Recommended Reading List
Year 12
Emma
Jane Austen
Although convinced that she herself will never marry, Emma Woodhouse, a
precocious twenty-year-old resident of the village of Highbury, imagines herself
to be naturally gifted in conjuring love matches. Some consider Emma Austen’s
best and most representative novel. It is also her longest novel and, by many
accounts, her most difficult. Long praised for its rich domestic realism, Emma
also presents puzzling questions: how can a character as intelligent as Emma be
wrong so often? When does Austen expect us to sympathize with Emma, and
when does she expect us to criticize her? Is the ending as genuinely happy as it
is presented to be, or does Austen subtly inject a note of subversive irony into
it? That these questions are on some level unanswerable ensures that Emma will
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, first published on 28 January 1813, is the
most famous of Jane Austen's novels. It is one of the first
romantic comedies in the history of the novel and its opening is
one of the most famous lines in English literature—"It is a truth
universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a
good fortune, must be in want of a wife." The story addresses
courtship and marriage among the landed gentry in the early
Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey follows Catherine Morland and
family friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen as they visit Bath,
England. Seventeen year-old Catherine spends her time
visiting newly made friends, like Isabella Thorpe, and
going to balls. Catherine finds herself pursued by
Isabella's brother John Thorpe (Catherine's brother
James's friend from university) and by Henry Tilney.
She also becomes friends with Eleanor Tilney, Henry's
younger sister. Mr. Henry Tilney captivates her with his
view on novels and knowledge of history and the world.
The Tilneys invite Catherine to visit their father's estate,
Northanger Abbey, which, because she has been reading
Ann Radcliffe's gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho,
Catherine expects to be dark, ancient and full of
fantastical mystery.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood
The novel, set in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, explores themes of
women in subjugation and the
various means by which they gain
agency against a backdrop of the
establishment of a totalitarian
theocratic state. Sumptuary laws
(essentially, dress codes) play a
key role in the form of social
control in the new society.
Empire of the Sun
J.G. Ballard
Fictionalised autobiography of
Ballard’s adolescence in a Japanese
internment camp in Shanghai.
Fair Stood The Wind For France
H.E. Bates
John Franklin is forced to crash land in wartime Occupied
France. He and his crew take refuge in a farmhouse
where they are hidden by the farmer and his family. The
other four get away, but Franklin's injured arm keeps him
back and it eventually has to be amputated. He falls in
love with the daughter of the house and together they
make their way out of France.
The Demolished Man
Alfred Bester
The Demolished Man is a police
procedural in which telepathy is
relatively common; a major plot
component is an obsessive tune
that the protagonist has in his
head to block his thoughts from
casual scanning. The witty
premise is, how do you get
away with murder if the police
can read your mind?
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
A dystopian fiction novel set in a
world in which the reading of books
is banned and critical thought is
suppressed; the central character, Guy
Montag, is employed as a
"fireman" (which, in this case, means
"book burner"). 451 degrees
Fahrenheit (about 233°C) is stated as
"the temperature at which book-paper
catches fire, and burns ...".
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte
Charlotte Brontë first published the book
as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography under
the pseudonym Currer Bell and it was an
instant success, earning the praise of
many reviewers, including William
Makepeace Thackeray, to whom
Charlotte Brontë dedicated her second
edition.
The story is that of a governess, Jane
Eyre. Despite her plainness, she captures
the heart of her enigmatic employer,
Edward Rochester, but soon discovers he
has a secret that could jeopardize any
hope of happiness between them.
Villette
Charlotte Bronte
Villette is a novel by Charlotte Brontë, published in 1853. After
an unspecified family disaster, protagonist Lucy Snowe travels
to the fictional city of Villette to teach at an all-girls school
where she is unwillingly pulled into both adventure and
romance. However, the novel is celebrated not so much for its
plot as in its acute tracing of Lucy’s psychology, particularly
Bronte’s use of Gothic doubling to represent externally what her
protagonist is suffering internally.
Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel.
It was first published in 1847 under the
pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous
second edition was edited by her sister
Charlotte. The name of the novel comes from
the manor on which the story centres.
Brontë's novel tells the tale of Catherine and
Heathcliff, their all-encompassing love for one
another and how this unresolved passion
eventually destroys them both. Social tensions
prevent their union, leading Heathcliff to shun
and abuse society.
