Great Expectations is Charles Dickens's thirteenth novel. It is his second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. Great Expectations is abildungsroman, or a coming-of-age novel, and it is a classic work of Victorian literature. It depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Pip. The novel was first published in serial form in Dickens' weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. Great Expectations was to be twice as long, but constraints imposed by the management of All the Year Round limited the novel's length. Collected and dense, with a conciseness unusual for Dickens, the novel represents Dickens' peak and maturity as an author. According to G. K. Chesterton, Dickens penned Great Expectations in "the afternoon of [his] life and fame." It was the penultimate novel Dickens completed, preceding Our Mutual Friend. It is set among the marshes of Kent and in London in the early to mid-1800s. From the outset, the reader is "treated" by the terrifying encounter between Pip, the protagonist, and the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is a graphic book, full of extreme imagery, poverty, prison ships, "the hulks," barriers and chains, and fights to the death. It therefore combines intrigue and unexpected twists of autobiographical detail in different tones. Regardless of its narrative technique, the novel reflects the events of the time, Dickens' concerns, and the relationship between society and man. The novel has received mixed reviews from critics: Thomas Carlyle speaks of "All that Pip's nonsense," while George Bernard Shaw praised the novel as "All of one piece and Consistently truthfull." Dickens felt Great Expectations was his best work, calling it "a very fine idea," and was very sensitive to compliments from his friends: "Bulwer, who has been, as I think you know, extraordinarily taken by the book." ABOUT AUTHOR: Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812 – 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's most memorable fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. During his life, his works enjoyed unprecedented fame, and by the twentieth century his literary genius was broadly acknowledged by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to be widely popular. Born in Portsmouth, England, Dickens was forced to leave school to work in a factory when his father was thrown into debtors' prison. Although he had little formal education, his early impoverishment drove him to succeed. Over his career he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, 5 novellas and hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms. Dickens sprang to fame with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodistexpressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens went on to improve the character with positive features. Fagin inOliver Twist apparently mirrors the famous fence Ikey Solomon; His caricature of Leigh Hunt in the figure of Mr Skimpole in Bleak House was likewise toned down on advice from some of his friends, as they read episodes. In the same novel, both Lawrence Boythorne and Mooney the beadle are drawn from real life – Boythorne from Walter Savage Landorand Mooney from 'Looney', a beadle at Salisbury Square. His plots were carefully constructed, and Dickens often wove in elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha'pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.

This volume collects the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe (Wikipedia). It started out as a restructuring and reformatting of the 1903 “Raven Edition” of his works—and then it grew.I have rearranged the texts according to genres in the order of first publications (though still using the later revised versions). I added all the stories, poems, essays, and some miscellanea that were missing in the “Raven Edition”. Thus, you’ll find in this collection: THE TALESMetzengerstein, The Duc de L’Omelette, A Tale of Jerusalem, Loss of Breath, Bon-Bon, Ms. Found in a Bottle, The Assignation, Berenice, Morella, Lionizing, The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaal, King Pest, Shadow—A Parable, Four Beasts in One—The Homo-Cameleopard, Mystification, Silence—A Fable, Ligeia, How to Write a Blackwood Article, A Predicament, The Devil in the Belfry, The Man that Was Used Up, The Fall of the House of Usher, William Wilson, The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion, Why the Little Frenchman Wears his Hand in a Sling, The Business Man, The Man of the Crowd, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, A Descent into the Maelstr?m, The Island of the Fay, The Colloquy of Monos and Una, Never Bet the Devil Your Head, Eleonora, Three Sundays in a Week, The Oval Portrait, The Masque of the Red Death, The Landscape Garden, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Gold-Bug, The Black Cat, Diddling, The Spectacles, A Tale of the Ragged Mountains, The Premature Burial, Mesmeric Revelation, The Oblong Box, The Angel of the Odd, Thou Art the Man, The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq, The Purloined Letter, The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade, Some Words with a Mummy, The Power of Words, The Imp of the Perverse, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The Sphinx, The Cask of Amontillado, The Domain of Arnheim, Mellonta Tauta, Hop-Frog, Von Kempelen and his Discovery, X-ing a Paragrab, Landor’s Cottage.THE POEMSPoetry, O, Tempora! O, Mores!, Tamerlane, Song, Dreams, Spirits of the Dead, Evening Star, Imitation, Stanzas, A Dream, The Happiest Day, The Lake —— to ——, To Margaret, Alone, Sonnet—to Science, Al Aaraaf, Romance, To ——, To the River——, To M——, Fairy-Land, To Isaac Lea, An Acrostic, Elizabeth, To Helen, Israfel, The City in the Sea, The Sleeper, A P?an, The Valley of Unrest, Enigma, Fanny, The Coliseum, Serenade, To One in Paradise, Hymn, May Queen Ode, Spiritual Song, Latin Hymn, Bridal Ballad, To Zante, The Haunted Palace, Silence, Lines On Joe Locke, The Conqueror Worm, Lenore, A Campaign Song, Dream-Land, Impromptu. To Kate Carol, To F——, Eulalie, Epigram for Wall Street, The Raven, The Divine Right of Kings, To Frances S. Osgood, A Valentine, Beloved Physician, Deep in Earth, To Marie Louise (Shew), Ulalume, Lines on Ale, To Marie Louise (Shew), An Enigma, To Helen, A Dream within a Dream, Eldorado, For Annie, To My Mother, Annabel Lee, The Bells.THE NOVELSNarrative of A. Gordon Pym, The Journal of Julius Rodman.THE ESSAYSPal?stine, Maelzel’s Chess-Player, Letter to B——, American Novel-Writing, The Capitol at Washington, Instinct vs Reason—A Black Cat, The Philosophy of Furniture, Morning on the Wissahiccon, Some Account of Stonehenge, The Giant’s Dance, A Druidical Ruin in England, A Few Words on Secret Writing, Exordium, Harper’s Ferry, The Balloon-Hoax, Byron and Miss Chaworth, Pay of American Authors, Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House, Anastatic Printing, Street-Paving, American Poetry, The Philosophy of Composition, A Few Words on Etiquette, Eureka: A Prose Poem, The Rationale of Verse, The Poetic Principle.THE MISCELLANEAAutography, Pinakidia, Literary Small Talk, Intemperance, A Chapter on Science and Art, Cabs, Omniana, Prospectus of The Penn Magazine, Autobiographical Note, A Chapter on Autography, Prospectus of The Stylus, Souvenirs of Youth, The Head of St. John The Baptist, Doings of Gotham, A Moving Chapter, Desultory Notes on Cats, A Chapter of Suggestions, Marginalia, The Literati, Mr. Poe’s Reply to Mr. English and Others, Fifty Suggestions, Preface to “Tamerlane And Minor Poems,” Prologue to “The Folio Club”, Prefaces and Introduction to “The Conchologist’s First Book,” Preface to “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque,” Preface to “The Raven and Other Poems.”THE PLAYPolitian.THE CRITICISMThe Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vols. 8-13, ed. by James A. Harrison, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company 1902.THE LETTERSThe Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, 2nd edition, 2 vols., ed. by J. W. Ostrom, The Gordian Press 1966.

