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万本电子书0元读

Sonnets from the Portuguese
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
¥8.09
Very short collection of love poems. According to Wikipedia: "Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861) was one of the most respected poets of the Victorian era."
The Art of Fiction
The Art of Fiction
Henry James
¥8.09
Classic essay from the collection "Partial Portraits". According to Wikipedia: "Partial Portraits is a book of literary criticism by Henry James published in 1888. The book collected essays that James had written over the preceding decade, mostly on English and American writers. But the book also offered treatments of Alphonse Daudet, Guy de Maupassant and Ivan Turgenev. Perhaps the most important essay was The Art of Fiction, James' plea for the widest possible freedom in content and technique in narrative fiction. The Art of Fiction was a response to remarks by English critic Walter Besant, who wrote an article that literally attempted to lay down the "laws of fiction." For instance, Besant insisted that novelists should confine themselves to their own experience: "A young lady brought up in a quiet country village should avoid descriptions of garrison life." James argued that a sufficiently alert novelist could catch knowledge from everywhere and use it to good purpose: "The young lady living in a village has only to be a damsel upon whom nothing is lost to make it quite unfair (as it seems to me) to declare to her that she shall have nothing to say about the military. Greater miracles have been seen than that, imagination assisting, she should speak the truth about some of these gentlemen." James continually argues for the fullest freedom in the novelist's choice of subject and method of treatment..."
The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
Oscar Wilde
¥8.09
Wilde's best-known play. According to Wikipedia: "Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 - 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and author of short stories. Known for his barbed wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. As the result of a famous trial, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years of hard labour after being convicted of the offence of 'gross indecency.'"
The Forest of Swords
The Forest of Swords
Joseph Altsheler
¥8.09
World War I historical novel. According to Wikipedia: "Joseph Alexander Altsheler (1862 - 1919), was an American author of popular juvenile historical fiction. Altsheler was born in Three Springs, Kentucky to Joseph and Louise Altsheler. In 1885, he took a job at the Louisville Courier-Journal as a reporter and later, an editor. He started working for the New York World in 1892, first as the paper's Hawaiian correspondent and then as the editor of the World's tri-weekly magazine. Due to a lack of suitable stories, he began writing children's stories for the magazine."
Early History of the Airplane
Early History of the Airplane
Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright
¥8.09
First-hand account of the invention of the airplane by Orville and Wilbur Wright. The book begins: "THOUGH the subject of aerial navigation is generally considered new, it has occupied the minds of men more or less from the earliest ages. Our personal interest in it dates from our childhood days. Late in the autumn of 1878 our father came into the house one evening with some object partly concealed in his hands, and before we could see what it was, he tossed it into the air. Instead of falling to the floor, as we expected, it flew across the room, till it struck the ceiling, where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor."
The Six Comedies of Terence
The Six Comedies of Terence
Terence
¥8.09
Six comedies by the Roman dramatist, in English translation: Andria; or, the Fair Andrian; Eunuchus; or, the Eunuch; Heautontimorumenos; or, the Self-Tormentor; Adelphi; or, the Brothers; Hecyra; the Mother-in-law; and Phormio; or, the Scheming Parasite.
Leaves In The Wind
Leaves In The Wind
A. G. Gardiner
¥8.09
From 1915 Gardiner contributed to The Star under the pseudonym Alpha of the Plough. At the time The Star had several anonymous essayists whose pseudonyms were the names of stars. Invited to choose the name of a star as a pseudonym he chose the name of the brightest (alpha) star in the constellation "the Plough." His essays are uniformly elegant, graceful and humorous. His uniqueness lay in his ability to teach the basic truths of life in an easy and amusing manner. Leaves in the Wind is amongst his best known writings.
A Strange Disappearance
A Strange Disappearance
Anna Katharine Green
¥8.09
An early detective story by a woman writer about a sewing girl in a rich man's house who is abducted. The housekeeper reports the crime and the detective in charge doesn't understand why it is imperative that the servant be found. There are some twists and things aren't as they seem.
