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The Song of Roland
Anonymous 试读
One of the crowning achievements of medieval artistic genius, The Song of Roland tells the story of the battle of Roncesvals in 778.At the center of this heroic epic is Roland, the supreme embodiment of the chivalric ideal who leads his men into combat and fights valiantly to the death.As Robert Harrison, the translator of this acclaimed edition, explains, "The carefully balanced structure of The Song of Roland is designed like a folding mirror to reflect the battle between Good and Evil at all levels of meaning."
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The Soul of Man under Socialism
王尔德 试读
The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes. Now and then, in the course of the century, a great man of science, like Darwin a great poet, like Keats a fine critical spirit, like M. Renan a supreme artist, like Flaubert, has been able to isolate himself, to keep himself out of reach of the clamorous claims of others, to stand 'under the shelter of the wall, ' as Plato puts it, and so to realise the perfection of what was in him, to his own incomparable gain, and to the incomparable and lasting gain of the whole world.
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The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Beatrix Potter 试读
"The Amazing Pop-up Tale of Peter Rabbit" retells the much-loved story of Peter Rabbit and his adventures in Mr. McGregor's garden. It contains Beatrix Potter's original illustrations and text, but is brought to life through an amazing series of flaps, pull-tabs and pop-ups. It is delightful book for all ages.
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The Winters Tale
William Shakespeare 试读
The Winter's Tale was one of the very last plays Shakespeare wrote, a moving romance whose themes are sin, forgiveness, death, rebirth, and the power of Time and Nature to heal all wounds. Based on a novella by Shakespeare's enemy and arch rival Robert Greene, The Winter's Tale introduces Perdita, perhaps the Bard's most richly symbolic character. At times tragic, at times humorous, but always entertaining and instructive, The Winters Tale is a complex and rewarding work by the greatest dramatist of all time.A Shakespeare Society Production. The complete play in four acts.
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The Yellow Fairy Book
Andrew Lang 试读
American Indian, Russian, German, Icelandic, French, and other stories -- 48 in all -- among them "The Tinder-box," "The Nightingale," and "How to Tell a True Princess." 104 illustrations.
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Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson 试读
Following the demise of bloodthirsty buccaneer Captain Flint, youngJim Hawkins finds himself with the key to a fortune. For he hasdiscovered a map that will lead him to the fabled Treasure Island.But a host of villains, wild beasts and deadly savages standbetween him and the stash of gold. Not to mention the most infamouspirate ever to sail the high seas...With a wonderfully funnyintroduction by award-winning author Eoin Colfer, "Treasure Island"is one of the twelve brilliant classic stories being relaunched in"Puffin Classics" in March 2008.
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A Boys Ride
Gulielma Zollinger 试读
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - It was the last of May in the north of England, in the year 1209. A very different England from what any boy of to-day has seen. A chilly east wind was blowing. The trees of the vast forests were all in leaf but the ash trees, and they were unfolding their buds. And along a bridle-path a few miles southwest of York a lad of fourteen was riding, while behind him followed a handsome deerhound. A boy of fourteen, at that age of the world, was an older and more important personage than he is to-day. If he were well-born he had, generally, by this time, served his time as a page and was become an esquire in the train of some noble lord. That this lad had not done so was because his uncle, a prior in whose charge he had been reared since the early death of his parents, had designed him for a priest. Priest, however, he had declined to be, and his uncle had now permitted him to go forth unattended to attach himself as page to some lord, if he could.
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Ozma of Oz
Lyman Frank Baum 试读
Readers of all ages will welcome the chance to be reunited with Dorothy Gale and other beloved characters in the third Oz book by L. Frank Baum Dorothy and her trusty hen, Billina, are washed ashore in the Land of Ev after a shipwreck. At first Dorothy is delighted to find lunch grows on trees in lunchboxes. But soon she realizes there is a darker side to the Land of Ev. On the seashore, Dorothy encounters the Wheelers, terrifying creatures with wheels instead of hands and feet. She manages to escape and befriend Tik-Tok, a loyal, robot-like creature who needs to be wound up like a toy to function. He warns her to stay away from the Wheelers and tells her the story of the Land of Ev. The royal family of Ev have been dethroned by the evil Nome King of the neighboring kingdom. Tik-Tok explains to Dorothy that her friend Princess Ozma of Oz is traveling to Ev by magic carpet to help save the royal family. Can Dorothy help Ozma and the royal family?