The Magic Toyshop
Angela Carter
The novel follows the development of the heroine,
Melanie, as she becomes aware of herself, her
environment, and her own sexuality. After the
unexpected deaths of her parents, Melanie and her two
siblings are moved to the care of her tyrannical uncle
Philip, a bullish and eccentric toy maker, in South
London.
The Woman In White
Wilkie Collins
The Woman in White is an
epistolary novel by Wilkie
Collins first published in book
form in 1860. 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 begins when the hero, art master Walter
Hartright, encounters a mysterious woman dressed all in
white on a moonlit road in Hampstead. She is in a state of
confusion and distress and Hartright helps her to find her
way back to London. In return, she warns him against a
certain (unnamed) baronet, "a man of rank and title".
Immediately after they part, Hartright learns that she may
have escaped from an asylum. He goes to Cumberland to
take up a position as art tutor at Limmeridge House to two
young women: Marian Halcombe and her wealthy halfsister, Laura Fairlie. He finds to his amazement that the
story of the woman in white may be entangled with the
lives of the two sisters.
The Moonstone
Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie
Collins is a 19th-century epistolary
novel, generally considered the first
detective novel in the English
language. The story concerns a
young woman called Rachel
Verinder who inherits a large Indian
diamond, the Moonstone, on her
eighteenth birthday. It is a legacy
from her uncle, a corrupt English
colonial army officer. The diamond
is of great religious significance as well as being enormously
valuable, and three Indian Hindus have dedicated their lives to
recovering it. The story incorporates elements of the legendary
origins of the Hope Diamond.
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
Long considered Dickens' personal favourite novel, David
Copperfield's semi-autobiographical story traces the fates and
fortunes of a young man's ascent into manhood in 19th century
England. Originally published in serial form from May 1849
through November 1850, David Copperfield is the first of
Dickens's novels written entirely in the first person. Converting
his autobiographical impulse into fiction allowed Dickens to
explore uncomfortable truths about his life. David Copperfield's
time at Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse, his schooling at
Salem House, and his relationship with Dora all have their bases
in Dickens's own life. But, though it may be Dickens's most
autobiographical novel, David Copperfield is a work of fiction.
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
One of Dickens’ shorter novels and also one of his most influential is
Great Expectations. It appeared initially in serial form in All The Year
Round between 1860 and 1861 and is now considered to be one of his
finest novels. It concerns the young boy Philip Pirrip (known as ‘Pip’) and
his development through life after an early meeting with the escaped
convict Abel Magwitch, who he treats kindly despite his fear. His
unpleasant sister and her humorous and friendly blacksmith husband,
Joe, bring him up. Crucial to his development as an individual is his
introduction to Miss Havisham (one of Dickens’ most brilliant portraits),
a now aging woman who has given up on life after being jilted at the
altar. Cruelly, Havisham has brought up her daughter Estella to revenge
her own pain and so as Pip falls in love with her she is made to torture
him in romance. Aspiring to be a gentleman despite his humble
beginnings, Pip seems to achieve the impossible by receiving a fund of
wealth from an unknown source and being sent to London with the
Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune.
Orphaned almost from his first breath by his mother’s death in
childbirth and his father’s conspicuous absence, Oliver is meagrely
provided for under the terms of the Poor Law, and spends the first
nine years of his life at a branch-workhouse. Along with other
juvenile offenders against the poor-laws, Oliver is brought up with
little food and few comforts. An early example of the social novel,
the book calls the public's attention to various contemporary social
evils, including the workhouse, child labour and the recruitment of
children as criminals. Dickens mocks the hypocrisies of the time by
surrounding the novel's serious themes with sarcasm and dark
humour.
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Crime and Punishment focuses on
Raskolnikov, an impoverished student
who formulates a plan to kill and rob a
hated pawnbroker, thereby solving his
money problems and at the same time
ridding the world of her evil.