The Moon Rock
The Moon Rock
Arthur J. Rees
¥8.09
"The Moon Rock" (1922) is Australian mystery writer Arthur J. Rees' locked-room conundrum. In fact, the room -- the murder scene -- not only is locked from the inside, but also two hundred feet up the cold wall of Flint House. And the house looms on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall. Slip, and a falling body would strike the pale Moon Rock and its legend of doomed love. "A lonely, weird place," Scotland Yard's Det. Barrant sums it up, and that's even before he finds out what happened. The deceased is Robert Turold, a bitter and silent man obsessed with proving his noble linage and claim to a great estate. At last, he succeeds -- only to be found dead in the locked room, shot in the chest. Suicide? Barrant suspects not. The house is full of suspects: servants, relatives, a lovely daughter with a ruinous secret. Rees knew all the conventions of a mystery novel -- he wrote more than twenty -- and how to set the table with plenty of red herrings. But the question is more than who-done-it. Tension builds, too, on the identity of the Moon Rock's next victim. The one word to describe "The Moon Rock" is, literally: Cliffhanger.
The Rome Express
The Rome Express
Arthur Griffiths
¥8.09
A mysterious murder on a flying express train, a wily Italian, a charming woman caught in the meshes of circumstantial evidence, a chivalrous Englishman, and a police force with a keen nose for the wrong clue, are the ingredients from which Major Griffiths has concocted a clever, up-to-date detective story.
The Mysterious Key And What It Opened
The Mysterious Key And What It Opened
Louisa May Alcott
¥8.09
The story begins with the mysterious death of Sir Richard Trevlyn. All the reader knows is that Richard's wife, Alice, who is pregnant with their first child, listens through a keyhole in the library door to a conversation Richard has with a visitor. What she hears horrifies her, she faints, and a servant, Hester, finds her and helps her to bed. Alice insists Richard not be disturbed, but Hester is worried and goes to the library anyway to tell him his wife is ill. She finds him slumped over his desk, dead. ? Twelve years later the child, Lillian, meets a stranger on the grounds, a sixteen year old boy named Paul who applies for work on the estate. He does his job well, advancing in position and earning the affection of family and servants alike. Some of the servants suspect he may be more than a mere gardener or groom, but they like him and when he leaves without a word to anyone they are confused and disappointed.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll
¥8.09
This Point Blank Classics edition includes the full original text as well as exclusive images exclusive to this edition and an easy to use interactive table of contents.
Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake
James Joyce
¥8.09
This Point Blank Classics edition includes the full original text as well as exclusive images exclusive to this edition and an easy to use interactive table of contents.
The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories
The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
¥8.09
Twenty-two stories deal with an insane asylum, an old, retired Army officer, superstition, a matchmaker, an architect's trip back to his home town, and a man's efforts to have his brother released from prison.
The Dynamiter
The Dynamiter
Robert Louis Stevenson
¥8.09
More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter (1885) is a collection of linked short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Vandegrift. ? "Prologue of the Cigar Divan" "Challoner's adventure: The Squire of Dames" "Story of the Destroying Angel" "The Squire of Dames (Concluded)" "Somerset's adventure: The Superfluous Mansion" "Narrative of the Spirited Old Lady" "The Superfluous Mansion (Continued)" "Zero's Tale of the Explosive Bomb" "The Superfluous Mansion (Continued)" "Desborough's Adventure: The Brown Box" "Story of the Fair Cuban" "The Brown Box (Concluded)" "The Superfluous Mansion (Concluded)" "Epilogue of the Cigar Divan"
Rasselas:Prince of Abyssinia
Rasselas:Prince of Abyssinia
Samuel Johnson
¥8.09
While the story is thematically similar to Candide by Voltaire, also published early in 1759 – both concern young men travelling in the company of honoured teachers, encountering and examining human suffering in an attempt to determine the root of happiness – their root concerns are distinctly different. Voltaire was very directly satirising the widely read philosophical work by Gottfried Leibniz, particularly the Theodicee, in which Leibniz asserts that the world, no matter how we may perceive it, is necessarily the "best of all possible worlds". In contrast the question Rasselas confronts most directly is whether or not humanity is essentially capable of attaining happiness. Writing as a devout Christian, Johnson makes through his characters no blanket attacks on the viability of a religious response to this question, as Voltaire does, and while the story is in places light and humorous, it is not a piece of satire, as is Candide.
