to follow in 1679. Contained here in this volume is both the first and second part of "Pilgrim's Progress."
  • Leviathan

    Thomas Hobbes

    eBook (Digireads.com, July 1, 2004)
    Considered by many to be among the greatest works of political philosophy, especially in the English language, "Leviathan" is Hobbes' book, published in 1651, which outlines his theories on an ideal state and its creation. The structure of a society and a legitimate government, as he reasons, is perhaps the earliest example of social contract theory, which outlines the need of rule by an absolute sovereign. In Hobbes' time, the political and social structures of England were in a changing and uncertain state, which explains to some extent his ideas on the need of a strong central government in the face of a chaotic civil war. Hobbes believes that the prospect of peace this system would provide is worth giving up some of the natural freedom of man, who is essentially a being of individual fears and desires. This brings about his discussion of dissident forces, which threaten the commonwealth, itself the monstrous Leviathan at risk of war. A continually challenging work with reasoning that has stood the test of time, "Leviathan" has in some part contributed to the advancement of the modern world.
  • Leviathan

    Thomas Hobbes

    eBook (Digireads.com, July 1, 2004)
    Considered by many to be among the greatest works of political philosophy, especially in the English language, "Leviathan" is Hobbes' book, published in 1651, which outlines his theories on an ideal state and its creation. The structure of a society and a legitimate government, as he reasons, is perhaps the earliest example of social contract theory, which outlines the need of rule by an absolute sovereign. In Hobbes' time, the political and social structures of England were in a changing and uncertain state, which explains to some extent his ideas on the need of a strong central government in the face of a chaotic civil war. Hobbes believes that the prospect of peace this system would provide is worth giving up some of the natural freedom of man, who is essentially a being of individual fears and desires. This brings about his discussion of dissident forces, which threaten the commonwealth, itself the monstrous Leviathan at risk of war. A continually challenging work with reasoning that has stood the test of time, "Leviathan" has in some part contributed to the advancement of the modern world.