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Asten, Jane NORTHANGER ABBEY PR4034 N7 1975 Amazon.com The first of her novels, Northanger Abbey is Austen's most youthful and optimistic. It is centered on the loves and friendships of Catherine Morland, an endearing young girl extremely fond of novel-reading who, during an eventful season in Bath, meets the sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tiley who invite her to stay at their father's mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There Catherine runs into dangers, imaginary and real, and learns how to tell the difference between books and real life, false friends and true. Book Description Catherine Morland enters the leisure society at Bath with high expectations for shopping, taking tea, and dancing with fashionable gentleman. Her expectations soar when she is invited into the mysterious Tilney family; soon she becomes entangled like a perfect Gothic heroine in a web of secrecy and romance. In Northanger Abbey (1818), Austen derides the conventions of popular Gothic romance and the follies of the genteel classes. --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title Synopsis Austen satirizes the gothic novels of her time and portrays her heroine, Catherine Morland, as charmingly natural, cheerful, and straightforward. 2 cassettes. --This text refers to the audio cassette edition of this title Synopsis Featuring an introduction by the novelist Margaret Drabble, the classic novel tells the story of a naive young woman who is invited to a mysterious old country manor, where she imagines she is a character in a Gothic novel. --This text refers to the mass market paperback edition of this title
Bronte, Charlotte JANE EYRE PR4167 J3 Reviews From the Publisher Charlotte Bronte's impassioned novel is the love story of Jane Eyre, a plain yet spirited governess, and her arrogant, brooding Mr. Rochester. Published in 1847, under the pseudonym of Currer Bell, the book heralded a new kind of heroine--one whose virtuous integrity, keen intellect and tireless perseverance broke through class barriers to win equal stature with the man she loved. Hailed by William Makepeace Thackeray as "the masterwork of great genius," Jane Eyre is still regarded, over a century later, as one of the finest novels in English literature.
Dickens, Charles GREAT EXPECTATIONS (Satis House) PR4560 S23 The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature , April 1, 1995 Novel by Charles Dickens, first published serially in All the Year Round in 1860-61 and issued in book form in 1861. The novel was one of its author's greatest critical and popular successes. The first-person narrative relates the coming-of-age of Pip (Philip Pirrip). Reared in the marshes of Kent by his disagreeable sister and her sweet-natured husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery, the young Pip one day helps a convict to escape. Later he is sent to live with Miss Havisham, a woman driven half-mad years earlier by her lover's departure on their wedding day. Her other ward is the orphaned Estella, whom she is teaching to torment men with her beauty. Pip, at first cautious, later falls in love with Estella, to his misfortune. When an anonymous benefactor makes it possible for Pip to go to London for an education, he credits Miss Havisham. He begins to look down on his humble roots, but nonetheless Estella spurns him again and marries instead the ill-tempered Bentley Drummle. Pip's benefactor turns out to have been Abel Magwitch, the convict he once aided, who dies awaiting trial after Pip is unable to help him a second time. Joe rescues Pip from despair and nurses him back to health.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan THE HOUNDS OF THE BASKERVILLES (Baskerville Hall) PS3523 E7735 H68 Book Description Is the terrifying hound that's plagued the Baskervilles for centuries only a legend? Sherlock Holmes must find out before it's too late for the last inheritor of the Baskerville estate. Synopsis In one of their most mysterious cases, Holmes and Watson pursue an unknown evil said to prowl the moors. And when their exquisitely cunning opponent appears in the guise of Holmes himself, the stakes grow higher in a maze of deception that could prove even too much for the prodigious powers of Sherlock Holmes. 2 cassettes. Synopsis The recent death of Sir Charles Baskerville stirs up a dangerous business. For the "luminous, ghastly, and spectral" hound of the family legend has been seen roaming the moors at night, and it appears that the new baronet has inherited, along with the ancient house and vast wealth of his family, a dreadful destiny. . .