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Ruth
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 试读
"If you want to whip me, uncle, you may do it. I don't much mind." Put in this form, it was impossible to carry out his intentions and so Mr. Benson told the lad he might go-that he would speak to him another time. Leonard went away, more subdued in spirit than if he had been whipped. Sally lingered for a moment. She stopped to add: "I think it's for them without sin to throw stones at a poor child, and cut up good laburnum branches to whip him. I only do as my betters do, when I call Leonard's mother Mrs. Denbigh." The moment she had said this she was sorry it was an ungenerous advantage after the enemy had acknowledged himself defeated. Mr. Benson dropped his head upon his hands, and hid his face, and sighed deeply. -Chapter XIX: "After Five Years" As interest in 19th-century English literature by women has been reinvigorated by a resurgence in popularity of the works of Jane Austen, readers are rediscovering a writer whose fiction, once widely beloved, fell by the wayside. British novelist ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL (1810-1865)-whose books were sometimes initially credited to, simply, "Mrs. Gaskell"-is now recognized as having created some of the most complex and progressive depictions of women in the literature of the age, and is today justly celebrated for her precocious use of the regional dialect and slang of England's industrial North. Ruth-Gaskell's third novel, first published in three volumes in 1853-is notable as one of the rare instances in the fiction of the era of a positive portrayal of unwed motherhood and for its thematic condemnation of the social stigma of illegitimacy. The tale of a young woman seduced and abandoned by her lover, then taken in and protected by a kindly minister and his sister, it is remarkably progressive for the period. Friend and literary companion to the likes of Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bront-the latter of whom Gaskell wrote an acclaimed 1857 biography-Gaskell is today being restored to her rightful place alongside them
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The Chimes
Charles Dickens 试读
Here are not many people -- and as it is desirable that a story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this observation neither to young people nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of people: little and big, young and old: yet growing up, or already growing down again -- there are not, I say, many people who would care to sleep in a church. I don't mean at sermon-time in warm weather (when the thing has actually been done, once or twice), but in the night, and alone. A great multitude of persons will be violently astonished, I know, by this position, in the broad bold Day. But it applies to Night. It must be argued by night, and I will undertake to maintain it successfully on any gusty winter's night appointed for the purpose, with any one opponent chosen from the rest, who will meet me singly in an old churchyard, before an old church-door and will previously empower me to lock him in, if needful to his satisfaction, until morning. For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering round and round a building of that sort, and moaning as it goes and of trying, with its unseen hand, the windows and the doors . . .
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Baby Mine
Margaret Mayo 试读
The first year of a baby's life is a wondrous time, with each day bringing new changes and emotions. This journal goes above and beyond the traditional baby book, recognizing the journey that mother and child embark on together. Guided prompts throughout allow a new mom to record all the precious moments of baby's development, and also to reflect on what these milestones stir within her. There's also room to add pictures and other mementos.
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Bab:a Sub-Deb
Mary Roberts Rinehart 试读
Bab, only twenty months younger than her sister, the officialdebutante, rebels against her treatment by her family. Set duringthe pre-World War I era, when women's roles were rapidly changing,Bab determines to assert her independence through this series ofmisadventures and mysteries. . . . "I am writing all of this astruthfully as I can. I am not defending myself. What I did I wasdriven to, as any one can see. It takes a real shock to make theaverage Familey wake up to the fact that the youngest daughter isnot the Familey baby at seventeen. All I was doing was furnishingthe shock. If things turned out badly, as they did, it was becauseI rather overdid the thing. That is all. My motives were perfectlyireproachible." - Bab And this Bab feels through all of herhilarious and at times dangerous adventures to prove she is notjust a Sub-Deb. Written by that master of mystery and humor, MaryRoberts Rinehart, Bab is a delightful combination of both.
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Eben Holden, a tale of the north country
Bacheller,Irving 试读
Large Format for easy reading. Bacheller's novels are primarily concerned with early American life in the North Country of New York State. In 1900 his novel Eben Holden, A Tale of the North Country, proved a major success. According to the New York Times it was the 4th best-selling novel in the United States that year.
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Sally of Missouri
Rose E. (Rose Emmet) Young 试读
Parts of this story were a little slow for me to read. Printed in 1903 this fiction story takes place in southern Missouri. Combing a love story with a struggle of either saving a community and a way of life or letting a few people get rich and make a lot of changes people who like to save the great outdoors can relate to this.
