The novel follows Anges and her uneasy path to personal happiness and a romance with Mr. Weston. Agnes, her sister, Mary, and their mother all try to keep expenses low and to bring in extra money, but Agnes is frustrated that everyone treats her like a child. To prove herself and to earn money, she starts working as a governess, teaching children of rich families. Agnes Grey is an autobiographical novel with strong parallels between its events and Anne Bronte's own life as a governess.

The story of the survival of a dynasty bloodline protected by the Priesthood of Isis, setin the Ptolemaic era of Ancient Egyptian history. The main character Harmachis is charged by the Priesthood to overthrow the supposed impostor Cleopatra, drive out the Romans and restore Egypt to its golden era.

Diary of a Madman is one of Gogol's greatest stories. The tale follows the life of a minor civil servant during the repressive era of Nicholas I. Following the format of a diary, the story shows the descent of the protagonist, Poprishchin, into insanity. Diary of a Madman, the only one of Gogol's works written in first person, follows diary-entry format. This Sovereign Classic edition also includes the following other tales: The Mantle, The Nose, A May Night.

The Healthy Life Cook Book features collections of traditional vegetarian food offering a complete guide to healthy eating. Unfermented bread, salads, casseroles, curries, gravies and sauces, egg dishes, pastry, puddings, cakes, jams, drinks, and even guides to unfired, raw food lifestyles and diets. In addition to recipes, the book features hints and tips on healthy food preparation and consumption. Complete weekly menus also included.

Our pet-loving narrator injures his black cat under heavy influence of alcohol. From that moment onward, the cat flees in terror at his master's approach but this does not save Pluto from his master and eventually leads to Pluto's death and a mysterious house fire. The mystery does not end there and leads to even more unexpected events. The book features twenty other stories including: The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Imp of the Perverse.

Can too much love be fatal? You are about to find out in this exquisite psychological drama between the owner of a pawnshop and his wife. The narrator's marriage started out cordially enough, but his miserly and reserved ways are taxing to his young wife. A dearth of communication and disagreements about how the pawnshop should be run result in arguments, though the narrator insists that they never quarrelled. One fine morning the narrator opens his eyes to see that his wife is standing over him with the revolver pointed at his temple.

An exciting collection of stories from W.W. Jacobs, a London based novelist famous for his humour, horror and travel stories. This volume includes some of his iconic work: The Money-box, The Castaway, Blundell's Improvement, Bill's Lapse, Lawyer Quince, Breaking A Spell, Establishing Relations, The Changing Numbers, The Persecution of Bob Pretty, Dixon's Return, A Spirit of Avarice, The Third String, Odd Charges, Admiral Peters.

An iconic collection of fairy tales from the master of storytelling Charles Perrault including some of his best work: Little Red Riding-Hood, The Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Little Thumb, Cinderella, Blue Beard.

The Piazza Tales is the only collection of short stories by Herman Melville including: The Piazza, Bartleby, Benito Cereno, The Lightning-Rod Man, The Encantadas, The Bell-Tower.

The story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive father in Offal Court off Pudding Lane in London, and Prince Edward, son of King Henry VIII. One day Tom is nearly caught and beaten by the Royal Guards; however, Edward stops them and invites Tom into his palace chamber. There the two boys get to know one another, fascinated by each other's life and their uncanny resemblance. They decide to switch clothes temporarily.

"I am a human being; I am a woman; I am a black woman; I am an African. Once I was free; then I was captured and became a slave; but inside me, here and here, I am still a free woman."During a period of four hundred years, European slave traders ferried some 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. In the Americas, teaching a slave to read and write was a criminal offense. When the last slaves gained their freedom in Brazil, barely a thousand of them were literate. Hardly any stories of the enslaved and transported Africans have survived.This novel is an attempt to recreate just one of those stories, one story of a possible 12 million or more.Lawrence Hill created another in The Book of Negroes (Someone Knows my Name in the U.S.) and, more recently, Yaa Gyasi has done the same in Homegoing. Ama occupies center stage throughout this novel. As the story opens, she is sixteen. Distant drums announce the death of her grandfather. Her family departs to attend the funeral, leaving her alone to tend her ailing baby brother. It is 1775. Asante has conquered its northern neighbor and exacted an annual tribute of 500 slaves. The ruler of Dagbon dispatches a raiding party into the lands of the neighboring Bekpokpam. They capture Ama. That night, her lover, Itsho, leads an attack on the raiders’ camp. The rescue bid fails. Sent to collect water from a stream, Ama comes across Itsho’s mangled corpse. For the rest of her life she will call upon his spirit in time of need. In Kumase, the Asante capital, Ama is given as a gift to the Queen-mother. When the adolescent monarch, Osei Kwame, conceives a passion for her, the regents dispatch her to the coast for sale to the Dutch at Elmina Castle. There the governor, Pieter de Bruyn, selects her as his concubine, dressing her in the elegant clothes of his late Dutch wife and instructing the obese chaplain to teach her to read and write English. De Bruyn plans to marry Ama and take her with him to Europe. He makes a last trip to the Dutch coastal outstations and returns infected with yellow fever. On his death, his successor rapes Ama and sends her back to the female dungeon. Traumatized, her mind goes blank. She comes to her senses in the canoe which takes her and other women out to the slave ship, The Love of Liberty. Before the ship leaves the coast of Africa, Ama instigates a slave rebellion. It fails and a brutal whipping leaves her blind in one eye. The ship is becalmed in mid-Atlantic. Then a fierce storm cripples it and drives it into the port of Salvador, capital of Brazil. Ama finds herself working in the fields and the mill on a sugar estate. She is absorbed into slave society and begins to adapt, learning Portuguese. Years pass. Ama is now totally blind. Clutching the cloth which is her only material link with Africa, she reminisces, dozes, falls asleep. A short epilogue brings the story up to date. The consequences of the slave trade and slavery are still with us. Brazilians of African descent remain entrenched in the lower reaches of society, enmeshed in poverty. “This is story telling on a grand scale,” writes Tony Sim?es da Silva. “In Ama, Herbstein creates a work of literature that celebrates the resilience of human beings while denouncing the inscrutable nature of their cruelty. By focusing on the brutalization of Ama's body, and on the psychological scars of her experiences, Herbstein dramatizes the collective trauma of slavery through the story of a single African woman. Ama echoes the views of writers, historians and philosophers of the African diaspora who have argued that the phenomenon of slavery is inextricable from the deepest foundations of contemporary western civilization.” Ama, a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Best First Book.

