"Summer" is the story of the sexual awakening of the young woman, Charity Royall. Charity, the daughter of mountain moonshiners, is adopted by a poor New England family and falls for Lucius Harney, an educated young man from the city. «Summer» is the story of a young girl coming to terms with her feelings and sexuality in an environment of overwhelming social pressure in early 20th century America. ...
"Kidnapped" is the story of David Balfour, who travels to meet his uncle and collect his inheritance following the death of his father. Betrayed by his family, David finds himself kidnapped and in a fight for his life. David escapes his kidnappers with the renegade Alan Breck and is soon in the middle of the struggle between the Scottish Highlanders and English Rule. David sets out with Alan against almost impossible odds to evade his capto ...
"Dracula" is the novel that introduced the fictional creature known as the vampire to millions. It is considered by many as the single most important work in the gothic vampire horror genre. «Dracula» while not the first appearance of the vampire in literature is certainly the work that is most readily identified with the vampire genre and has spawned countless imitations and references. The novel is set sometime in the late 19th century an ...
"A Tramp Abroad" is Mark Twain's non-fiction European travel book. As Twain travels with this fictitious friend Harris through Germany, the Alps and Italy many humorous situations and reflections upon those situations are detailed. A classic work of travel literature, «A Tramp Abroad» shows Twain at his satirical best. ...
The classic travelogue of one of America's most famous authors, Mark Twain, «Following the Equator» was written when having fallen upon hard times financially, Twain found himself compelled to take a tour of the British Empire in 1895 and write about it. This is that account, published in 1897; it is a classic example of Twain's ever vigilant observational wit. He addresses such important and still ever timely topics as racism, imperia ...
Emile Zola wrote the following in the preface of his first installment to the Rougon-Macquart series: «The characteristic of the Rougon-Macquart family, the group which I propose to study, is their unbridled passions, that great revolutionizing element of our age, inciting to excessive self-indulgence. Physiologically speaking, these appetites are the gradual outcome of certain nervous and sanguineous modifications which manifest themselves in a ...
"The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today" is the collaborative work of Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner that satirized the era of political greed and corruption that followed the American Civil War. This period is often referred to as «The Gilded Age» because of this book. The corruption and greed that was typical of the era is exemplified through two fictional narratives; one of the Hawkins family, a poor family from Tennessee who try to get t ...
"Abbe Mouret's Transgression" (La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret), written in 1874, is perhaps the most powerful and poetic of all Zola's tales; it is that in which fantasy bears the greatest part, and in which «naturalisme» for a while disappears. The opening chapters describe a profligate and almost pagan village in Provence, and here «naturalisme» is at home, and in its proper place. The fifth novel in Zola's «Rougon-Macquart ...