Du Maurie, Daphne REBECCA (Manderley) PR6007 U47 R54 Reviews From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Vickie Sears Rebecca is a novel of mystery and passion, a dark psychological tale of secrets and betrayal, dead loves and an estate called Manderley that is as much a presence as the humans who inhabit it: "when the leaves rustle, they sound very much like the stealthy movement of a woman in evening dress, and when they shiver suddenly and fall, and scatter away along the ground, they might be the pitter, patter of a woman's hurrying footsteps, and the mark in the gravel the imprint of a high-heeled satin shoe." Manderley is filled with memories of the elegant and flamboyant Rebecca, the first Mrs. DeWinter; with the obsessive love of her housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, who observes the young, timid second Mrs. DeWinter with sullen hostility; and with the oppressive silences of a secretive husband, Maxim. Rebecca may be physically dead, but she is a force to contend with, and the housekeeper's evil matches that of her former mistress as a purveyor of the emotional horror thrust on the innocent Mrs. DeWinter. The tension builds as the new Mrs. DeWinter slowly grows and asserts herself, surviving the wicked deceptions of Mrs. Danvers and the silent deceits of her husband, to emerge triumphant in the midst of a surprise ending that leaves the reader with a sense of haunting justice. Synopsis Rebecca has been dead for several months, but her sinister influence is still very much alive at Manderley, as Maxim de Winter's second wife soon comes to realize. Synopsis At the great Cornwall estate of Manderley, Maxim de Winter and his frightened new wife try to live with the haunting legacy of Maxim's first wife, the beautiful and cold Rebecca, who died in a sailing accident. (Literature).
Eliot, George MIDDLEMARCH (Lowick Manor and English country Houses) PR4662 A2 C37 Reviews: From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister Dorothea Brooke can find no acceptable outlet for her talents or energy and few who share her ideals. As an upper middle-class woman in Victorian England she can't learn Greek or Latin simply for herself; she certainly can't become an architect or have a career; and thus, Dorothea finds herself "Saint Theresa of nothing." Believing she will be happy and fulfilled as "the lampholder" for his great scholarly work, she marries the self-centered intellectual Casaubon, twenty-seven years her senior. Dorothea is not the only character caught by the expectations of British society in this huge, sprawling book. Middlemarch stands above its large and varied fictional community, picking up and examining characters like a jeweler observing stones. There is Lydgate, a struggling young doctor in love with the beautiful but unsuitable Rosamond Vincy; Rosamond's gambling brother Fred and his love, the plain-speaking Mary Garth; Will Ladislaw, Casaubon's attractive cousin, and the ever-curious Mrs. Cadwallader. The characters mingle and interact, bowing and turning in an intricate dance of social expectations and desires. Through them George Eliot creates a full, textured picture of life in provincial nineteenth-century England. Book Description On April 10, 1994, PBS stations nationwide will air the first episode of a lavish six-part Masterpiece Theatre production of Eliot's brilliant work, Middlemarch, hosted by Russell Baker and produced by Louis Marks. The Modern Library is pleased to offer this official companion edition, complete with tie-in art and printed on acid-free paper. Synopsis After enduring a loveless marriage with a bitter older man, Dorothea inheritshis fortune only to learn that she can never again marry.
Fitzgerald F. Scott THE GREAT GATSBY House on West Egg, Long Island) PS3511.19 G7In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write"something new- -something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricate patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self- Invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's- -most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream. It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem. Synopsis First published in 1925, the timeless story of Jay Gatsby is the authorized text restored to include all of Fitzgerald's own revisions, manuscript notes, and corrected proofs as he intended, and even features a reproduction of the original cover art. Reprint. Synopsis Magnificently restored to include all of Fitzgerald's own revisions, manuscript notes, and corrected proofs, this definitive edition presents Fitzgerald's masterpiece as the author himself intended it. The timeless story of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan is widely acknowledged to be the closest thing to the Great American Novel ever written.