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream. It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.

To the Lighthouse (5 May 1927) is a novel by Virginia Woolf. A landmark novel of high modernism, the text, centering on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920, skillfully manipulates temporality and psychological exploration. To the Lighthouse follows and extends the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, where the plot is secondary to philosophical introspection, and the prose can be winding and hard to follow. The novel includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls the power of childhood emotions and highlights the impermanence of adult relationships. One of the book's several themes is the ubiquity of transience.

Think and Grow Rich' is the world's most widely acclaimed motivational book on success ever published. It became the must-have bible of prosperity and success for millions of readers since its initial publication in 1937. Napoleon Hill, America's most beloved motivational author, devoted 25 years to finding out how the wealthy became that way. After interviewing over 500 of the most affluent men and women of his time, he uncovered the secret to great wealth. By understanding and applying the thirteen simple steps that constitute Hill's formula, you can achieve your goals, change your life and join the ranks of the rich and successful. This book has changed countless lives and it can change yours!

Suite des Cages flottantes. Extrait : Et alors votre mari a administré une gifle formidable au baron, qui est allé rouler dans les placards en cassant de la porcelaine de prix. Oh ! ?a a été admirablement fait ! Maxime a toujours eu une poigne très solide. Là-dessus, il est parti en disant : ? J’attends vos témoins. ? Le baron m’a prié d’être son premier témoin. Je me suis récusé. J’ai toujours été beaucoup plus l’ami de Maxime que celui du baron ; enfin, madame, je suis aussi votre ami, à vous, et je viens offrir mes services au marquis.

Gaston Leroux est un romancier fran?ais, né le 6 mai 1868 à Paris (10e arr.) et mort le 15 avril 1927 à Nice (Alpes-Maritimes). Il est surtout connu pour ses romans policiers empreints de fantastique.

Le terrible Chéri-Bibi réussit, avec ses compagnons d'infortune, à se rendre ma?tre du navire qui le conduit au bagne de Cayenne. Il raconte qu'il a été accusé à tort du meurtre du marquis du Touchais dont le fils a épousé Cécily, la fille de son patron, dont il était lui-même fort amoureux. Or, le jeune marquis, qui trompe sa femme, passe avec son yacht à proximité du navire...

L’action se passe dans un pays que l’auteur nomme Austrasie par pure convenance, car sa capitale est Vienne, on y parle allemand et la famille impériale est décimée par des deuils, dont une double mort à Mayerling. C’est dire que l’on est en Autriche et que l’auteur donne sa version très personnelle des drames qu’a réellement connus la dynastie des Habsbourg. Le livre a été écrit en 1911, alors que l’empereur Fran?ois-Joseph (Fran?ois tout court dans le texte) régnait encore et que ces deuils étaient tout récents, ce qui expliquerait la très relative pudeur de l’auteur. Il n’est pas possible de résumer ce roman sans en donner les clés et par là en g?cher irrémédiablement la lecture. Disons que c’est une histoire de vengeance et de mort, une histoire terriblement sanglante. L’assassinat qui constitue le prologue du livre n’est qu’un aspect, presque secondaire, de l’intrigue. Mais si le feuilleton ne compte plus les invraisemblances, si l’auteur a recours à tous les artifices les plus classiques du genre : sosies, portes secrètes, déguisements, talents extraordinaires des héros, il faut reconna?tre que l’histoire est remarquablement construite, se développe de fa?on à soutenir constamment l’intérêt du lecteur et que les épisodes s’embo?tent parfaitement les uns à la suite des autres.

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life. It has been adapted for the opera on occasions.

The Lost World is a novel released in 1912 by Arthur Conan Doyle concerning an expedition to a plateau in South America where prehistoric animals (dinosaurs and other extinct creatures) still survive. The character of Professor Challenger was introduced in this book. Interestingly, for a seminal work of dinosaur-related fiction, the animals only occupy a small portion of the narrative. Much more time is devoted to a war between early human hominids and a vicious tribe of ape-like creatures.

An extremely unhappy ten-year-old magically escapes into a city he has built out of books, chessmen, candlesticks, and other household items.

It's startling enough to have a Phoenix hatch in your house, but even more startling when it reveals you have a magic carpet on the floor. Conceited it may be, but the Phoenix is also good-hearted, and obligingly accompanies the children on their adventures through time and space-which, magic being what it is, rarely turn out as they were meant...

When a young pair of newlyweds settle down into a small cottage in a quiet village, they look forward to a pleasant, pastoral life of domestic bliss. The husband, a practical man, dismisses the superstitious maid's tale of an ancient curse about the local church's marble statues who come to life each year on All Saint's Eve to wreak revenge. But then, on the fateful night, he discovers that the stone slabs on which the knights rest are empty. Is his young bride in peril?

The story's title character is a man who somehow always seems to get what he wants. John makes up his mind to marry May Forster, the prettiest young woman in the village. After John asks her to marry him several times, May finally agrees. John says that his love for May is so great that he would come back from the dead if that was what she wanted him to do. Two days before his wedding, John leaves to visit his seriously ill godfather. May begs him not to go because she has a feeling that something bad will happen. John reassures her that nothing will prevent him from arriving at his wedding on time

"Don Quijote de la Mancha" es una novela escrita por el espa?ol Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Publicada su primera parte con el título de "El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha" a comienzos de 1605, es la obra más destacada de la literatura espa?ola y universal, además de ser la más publicada y traducida de la historia después de la Biblia. Su segunda parte apareció en 1615 con el título de "El ingenioso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha". Es la primera obra genuinamente desmitificadora de la tradición caballeresca y cortés por su tratamiento burlesco. Representa la primera novela moderna y la primera polifónica; como tal, ejerció un enorme influjo en toda la narrativa europea. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Alcalá de Henares, 29 de septiembre de 1547 - Madrid, 22 de abril de 1616) fue un soldado, novelista, poeta y dramaturgo espa?ol. Es considerado la máxima figura de la literatura espa?ola y es universalmente conocido por haber escrito "Don Quijote de la Mancha".

Un amor apasionado que se vuelve imposible. La historia de un príncipe que no amaba a su esposa la cual termina yéndose con un plebeyo. Las calles de París están en esta novela invadidas de intrigas, conspiraciones e ambiciones...

Après un bonheur incomplet, mensonger, qu'il vécut avec sa femme, et la séparation douloureuse qui s'en suivit, Lavretzky apprend la mort de celle-ci. Il rencontre Lise. Trouvera t-il enfin le bonheur auprès d'elle? Ce roman figure parmi les plus achevés de l'auteur sur le plan esthétique. Les personnages y sont traités avec justesse et poésie.

Rudin, by Ivan Turgenev, is a Russian fiction classic and a nostalgic story of a man in his late twenties, torn between his much loved but barbaric homeland and a comfortable but unsatisfactory life in Europe. Translated by Constance Garnett, 1894 edition. The novel begins with the introduction of three of the characters – Aleksandra, Lezhnev, and Pandalevskii. Pandalevskii relates to Aleksandra Dar’ya Mikhailovna’s invitation to come and meet a Baron Muffel’. Instead of the Baron, Rudin arrives and captivates everyone immediately with his intelligent and witty speeches during the argument with Pigasov.

VIRGIN SOIL by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883) is his last and longest novel. In it he finally says everything yet unsaid on the subject of social change, idealism and yet futility of revolutions, serfs and peasants, and the upper classes. The hero, Nezhdanov -- the disillusioned young son of a nobleman -- and the Populist movement are young idealists working to bridge the gap between the common people and the nobility, and through them Turgenev works out his own troubled thoughts about social reform and tradition, vitality and stagnation. The ideas of gradual reform shown here are eventually to be supplanted by the extremism of the Russian Revolution -- but that is yet to come.

CONTENTS: The Golden Age Dream Days The Reluctant Dragon The Wind in the Willows