Exhibiting some symptoms of
megalomania, Raskolnikov thinks
himself a gifted man, similar to
Napoleon. As an extraordinary man,
he feels justified in his decision to
murder, since he exists outside the
moral constraints that affect "ordinary" people. However,
immediately after the crime, Raskolnikov becomes ill, and is
troubled by the memory of his actions. Crime and Punishment
portrays Raskolnikov's gradual realisation of his crime and his
growing desire to confess. Moreover, Raskolnikov's attempts to
protect his sister Dunya from unappealing suitors, and also his
unexpected love for a destitute prostitute demonstrate
Raskolnikov's longing for redemption.
Rebecca
Daphne Du Maurier
Rebecca's narrative takes the form of a flashback. The heroine,
who remains nameless, lives in Europe with her husband,
Maxim de Winter, travelling from hotel to hotel, harbouring
memories of a beautiful home called Manderley, which, we
learn, has been destroyed by fire. The story begins with her
memories of how she and Maxim first met, in Monte Carlo,
years before.
My Cousin Rachel
Daphne Du Maurier
My Cousin Rachel is a novel by British author Daphne du
Maurier, published in 1951. Like the earlier Rebecca, it is a
mystery-romance, largely set on a large estate in Cornwall.
The basis of the novel is the tension set up in its young
protagonist when he falls in love with his cousin, while
uncovering, and trying to deny, evidence that she is
pretending to care for him while she has only her own
interests at heart.
My Family and Other Animals
Gerald Durrell
My Family and Other Animals is an
autobiographical work by naturalist
Gerald Durrell, telling of his childhood
spent on the Greek island of Corfu
between 1935 and 1939. It describes
the life of the Durrell family on the
island in a humorous manner and also
richly discusses the fauna of the island.
Its comic exaggeration of the foibles of
his family and heartfelt appreciation of
the natural world made it very
successful.
The Mill on the Floss
George Eliot
George Eliot is the pen name of Mary Anne Evans (22
November 1819 – 22 December 1880), who was an English
novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian
era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well
known for their realism and psychological perspicacity.
The novel retails the lives of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, a
brother and sister growing up on the fictional river Floss near
the fictional village of St. Oggs, evidently in the 1820’s, after
the Napoleonic Wars but prior to the first Reform Bill (1832).
The novel spans a period of 10-15 years, from Tom and
Maggie’s childhood up until their deaths in a flood on the
Floss. The book is loosely autobiographical, reflecting the
disgrace that George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) herself had while
in a relationship with a married man.
Silas Marner
George Eliot
In Silas Marner George Eliot combines
humour and rich symbolism with a
historically precise setting to create an
extraordinary tale of love and hope. This
novel explores the issues of redemptive love,
the notion of community, the role of religion,
and the status of the gentry and family. While
religion and religious devotion play a strong
part in this text, Eliot concerns herself, as
always, with matters of ethics, and it is clear that for her, ethics
exist apart from religion.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The novel
chronicles an era
that Fitzgerald
himself dubbed the
"Jazz Age."
Following the shock
and chaos of the
First World War,
American society
enjoyed
unprecedented
levels of prosperity
during the 1920s as
the economy
soared. At the same
time, Prohibition,
the ban on the sale and consumption of
alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth
Amendment, made millionaires out of
bootleggers and encouraged organized
crime. Although Fitzgerald, like Nick
Carraway in his novel, idolized the riches
and glamour of the age, he was
uncomfortable with the unrestrained
materialism and lack of morality that went
with it. The Great Gatsby was not popular
upon initial printing and sold fewer than
24,000 copies during the remaining 15
years of Fitzgerald's life. Today it usually
sells more copies than that each month
(2006).
The Sound and The Fury
William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner’s
fourth novel, is his first true
masterpiece, and many consider it to be
his finest work. It was Faulkner’s own
favorite novel, primarily, he says,
because it is his “most splendid
failure.” Depicting the decline of the
once-aristocratic Compson family, the
novel is divided into four parts, each
told by a different narrator.
The title of the novel is taken from Macbeth's soliloquy in act
5, scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth.
The ‘I’ Inside
Alan Dean Foster
For over 100 years, the machine called Colligatarch has ruled the
Earth. Its predictions of the future have proved so accurate that
humans accepted its recommendations as the best course of action-until a young engineer in Phoenix begins to travel without
authorization, enter secret places, assume aliases and display superhuman feats of strength. Is it because he has fallen in love? Or has he
instead fallen into an interplanetary plot?
North and South
Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South presents, as the title suggests, a contrast between
the old agricultural gentry of the south of England and the new
industrialists of the north. As the wife of a Unitarian minister in
Manchester, Elizabeth Gaskell herself worked among the poor and
knew at first hand the misery of the industrial areas.
The book is a social novel that tries to show the industrial North and
its conflicts in the mid-19th century as seen by an outsider, a
socially sensitive lady from the South. The story: the heroine,
Margaret Hale, is the daughter of a Nonconformist minister who
moves to the fictional industrial town of Milton after leaving the
Church of England.
Cousin Phyllis
Elizabeth Gaskell
A haunting, beautifully controlled novella, Cousin Phyllis is
considered to be among Elizabeth Gaskell's finest short works.
Lodging with a minister on the outskirts of London, Paul Manning
is initially dismayed to discover that the uncle he must visit in the
country is also a churchman. Yet far from the oppressively religious
household he envisages, Manning is delighted to meet his genial
relations--not least, his cousin Phyllis. But when Phyllis falls for the
charms of his more sophisticated colleague, Manning's family ties
render him powerless to prevent the inevitable heartbreak that
ensues.
Brighton Rock
Graham Greene
A gang war is raging through the dark, seedy underworld of
Brighton. Pinkie, fighting for leadership, is only seventeen yet he has
already proved his ruthlessness in the brutal killing of Hale, a
journalist. Untouched by human feeling, Pinkie is isolated from the
rest of the world, a figure of pure evil. Believing he can escape
retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida
Arnold, who is determined to avenge Hale's death. Graham Greene's
gripping thriller exposes a world of loneliness, pain and fear, of life
lived on 'the dangerous edge of things'.
The Quiet American
Graham Greene
The novel takes place in Saigon in
the early 1950s during the end of
the First Indochina War. It portrays
two concurrent conflicts: a romantic
triangle between the veteran British
journalist Thomas Fowler, the
young American Alden Pyle, and
Fowler's Vietnamese girlfriend
Phuong; and the political turmoil and growing
American involvement that led to the Vietnam
War. Fowler, who narrates the story, is involved
in the war only as an observer; his experiences
are partly based on Greene's own years in
Vietnam. Pyle is more directly involved on a
number of levels, and Greene draws parallels
between Pyle's conduct and America's overall
policies in Vietnam.
Far From the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy
Hardy's first major novel tells the story of the
shepherd Gabriel Oak and his long, patient
devotion to the haughty Bathsheba Everdene.
Bathsheba's faithless husband is murdered by a
neighboring farmer, William Bellwood, who
also loves her. At the end of a traumatic series
of events, a chastened Bathsheba turns to
Gabriel at last, valuing his honesty and
integrity. Like Hardy's later novels, this one is
characterized by coincidence, melodrama, and a
degree of improbability. It also emphasizes the
role of natural forces--the earth and the rhythms of rural life--all
of which are personified in Gabriel Oak.
Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure is perhaps the most vivid
illustration of Hardy's belief that our lives are
governed by dark and malevolent forces. Jude
Fawley is torn between his sensual nature and his
equally strong lust for learning, two sides of his
character that are personified by the two women in
his life--the earthy Arabella and the intellectual Sue
Bridehead. His attempts to rise above his humble origins, in spite of
all his efforts, prove impossible, as do his attempts to live an
unconventional life outside of marriage with the woman he loves.
The novel represents Hardy's strongest attack on the insularity of
English university life, and on marriage as a religious institution. It
was called JUDE THE OBSCENE by critics at the time (1895)
because it was considered to be "steeped in sex"; after its hostile
reception, Hardy gave up writing novels and, for the rest of his life,
wrote only poetry.
Tess of the D’Ubervilles
Thomas Hardy
Because of its sexual frankness and indictment of Victorian
hypocrisy, Hardy's novel was considered shocking when it was
published in 1891. It is the tale of Tess Derbeyfield, a young
country girl whose rape by Alec D'Urberville, a distant aristocratic
relative, leads to pregnancy. Tess's baby dies, and she finds work as
a dairymaid at a farm where no one knows her story. There she falls
in love with and marries a young farmer named Angel Clare, but
when Angel finds out about his wife's past, he is horrified, and
deserts her. Tess meets Alec again--now a reformed character who
has become an itinerant preacher--and lives with him as his wife.
When Angel returns for her and finds her with Alec, he leaves her
again--and Tess, in despair, stabs Alec--the cause of all her woes-and kills him. She and Angel are reunited, but only briefly: Tess is
taken into custody and will be tried for murder and hanged. The
cynical and sophisticated Alec's seduction of a country girl, and the
self-righteous Angel's destructive idealization of her, can be seen as
symbols of the city's ruthless exploitation of the English
The Go-Between
LP Hartley
A man named Leo, looking back from the 1950s,
remembers a turn-of-the-century summer and the
unwitting part he played in a turbulent love affair.
Visiting his wealthy classmate, Marcus, at his
family's palatial country estate, Leo becomes
fascinated with Marcus's older sister, who is
carrying on two simultaneous romances, one with
her official fiancé, a viscount, and the other--more
passionate but doomed--with a lower-class
neighbor. L. P. Hartley's celebrated coming-of-age novel was the
basis for a successful 1970 film directed by Joseph Losey and
starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates.
The Old Man And The Sea
Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea is a novella
by Ernest Hemingway written in Cuba
in 1951 and published in 1952. It was
the last major work of fiction to be
produced by Hemingway and
published in his lifetime. One of his
most famous works, it centres upon an
aging Cuban fisherman who struggles
with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf
Stream.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a 1940 novel by Ernest
Hemingway. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young
American in the International Brigades attached to an
antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains during the Spanish
Civil War. As an expert in the use of explosives, he is given
an assignment to blow up a bridge to accompany a
simultaneous attack on the city of Segovia.
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
Brave New World is a dystopian novel by Aldous
Huxley, first published in 1932. Set in London in
the 26th century, the novel anticipates
developments in reproductive technology,
biological engineering and sleep-learning that
combine to change society. The world it
describes could also be a utopia, albeit an ironic
one: humanity is carefree,
healthy and
technologically advanced.
Warfare and poverty have
been eliminated and
everyone is permanently
happy. The irony is that
all of these things have
been achieved by
eliminating many things
people currently derive
happiness from — family,
cultural diversity, art,
literature, science, religion
Portrait of a Lady
Henry James
"The mere slim shade of an intelligent but
presumptuous girl...a certain young woman
affronting her destiny" is how Henry James
describes his first perception of Isabel
Archer, who grew into one of his most
magnificent heroines. An American heiress
newly arrived in Europe, Isabel does not
look to a man to furnish her with her destiny;
instead she desires, with grace and courage,
to find it herself. Two eligible suitors approach her and are
refused. She then becomes utterly captivated by the languid
charms of Gilbert Osmond. To him, she represents a
superior prize worth at least 70 thousand pounds; through
him, she faces a tragic choice.
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James
In The Turn of the Screw, an innocent, impressionable young
governess takes over the education of two delightful children,
Flora and Miles, at an isolated country estate. She becomes
convinced that the children's former governess and a valet once
employed on the estate--both now dead--have returned and are
trying to gain control of the children's souls. Her hysteria
builds to a terrifying and tragic climax. James's novella
demonstrates the idea that the horrors concocted by the
imagination are far worse than reality.
Portrait of the Artist as Young Man
James Joyce
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce describes
the early life of Stephen Dedalus: significant memories from
infancy, schooldays, family life, his first taste of sin, guilt,
repentance - and his passage to freedom as he elects to leave
Ireland forever. This is, in effect, an autobiography. Dedalus
is Joyce; every person he encounters and every incident he
experiences, is drawn from life. The writing, though,
displays the colour and imagination of the very finest
fiction.
Ulyssys
James Joyce
Ulysses chronicles the passage through
Dublin by its main character, Leopold
Bloom, during an ordinary day, June 16,
1904. The book has been the subject of
much controversy and scrutiny, ranging from
early obscenity trials to protracted textual
"Joyce Wars". Today it is generally regarded
as a masterwork in Modernist writing,
celebrated for its groundbreaking stream-ofconsciousness technique, highly experimental prose—full of
puns, parodies, allusions—as well as for its rich
characterizations and broad humour.