Forster, E.M. HOWARDS END PR6011 O58 H
The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature , April 1, 1995 Novel by E.M. Forster, published in 1910. The narrative concerns the relationships that develop between the imaginative, life-loving Schlegel family--Margaret, Helen, and their brother Tibby--and the apparently cool, pragmatic Wilcoxes--Henry and Ruth and their children Charles, Paul, and Evie. Margaret finds a soul mate in Ruth, who before dying declares in a note that her family country house, Howards End, should go to Margaret. Her survivors choose to ignore her wishes, but after marrying Henry, Margaret ultimately does come to own the house. In a symbolic ending, Margaret brings Henry back to Howards End after several traumatic events have left him a broken man. Synopsis A strong-willed and intelligent woman refuses to allow the pretensions of her husband's smug English family to ruin her life. Synopsis Howards End is a country house that is both the site and symbol of a struggle between three vastly different kinds of people. Synopsis A clear, vibrant portrait of life in Edwardian England addresses romantic entanglements, disappearing wills, and sudden tragedy in a symbolic struggle for England's very future.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel THE HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES PS1852 1983 Reviews Book Description Colonel Pyncheon does well in denouncing Old Matthew: he founds a New England dynasty and builds a remarkable mansion; but on its opening day he is found dead, slaked in his own blood. By 1840, that dynasty is almost spent; amid the dust and decay of the Seven Gables, Clifford and Hepzibah believe in their own continued nobility as much as they believe in the mysterious curse still tracking the Pyncheons. The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature , April 1, 1995 Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1851. Set in mid-19th-century Salem, Mass., the work is a somber study in hereditary sin based on the legend of a curse pronounced on Hawthorne's own family by a woman condemned to death during the infamous Salem witchcraft trials. The greed and arrogant pride of the novel's Pyncheon family through the generations is mirrored in the gloomy decay of their seven-gabled mansion, in which the family's enfeebled and impoverished relations live. At the book's end the descendant of a family long ago defrauded by the Pyncheons lifts his ancestors' curse on the mansion and marries a young niece of the family. Synopsis A novel which deals with a decadent New England family and Holgrave, who rents a room in their seven-gabled house. Synopsis Hawthorne's gothic masterpiece concerns a house and its inhabitants who fall under the curse of the ghost of a man executed for witchcraft.
- Hodgins, Eric
- MR BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE
- (American Cape Cod circa 1950)
- PS3515 O1714 M5
Ibsen, Henrik THE MASTER BUILDER [in 11 plays] PT8854 M36
Reviews The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature , April 1,1995 Drama in three acts by Henrik Ibsen, originally published as Bygmester Solness in 1892 and first performed in 1893. The play explores the needs of the artist in relation to those of society and the limits of artistic creativity. There is an autobiographical element in the depiction of the aging architect, Halvard Solness, who feels pressure from a younger, more idealistic and ambitious generation of architects and fears the decay of his own creativity.
Jackson, Shirley THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (Haunted house) PS3519 A392 H3 Reviews Horror Editor's Recommended Book "I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster... and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside." So reflects nervous Eleanor, the 32-year-old heroine of this most critically acclaimed haunted-house novel ever written. Eleanor is an oddball. She resents having lost so many years to nursing her dying mother. She jumps at the opportunity to escape the officious presence of her sister and brother-in-law. She escapes . . . to Hill House, which "not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within . . . whatever walked there, walked alone." Synopsis The four visitors at Hill House-- some there for knowledge, others for adventure-- are unaware that the old mansion will soon choose one of them to make its own.
Kafka, Franz THE CASTLE PT2621 A26 Ca Reviews Amazon.com They are perhaps the most famous literary instructions never followed: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread...." Thankfully, Max Brod did not honor his friend Franz Kafka's final wishes. Instead, he did everything within his power to ensure that Kafka's work would find publication--including making some sweeping changes in the original texts. Until recently, the world has known only Brod's version of Kafka, with its altered punctuation, word order, and chapter divisions. Restoring much of what had previously been expunged, as well as the fluid, oral quality of Kafka's original German, Mark Harman's new translation of The Castle is a major literary event. One of three unfinished novels left after Kafka's death, The Castle is in many ways the writer's most enduring and influential work. In Harman's muscular translation, Kafka's text seems more modern than ever, the words tumbling over one another, the sentences separated only by commas. Harman's version also ends the same way as Kafka's original manuscript--that is, in mid-sentence: "She held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said--." For anyone used to reading Kafka in his artificially complete form, the effect is extraordinary; it is as if Kafka himself had just stepped from the room, leaving behind him a work whose resolution is the more haunting for being forever out of reach. The Philadelphia Inquirer, Harold L. Brubaker [Harman] has given readers of English a fine rendering of Kafka's magical tale. It does not surpass on all counts the 1930 translation by the Scottish poet Edwin Muir and his wife, Willa, but it improves on their translation in significant ways.... The many years Harman spent working on this translation were well spent. Evident on every page is the care he devoted to his task. The appearance of this volume represents a wonderful opportunity for readers of English to return to this modern classic. The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Aharon Appelfeld To read Kafka is always a surprising encounter. It shocks literary conventions and takes you with a jolt to the depths of the soul. Kafka's writing is daring in its expression but not experimental. It is like the prose of the Bible: factual, to the point, without ornament and without too many adjectives.... The new translation by Harman restores Kafka to Kafka.