Books

Last and one of his critically most acclaimed novels, ‘Our Mutual Friend’ was first published in the year 1865. It is considered to be Dickens’ one of most sophisticated works, combining savage satire with social analysis. In the opening chapters a body is found in the Thames and identified as that of John Harmon, a young man recently returned to London to receive his inheritance. Were he alive, his father’s will would require him to marry Bella Wilfer, a beautiful, mercenary girl whom he had never met. Instead, the money passes to the working-class Boffins, and the effects spread into various corners of London society.

Famous detective novel writer Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1887 work ‘

Philosophical Works, v. 1 (of 4)’ is a collection of all the philosophical works by David Hume, including all the essays and letters exhibiting the alterations and corrections made in the successive editions published.

A collection of fiction short stories written by one of the foremost writers of English literature – Oscar Wilde, for children. These stories are fantasies that are gross and engaging for children to read and experience life in a beautiful way.

“In the summer of 1862, in the Bayou Manchac country near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, there was a modest little schoolhouse called the “Dove’s Nest.” To that school came two young girls to complete a course of study begun in Baton Rouge before the Federals captured that city.
“The country was visited quite often by bands of Confederates, “Jayhawkers,” and Federals; the slaves on the vast sugar plantations were in a demoralized condition from being so near the enemy’s lines; yet the girls braved all these dangers, and rode on horseback three miles through forest and field to attend school. They had no fear, for both could shoot a pistol, and always carried a loaded one, and a small Spanish dirk for self-protection. All the valuable horses on the plantation having been given to the Confederate army, only two were left for family use, an old one, not of much service, and a young beautiful bay, the individual property of one of the girls.” -an excerpt

First published in the year 1874, renowned european novelist Jules Verne’s novel ‘THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND’ is a classic in English Literature. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne’s famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though its themes are vastly different from those books. Its plot focuses on the adventures of five Americans on an uncharted island in the South Pacific. During the American Civil War, five northern prisoners of war decide to escape, during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, by hijacking a balloon.

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1′ by historian Edward Gibbon was first published in the year 1776. Through this book, Gibbon offers an explanation for the fall of the Roman Empire, a task made difficult by a lack of comprehensive written sources, though he was not the only historian to attempt the task.

“This novel (published 1740) created an epoch in the history of English fiction, and, with its successors, exerted a wide influence upon Continental literature. It is appropriately included in a series which is designed to form a group of studies of English life by the masters of English fiction. For it marked the transition from the novel of adventure to the novel of character—from the narration of entertaining events to the study of men and of manners, of motives and of sentiments. In it the romantic interest of the story (which is of the slightest) is subordinated to the moral interest in the conduct of its characters in the various situations in which they are placed. Upon this aspect of the “drama of human life” Richardson cast a most observant, if not always a penetrating glance. His works are an almost microscopically detailed picture of English domestic life in the early part of the eighteenth century.” -Preface

Ben-Hur; a tale of the Christ’ is historical fiction novel by Lew Wallace. It was first published in the year 1880. The story recounts in descriptive detail the adventures of Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince from Jerusalem who is enslaved by the Romans at the beginning of the 1st century and becomes a charioteer and a Christian. Running in parallel with Judah’s narrative is the unfolding story of Jesus, from the same region and around the same age. The novel reflects themes of betrayal, conviction, and redemption, with a revenge plot that leads to a story of love and compassion.

The Seagull’ is a comic play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. It was written in the year 1895. It was first produced in 1896. It is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Tréplev.

The Diary of a Girl in France in 1821′ by Mary Browne is a collection of diary notes written and accompanied by beautiful illustrations by a young girl in France. The work do not consists any classic matured style of writing, but helps put across what a common girl child at that time in France was perceiving from the world around her.

A Biblical and Theological Dictionary’ by Richard Watson consists explanatory notes about the history, manners, and customs of the Jews, and neighbouring nations. It was first published in the year 1832.

Pagan Ideas of Immortality During the Early Roman Empire’ is an interesting look at the evolution of philosophical thought through the age of antiquity into the early christian era through the various mystery sects, cults, and philosophical schools of the time. Speaking of the Stoics, Skeptics, Platonists and more, of Mithra, Osiris, and various tales of the underworld and afterlife, this text is an invaluable occult and academic reference, delivered in the form of a lecture.

The Shunned House’ is a horror novel by H. P. Lovecraft. It was first published in the October 1937 issue of “Weird Tales”. It is based on an actual house in Providence, Rhode Island, built around 1763 and still standing at 135 Benefit Street; Lovecraft was familiar with the house because his aunt, Lillian Clark, lived there in 1919-20 as a companion to Mrs. H. C. Babbit. But it was another house in Elizabeth, New Jersey that actually provoked Lovecraft to write the story.

First published in 1959, ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman’ is a humorous novel by Laurence Sterne. It purports to be a biography of the eponymous character. Its style is marked by digression, double entendre, and graphic devices.

“In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first. We see one nation suddenly seized, from its highest to its lowest members, with a fierce desire of military glory; another as suddenly becoming crazed upon a religious scruple; and neither of them recovering its senses until it has shed rivers of blood and sowed a harvest of groans and tears, to be reaped by its posterity. At an early age in the annals of Europe its population lost their wits about the sepulchre of Jesus, and crowded in frenzied multitudes to the Holy Land; another age went mad for fear of the devil, and offered up hundreds of thousands of victims to the delusion of witchcraft.” -Preface