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In “Madame Bovary”, Charles, an awkward country doctor courts and weds Emma, the beautiful young daughter of a patient. Emma, unsuited to the role of housewife, quickly gets restless and begins to explore her passions. This leads to infidelities which she hides from Charles and, eventually, mounting debts as she turns to merchandise for her happiness. Flaubert’s novel is cited as the first example of literary realism and has been called a “perfect”...
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Considered by some to be the greatest novel ever written, Anna Karenina is Tolstoy's classic tale of love and adultery set against the backdrop of high society in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. A rich and complex masterpiece, the novel charts the disastrous course of a love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer. Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together the lives of dozens of characters, and in doing so captures...
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Of Human Bondage (1915) is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Inspired by his experiences as an orphan and young student, Maugham composed his masterpiece. Adapted several times for film, Of Human Bondage is a story of tragedy, perseverance, and the eternal search for happiness which drives us as much as it haunts our every move. Orphaned as a boy, Philip Carey is raised in an affectionless household by his aunt and uncle. Although his Aunt Louisa tries...
4) Middlemarch
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"Middlemarch" is writer George Eliot's crowning literary achievement and the novel is considered by many critics to be one of the finest pieces of fiction ever written.
Written in the style of "realism" popular at the time, it is a study of the class and social structure of the fictional town of Middlemarch in central England and the story touches on all segments of life within the village, from the landed gentry to the working class and everyone...
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Published in 1850, David Copperfield is Charles Dickens' eighth novel and the one that most closely follows the author's own life. A coming of age story, it describes David's life from childhood with a difficult stepfather, his schooling, his entry into the workforce, his courtship and marriage(s) and his eventual success as an author. Filled with colorful characters like Wilkins Micawber and Betsey Trotwood, and unforgettable villains like Uriah...
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"When it comes to walking the mean streets, Dickens could give modern genre authors the tour of their lives." -Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times
When a corpse is found in the Thames River and identified as John Harmon, many lives will be forever changed. John, who had been abroad and estranged from his miserly father for years, will no longer collect his inheritance. It will instead go to the miser's employees, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, transforming...
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Revisit the timeless classic in this graphic retelling of Tolstoy's celebrated 1869 novel.
In this beautifully rendered graphic adaptation, both fans and newcomers alike will be immersed in the world of War and Peace, one of the most celebrated novels of all time, about the misadventures of about the misadventures of Pierre Bezúkhov, Natásha and Ilyá Rostóv, and company during the Napoleonic era of Russia.
With richly detailed settings re-creating...
8) Don Quixote
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Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. In the story, a gentleman named Mr. Alonso Quixano reads too many chivalric romances and consequently loses his sanity. Deciding to revive chivalry, undo wrongs, and bring justice to the world, he recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs...
9) 1984
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Perhaps no other novel in this century has had a greater impact upon the way we think and talk about our world than George Orwell's classic, 1984. "Big Brother," "doublespeak," and "the thought police" have become part of our everyday lexicon, and the term "Orwellian" has become a familiar adjective for any situation-real or imagined-where conformity is compulsory and where someone always seems to be watching.
Orwell's novel also has the distinction...
10) The Secret Agent
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In The Secret Agent, a Soho shopkeeper is a member of a terrorist cell, supported by a foreign power, plotting to undermine the English state by means of a bomb plot. Published in 1907, it is considered to be among Conrad's finest novels, written at a time when he was moving away from the seafaring themes which he was known for. Prescient in its depictions of terrorism and political instability, it has become mandatory reading for anyone wishing to...
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The Taming of the Shrew (1592) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. Written between 1590 and 1592, The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare's earliest works. Frequently critiqued by scholars for its demeaning portrayal of Katherina and for Petruchio's violence, the play has also been considered as an ironic treatment of the inequality experienced by women in marriage. The Taming of the Shrew has served as source material for countless film and...
12) Barry Lyndon
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Eager to leave his humble beginnings, Redmond Barry, runs multiple scams, conning his way into the military and pursuing the fortune of a young widow.
For every momentous achievement, he's riddled with a bittersweet result.
Redmond Barry is born into a poor Irish family and desires to become a man of status and means. Although ambitious, he's naturally mischievous and has no interest in doing things the right way. After falling into debt, he joins...
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Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 2.9 - AR Pts: 1
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When lawyer Gabriel John Utterson witnesses the odd behavior of a man named Edward Hyde, who uses cheques signed by Utterson's friend Dr. Henry Jekyll, he decides to investigate the strange and violent man. Utterson soon discovers the horrible and incredible truth in the form of a letter written by Dr. Jekyll and left near the body of the late Mr. Hyde.
Author Robert Louis Stevenson is believed to have had a somewhat volatile relationship with...
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"The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" is the second and final novel by the English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phenomenal success, but after Anne's death her sister Charlotte prevented its re-publication. The novel is framed as a series of letters from Gilbert Markham to his friend and brother-in-law about the events leading to...
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In "The Railway Children", a young family must leave their comfortable London life for a house in the country when their father is taken away unexpectedly. Roberta, Peter and Phyllis spend their days at the nearby train station, befriending the station master and porter and many of the passengers. Waving goodbye to the departing London train each day and sending their love to their father who is detained there, they strike up a friendship with a kindly...
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The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope - The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), by Anthony Hope, is an adventure novel in which the King of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus is unable to attend the ceremony. Political forces within the realm are such that, in order for the king to retain the crown, his coronation must proceed. Fortuitously, an English gentleman on holiday in Ruritania who resembles the monarch is persuaded to act as...
17) Heidi
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Sent to live with her reclusive grandfather after the death of her parents, Heidi begins to befriend those around her. Despite her grandfather attempting to dull her personality, she perseveres and convinces those around her of the delightful aspects of life. Once she is old enough, Heidi is sent to be a lady's companion to a wealthy girl who, because of a limp, is considered an invalid. Heidi continues to make the best out of her situation and touches...
18) Candide
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"If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?" - CANDIDE
Candide is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. It is the absurdly melodramatic story of a young man, Candide, living a sheltered life who clings desperately to "the best of all possible worlds," one which is abruptly interrupted by a series of painfully disillusioning events that set him off on a wide-ranging journey....
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His final and greatest work, Dostoyevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published serially in The Russian Messenger from January 1879 to November 1880. Set against a modernizing 19th-century Russia, the characters experience moral struggles of faith, judgment, and reason amid a patricidal murder which forms the center of the plot. The novel is full of ethical debates of God, free will, and morality. Dostoyevsky...
20) Animal farm
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In Orwell's 1945 novella Animal Farm, barnyard animals rise up against the oppressive rule of human farmers and set about to create a better world for themselves. When two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon emerge as leaders of the new collective, a schism is created with dire implications for the erstwhile utopia. Orwell's satirical story of Revolutionary Russia and Stalinism is a classic of anti-authoritarianism protest literature.
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