The Portuguese visual artist Paula Rego has inspired this trilogy of plays. Her paintings Crivelli’s Garden, The Prey and Breaking China became the catalyst for writing by theatre maker Fiona Graham. Commissioned by Theatre Centre and Komedia, these three new plays were developed for specific audiences through a series of artist/audience residencies and collaborations. These works have toured Britain and been re-staged in Portugal and Singapore. Crivellis’s Garden was created for a 16+ audience and explores rites of passage as two young women decide whether they should stay or leave their fishing village to go to university in Portugal. Between Friends is for 7 -11 year olds and examines the politics of friendship between three young people when they are shipwrecked and abandoned in a lighthouse. Breaking China is for 4-8 year olds and shows the importance of creative play and storytelling when making sense of change and adversity. About the authorDR FIONA GRAHAMFiona teaches dramaturgy at Goldsmiths University. Previously she spent over a decade in New Zealand writing and teaching at Auckland University. Her plays include: Passage (The Herald Theatre, Auckland 2010), Breaking China (Theatre Centre, 2002 and Singapore’s International Festival, 2004) and Legacy (for Massive Theatre Company, 1998). Most recently she worked as dramaturge with Otago University and Talking House Theatre Company on Be/Longing and Hush, with Red Leap Theatre Company on Paper Sky and Sea, with playwright Mei-Lin Hansen on The Mooncake And The Kumara, with Winning Productions on I Wanna Be -- Ponsonby and Carol Brown on 1000 Lovers and the Pah Collective. Her book Catalyst For Change: The Interventions of the Dramaturge was published in New Zealand in 2017. Reviews: ‘Graham’s poetically eloquent script flows like molten silver and should give students, teachers and other theatregoers much to think about’ (on Crivelli’s Garden) – The Stage ‘A prime example of how an excellent script innovatively directed and beautifully performed can be applied to a wide age range. This joyful production provides much food for thought.’ (on Breaking China) – The Stage

A collection of gothic tales from one of the finest Victorian writers featuring: The Grey Woman, Curious if True, Six Weeks at Heppenheim, Libbie Marsh's Three Eras, Christmas Storms and Sunshine, Hand and Heart, Bessy's Troubles at Home, Disappearances.

The Professor was the first novel by Charlotte Bronte. It was originally written before Jane Eyre and rejected by many publishing houses, but was eventually published posthumously. The novel follows life of a young man, William Crimsworth, and is a first-person narrative from his perspective. It describes his maturation, his loves and his eventual career as a professor at an all-girls school.

The Red Badge of Courage follows events of the American Civil War, and life of a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a red badge of courage, to counteract his cowardice. When his regiment once again faces the enemy, Henry acts as standard-bearer.

A sequel to Daniel Defoe's legendary Robinson Crusoe story of his adventures and survival on a remote tropical island. In this volume we follow Crusoe's return to his island, his voyages to Brazil, Southeast Asia, China, Madagascar, Siberia, and his adventures with the local tribes.

Kidnapped is a historical adventure novel set around 18th-century Scottish events, notably the Appin Murder, which occurred near Ballachulish in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rising. Many of the characters, and one of the principals, Alan Breck Stewart, were real people.

We follow Professor Challenger to a South American plateau in the Amazon basin where dinosaurs and other extinct creatures still survive. A legendary work of science fiction which sparked the Lost World genre.

Four Faultless Felons includes The Moderate Murderer, The Honest Quack, The Ecstatic Thief, and The Loyal Traitor. Chesterton's protagonist's faultless crimes include: murder, fraud, theft, and treason. They are motivated by good intentions of course, by altruism and virtues.

In this sequel to The Three Musketeers, we continue following adventured of a young man named d'Artagnan. This story follows events in France during La Fronde, during the childhood reign of Louis XIV, and in England near the end of the English Civil War, leading up to the victory of Oliver Cromwell and the execution of King Charles I.

A scholar and explorer, Dr. Samuel Ferguson, accompanied by his manservant Joe and his friend professional hunter Richard Kennedy, sets out to travel across the African with the help of a balloon filled with hydrogen. The balloon itself ultimately fails before the end, but makes it far enough across to get the protagonists to friendly lands, and eventually back to England, therefore succeeding in the expedition.