Sons and Lovers
D.H. Lawrence
Sons and Lovers is the moving and explicit account of a young
man growing up in a closed mining community. Born into a
difficult marriage, Paul Morel is shy, introverted and
impressionable. As a young adult he becomes violently caught
between the attentions of three women: his influential mother
Gertrude; spiritual and devoted Miriam; and the sensual and
mature Clara. With devastating detail and extraordinary insight
D.H. Lawrence gets right to the heart of the matter, exploring
the complexities and dangers surrounding human love,
attraction, and obsession.
The Rainbow
D.H. Lawrence
The Rainbow is a 1915 novel by British author D.H.
Lawrence. It follows three generations of the Brangwen
family, particularly focusing on the sexual dynamics of, and
relations between, the characters. Lawrence's frank
treatment of sexual desire and the power plays within
relationships as a natural and even spiritual force of life,
though perhaps tame by modern standards, caused The
Rainbow to be prosecuted in an obscenity trial in late 1915,
as a result of which all copies were seized and burnt. After
this ban it was unavailable in Britain for 11 years, although
editions were available in the USA.
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
John Le Carre
A spy novel based on the Cold War period of East/
West "bloc" tensions. Based primarily in Eastern
Europe it follows the character of Alec Leamas, a
British spy, who resigns from the Circus (as the
British Secret Service is known in John le Carré's
books) and defects to East Germany. Leamas is
actually being manipulated by the director of the
Circus, who goes by the code name "Control", as
part of an elaborate plot to discredit an effective
East German spymaster and protect a British agent
in the East German Secret Service from discovery.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
John Le Carre
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the first book in a three-book
series informally known as The Karla Trilogy. The series has
been formally compiled in one volume titled The Quest for
Karla. The two succeeding novels in this loose trilogy are The
Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. In these novels, Le
Carré sought, fictionally, to recreate from his personal
experience the revelations of the 1950s and '60s that exposed
many British Intelligence officers, including Kim Philby, Guy
Burgess and Donald Maclean, as double agents in the employ of
the KGB. Philby, the aforementioned double, was at one point
responsible for betraying the MI-6 employed Le Carré, along
with subordinate agents, to the Soviets.
Cider With Rosie
Laurie Lee
Cider With Rosie is a 1959 book by Laurie Lee. It is an account of
his childhood in the village of Slad in Gloucestershire in England,
in the period soon after the First World War. It is an account of the
traditional village life which disappeared with developments such
as the coming of the motor car and also of the experience of
childhood seen from many years later.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
Laurie Lee
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee was his
sequel to his semi-autobiographical Cider with Rosie, detailing life
in mid-20th century Gloucestershire. In this book, Lee describes his
journey out of England and into France and Spain.
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
Misunderstood and unappreciated in its time,
Melville's monumental work has become the
classic epic of American literature. He tells
the dual story of the initiation of young
Ishmael, a schoolteacher, into the life of a
seaman and the tragedy of Captain Ahab's
obsession with the white whale. The novel
begins with a lengthy dissection of the word
WHALE and its origins and includes
numerous citations about whales and the
hunting of them, all taken from the extensive notes Melville
accumulated during his research at the New York Public Library,\
and which he could not bear to leave out. After this rather pedantic
beginning, the story proper begins. Another exploration of
Melville's perennial themes of good vs. evil and the fundamental
isolation of the human condition, Moby Dick is a layered, complex,
allusive book that is part rip-roaring adventure tale, part quest, part
travel chronicle, part picaresque coming-of-age novel. At the end of
the wrenching narrative, Ishmael sets himself the task of telling the
tale that would make Melville's reputation as one of the greatest
American writers.
Selected Tales
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, short
story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders
of the American Romantic Movement. Best
known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one
of the early American practitioners of the short
story and a progenitor of detective fiction and
crime fiction. Selected Tales is a selection of 24
tales that places the most popular--"The Fall of
the House of Usher", "The Masque of the Red
Death", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and
"The Purloined Letter"--alongside less wellknown travel narratives, metaphysical essays, and political
satires.
Nineteen Eighty Four
George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a totalitarian
society of the future, ruled by an
omnipotent dictator called Big Brother. In
this society, called Oceania, people's
thoughts are controlled as tightly as their
actions. The government maintains an
organization called the “thought police” and
engages in constant propaganda.