Four Weird Tales
Four Weird Tales
Algernon Blackwood
¥8.09
This collection assembles four of Blackwood's greatest stories: "The Insanity of Jones," "The Man Who Found Out," "The Glamour of the Snow," and "Sand." ? The son of a preacher, Blackwood had a life-long interest in the supernatural, the occult, and spiritualism, and firmly believed that humans possess latent psychic powers. The autobiography Episodes Before Thirty (1923) tells of his lean years as a journalist in New York. In the late 1940s, Blackwood had a television program on the BBC on which he read . . . ghost stories!
Clarissa:The History of a Young Lady
Clarissa:The History of a Young Lady
Samuel Richardson
¥8.09
Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is regarded as the longest novel in the English language (based on estimated word count). It is generally regarded as Richardson's masterpiece. ? Clarissa Harlowe, the tragic heroine of Clarissa, is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become wealthy only recently and now desires to become part of the aristocracy. Their original plan was to concentrate the wealth and lands of the Harlowes into the possession of Clarissa's brother James Harlowe, whose wealth and political power will lead to his being granted a title. Clarissa's grandfather leaves her a substantial piece of property upon his death, and a new route to the nobility opens through Clarissa marrying Robert Lovelace, heir to an earldom. James's response is to provoke a duel with Lovelace, who is seen thereafter as the family's enemy. James also proposes that Clarissa marry Roger Solmes, who is willing to trade properties with James to concentrate James's holdings and speed his becoming Lord Harlowe. The family agrees and attempts to force Clarissa to marry Solmes, whom she finds physically disgusting as well as boorish.
American Fairy Tales
American Fairy Tales
L. Frank Baum
¥8.09
American Fairy Tales is the title of a collection of twelve fantasy stories by L. Frank Baum, published in 1901 by the George M. Hill Company, the firm that issued The Wonderful Wizard of Oz the previous year. ? L. Frank Baum was doing well in 1901, better than ever before in his life. He had written two popular books, Father Goose: His Book and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and was determined to capitalize on this success. In addition to American Fairy Tales, Baum's Dot and Tot of Merryland and The Master Key appeared in 1901. ? Publisher George M. Hill sold the serialization rights to the twelve stories in AFT to five major newspapers, the Pittsburgh Dispatch, the Boston Post, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the St. Louis Republic, and The Chicago Chronicle. The stories appeared between March 3 and May 19, 1901; the book followed in October. The first three papers used or adapted the book's illustrations for their publications of the stories, while the Chronicle and the Republic had their own staff artists do separate pictures.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
¥8.09
The 1885 edition, with 174 illustrations. According to Wikipedia: "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
Five Children and It
Five Children and It
Edith Nesbit
¥8.09
Classic novel for children. According to Wikipedia: "Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a precursor to the modern Labour Party.... Nesbit published approximately 40 books for children, both novels and collections of stories. Collaborating with others, she published almost as many more. According to her biographer Julia Briggs, Nesbit was "the first modern writer for children": "(Nesbit) helped to reverse the great tradition of children's literature inaugurated by [Lewis] Carroll, [George] MacDonald and Kenneth Grahame, in turning away from their secondary worlds to the tough truths to be won from encounters with things-as-they-are, previously the province of adult novels." Briggs also credits Nesbit with having invented the children's adventure story. Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1898) and The Wouldbegoods (1899), which both recount stories about the Bastables, a middle class family that has fallen on relatively hard times. Her children's writing also included numerous plays and collections of verse. She created an innovative body of work that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects and adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds."