The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot follows the life of Maggie Tulliver, a young passionate and intelligent girl who seeks love and approval. Unfortunately, by growing up and facing the everyday life struggles, she learns that there is not black or white in life, no good or bad. Either decision she makes, somebody will eventually get hurt.
In The Marrow of Tradition, Charles W. Chesnutt takes a page from the post- Civil War American history book and tries to bring it back to life so that the reader can truly understand the roots of race segregation. Set in the fictional southern town of Wellington, the action is based upon the real 1898 Wilmington insurrection that shook the American society to the ground. The novel takes the reader to uncharted territories where the emerging white aristocracy is trying to get rid of the ‘blacks’.
A collection of short comic stories by Nikolai Gogol that focus on the ugly and the sad elements in life.
The Monster is the story of an African-American who saves his master’s son from a fire and is severely disfigured in the process. The Blue Hotel tells the troubles of a man after staying at a hotel while His New Mittens presents the world as a young child sees it.
Rancher Bill Belllounds has a plan: he wants to marry his boy, Jack with Columbine, a girl found in the wilderness and brought up by Ol’ Bill. However, his plan is ruined by the coming of one Mysterious Rider nicknamed Hell Bent Wade. That’s when Jack’s true character begins to surface.
Lucy Dupree is new in the fabulous city of New York and wants to meet the big boys of Wall Street. So she asks Allan Montague, a childhood friend, for help. This is how she is introduced to two major brokers who control the market. The two try to destroy each other in order to win Lucy even if that means crushing the market. Upton Sinclair's The Money Changers takes a surprisingly modern look at Wall Street.
The Monk: A Romance by Matthew Gregory Lewis is a gothic romance that combines a morality tale with a horrifically violent plot. When a monk condemns a young girl who has become pregnant out of wedlock, she curses him to fall to his own immorality. He later falls in love and it proves his undoing in this intricate and compelling narrative.
Gregor awakens one morning and has been transformed into a monstrous, insect-like creature. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is one of the strangest pieces of 20th century literature and required reading in many high school and college English courses.
The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories is a collection of nine short stories meant to divulge the human’s wicked nature. The Mysterious Stranger is more of a novella in which Satan observes - yet doesn’t intervene - the human kind. He speaks of our precarious morality and fear and also about our innate compulsion of following the boldest and at the same time the most impulsive individual, thus acting more like sheep than wolves. Isn’t there any hope?
James and Henry are two antagonistic brothers. Henry is willing to sacrifice everything for the good of the ones around him while James is a master of deception, ruthless and evil to the bone. Although both depart on different paths straight from the beginning, they eventually clash on more than several occasions. Whose side will you be?
Horne Fisher is the man who knows too much: he has many well-positioned friends who can’t be touched and knows many things about the British political and social schemes. Using his extensive knowledge, he manages to solve many crimes only to realize that the real criminals can’t or won’t be caught.
The Man by Bram Stoker is a novel that is reminiscent from the Victorian era of British history, culture and society, which encompassed the period of the reign of Queen Victoria.
Aramis wants to replace the current King of France, Louis XIV with a puppet ruler so he asks Porthos for help. D'Artagnan on the other hand sides with the current King so he immediately helps Louis when he is at peril. He also has to arrest his former friends for treason. Will he do it?
A British journalist meets two interesting adventurers in India ruing their plan of blackmailing a Rajah. They return to him several months later asking for maps and books of the area. They have a new quest in mind now: to become kings in the remote Afghanistan and rule over a unified nation.
Lost in the Arizona desert and found by a handsome missionary, Hazel Radcliffe is in turmoil: she falls in love yet finds herself unworthy of being loved in return. That’s why she needs to transform herself and become a better person. But is this self-transformation enough?
Set in the late 21th century, The Last Man by Mary Shelley follows closely the life of Lionel who grew up isolated from society although he and his sister were meant to be raised by the Royal British family. Eventually, he becomes civilized and fond of the society of Men after meeting the heir of the British throne, Adrian. But how will he and the human society survive a deadly plague?
In The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons, readers can find practical applications for the tenets of Buddhism in this short essay. Learn about the life of the Buddha and how you can follow his example.
Two brothers by birth are also brothers in arms in the American Civil War. Their feelings are mixed: they want to destroy the enemy and at the same time, they desperately want to protect each other. Will they succeed?
John Hare should have died… instead he is saved by a man with an adopted Indian daughter. He is also dragged into the light after experiencing the darkness of the West. But he isn’t quite ready to embrace it. First he must learn to love.
First performed in 1895, the play is a satire of Victorian culture and social obligations. This play is witty and funny and is the most popular and enduring of Oscar Wilde's plays.
The Heart of Happy Hollow is a collection of 16 short stories that revolve around a small southern community named Sleepy Hollow. Witness the tense relationship between the former slaves and their masters, the young free African-American’s struggles and the way they see the leading white class.
When a Prince returns to Russia after years in a sanatorium, he finds himself scorned by the aristocracy because of his trusting nature and naiveté. Caught in a love triangle between a virtuous and pretty young girl and a mistress of the aristocracy, he finds his morals threatened in this psychological Russian thriller. The Idiot is one of Fyodor Dostoevsky's greatest works and often called one of the greatest Russian novels of all time.
The Lifted Veil by George Eliot is a gothic novella in the vein of other Victorian horror stories like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. In The Lifted Veil, the unreliable narrator, Latimer, believes that he is cursed with an otherworldly ability to see into the future and the thoughts of other people. This leads to tragedy as his obsession with his brother's fiancee.
In two long letters, Captain Avery tries to exonerate himself from the evil deeds he is accused of. He doesn’t enjoy killing and he isn’t interested in raping women; gold and jewels are all he actually wants. Witness his ‘honorable’ life from his humble beginnings to a true King of Pirates.
This story by Bram Stoker is about young man who helps the people of a small country in the Balkans in their struggle against their more powerful neighbors.