Animal Farm
George Orwell
A novel of satire by George Orwell. Animals take over a
farm to escape human tyranny, but the pigs treat the other
animals worse than the people did. A famous quotation from
the book is “All animals are equal, but some animals are
more equal than others.”
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
Written in 1816 when she was only 19,
for a horror-writing contest suggested
by Byron, Mary Shelley's novel of "the
modern Prometheus" chillingly
dramatized the dangerous potential of
life created in the laboratory. A
frightening creation myth for our own
time, "Frankenstein" remains one of
the greatest horror stories ever written
and an undisputed classic.
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
Shocking and controversial when it was first
published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer prizewinning epic, The Grapes of Wrath, remains his
undisputed masterpiece. Set against the
background of Dust Bowl Oklahoma and
Californian migrant life, it tells of the Joad
family, who, like thousands of others, are forced
to travel west in search of the promised land.
Their story is one of false hopes, thwarted desires and broken
dreams, yet out of their suffering Steinbeck created a drama that is
intensely human, yet majestic in its scale and moral vision; an
eloquent tribute to the endurance and dignity of the human spirit.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark
Miss Brodie, an eccentric teacher at a private
girls' school, teaches her impressionable
students much more than what is required by
the curriculum: among other things, art,
culture and politics, with an emphasis on
fascism. Suspected of carrying on an affair
with the music master at the school, she is
eventually forced to retire from teaching, not
because of her bad example, but because of
her enthusiasm for Hitler, Mussolini, and
Franco--particularly after a student,
encouraged by Miss Brodie to fight for Franco's cause, is killed in
Spain. Miss Brodie's story is told from the perspective of Sandy,
the student who sees Miss Brodie for exactly what she is.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
Jim Hawkins, who narrates Stevenson's
classic tale, is rewarded for his assistance to
an old pirate, Billy Bones, with a map
showing the way to buried treasure. He and
his associates set sail for the island on a ship
manned by a band of pirates--a fact they
discover en route. The pirate king is the
notorious one-legged cook Long John Silver,
one of Stevenson's most delightfully
conceived villains. The pirates are vanquished, the treasure is
retrieved and Stevenson's novel is widely loved and admired as
one of the great adventure novels of all time.
Gulliver’s Travels
Jonathan Swift
In Jonathan Swift's bitter, witty,
and utterly brilliant satire of the
state of England in the early 18th
century, his hero, Lemuel
Gulliver (the epitome of the
average man), becomes, as he
travels, increasingly frustrated by
the corruption and irrationality of
the human race. When it first
appeared (1726), Gulliver’s Travels shocked the reading public with
its bitter outlook and general irreverence, and its graphic descriptions
of bodily functions. It remains, however, a treasure of English
literature. Even for readers who no longer understand the political
context that is the main point of the merciless satire, the book is a
work of wild imagination, enormous humour, and thrilling
adventure.
The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkein
The Lord of the Rings is
an epic high fantasy
novel written by
English academic J. R.
R. Tolkien. The story
began as a sequel to
Tolkien's earlier fantasy book, The Hobbit, and soon developed into
a much larger story. It was written in stages between 1937 and 1949,
with much of it being created during World War II. It was originally
published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955 (much to Tolkien's
annoyance, since he had intended it to be a single volume), and has
since been reprinted numerous times and translated into at least 38
languages, becoming one of the most popular works in 20th-century
literature.
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy's great novel, one of his last works of
fiction, tells the story of a harmless flirtation
that gradually develops into a destructive
passion: the love affair between Anna
Karenina and Count Vronsky. Anna turns to
Vronsky, a dashing military man, as a refuge
from her passionless marriage to a pompous,
chilly bureaucrat--a move that results in social
ostracization, the loss of her position in the world and the
relentless self-doubt that destroys her confidence and leads to her
sad end. A parallel plot follows the contrasting fortunes of Levin
(Tolstoy's alter ego, with his deep love of the land) and Kitty,
whose marriage thrives and prospers because of mutual
commitment, sympathy and respect. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy
reaches deep into his own experiences and his observations of
family and friends to create a picture of Russian society that
reaches from the high life in St. Petersburg and Moscow to the
idyllic rural existence of Kitty and Levin. Vladimir Nabokov
called it "one of the greatest love stories in world literature," a
view that has been echoed by critics since its publication in the
1870s.