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Jack Haydons Quest
John FinnemoreJohn Jellicoe 试读
Jack was on fire to be off to Brindisi and see what was wrong.He made short work of his packing, and within an hour he wasdriving to Longhampton to catch the London express. He caught itwith scarcely two minutes to spare, and was soon whirling towardsthe great city. A short distance from Longhampton, he caught aglimpse of Rushmere School in the distance on its hill, and thestrip of heath country running up to the foot of the slope. Thisbrought to mind his adventure, which remained as mysterious anaffair as ever. The police had been most active, stations had beenwatched, inquiries had been made in every direction, but all to noresult. The Thugs had vanished and left no trace behind. But thethought of his encounter on the heath soon faded from Jack's mind.It was crushed out by the pressing question of the moment. What wasthe matter at Brindisi? Why had Risley cabled and not his father?Had something happened to his father? Jack felt wretchedly uneasy,for he and his father were bound together by no ordinary ties ofaffection.In the first place, he had, as far as he knew, no other livingrelation. His mother had been dead for many years, and his fatherwas the only close friend that Jack knew. Then the elder Haydon hadalways been a great hero in his son's eyes. His profession ofmining engineer had carried him into many wild corners of theworld, and the store of marvellous tales which he would pour forthfor the boy's delight had made Jack's holidays a time of intensepleasure. Mr. Haydon had always made a point, if it was possible,of keeping himself free for such times, and he and Jack had spentthe weeks joyously, until the day for return to school had become aBlack Monday indeed in the boy's eyes.
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Camp and Trail A Story of the Maine Woods
Isabel Hornibrook 试读
Now, Neal Farrar, you've got to be as still as the night itself, remember. If you bounce, or turn, or draw a long breath, you won't have a rag of reputation as a deer-hunter to take back to England. Sneeze once, and we're done for. That means more diet of flapjacks and pork, instead of venison steaks. And I guess your city appetite won't rally to pork much longer, even in the wilds. Neal Farrar sighed as if there was something in that. "But, you know, it's just when an unlucky fellow would give his life not to sneeze that he's sure to bring out a thumping big one," he said plaintively.
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Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework Business principles applied to housework
C. Helene Barker 试读
This little book is not a treatise on Domestic Science. The vacuum cleaner and the fireless cooker are not even mentioned. The efficient kitchen devised in such an interesting and clever way has no place in it. Its exclusive object is to suggest a satisfactory and workable solution along modern lines of how to get one's housework efficiently performed without doing it one's self.
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A Christmas Carol(免费公版书)
Charles Dickens 试读
On Christmas Eve, Scrooge sits in his house with not a kind word for anyone; he just wants to be left alone until the humbug of Christmas is over. But four ghostly visitorshis former business partner, followed by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Comeshow him the error of his ways, and by the time Christmas Day dawns, Scrooge is a changed person.
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Oh, Money! Money!
Eleanor H.Porter 试读
There was a thoughtful frown on the face of the man who was the possessor of twenty million dollars. He was a tall, spare man, with a fringe of reddish-brown hair encircling a bald spot. His blue eyes, fixed just now in a steady gaze upon a row of ponderous law books across the room, were friendly and benevolent in direct contradiction to the bulldog, never-let-go fighting qualities of the square jaw below the firm, rather thin lips. The lawyer, a youthfully alert man of sixty years, trimly gray as to garb, hair, and mustache, sat idly watching him, yet with eyes that looked so intently that they seemed to listen. For fully five minutes the two men had been pulling at their cigars in silence when the millionaire spoke. "Ned, what am I going to do with my money?" Into the lawyer's listening eyes flashed, for a moment, the keenly scrutinizing glance usually reserved for the witness on the other side. Then quietly came the answer. "Spend it yourself, I hope-for some years to come, Stanley."
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The Magic City
Edith Nesbit 试读
This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format. From Shakespeare’s finesse to Oscar Wilde’s wit, this unique collection brings together works as diverse and influential as The Pilgrim’s Progress and Othello.
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The Perils of Pauline
Charles Goddard 试读
Short excerpt: These things had been in his mind since the motor industry started. He had lived with them wrestled with them during his meals and taken them to his dreams at night. Now they formed a rhythm and he heard them in his brain just before the fainting spells...
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The Celtic Twilight
William Butler Yeats 试读
Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult. Later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past. "The Celtic Twilight" includes forty-two Celtic folklore tales, and Yeats makes no secret of his fascination and even belief in the world of the occult and the existence of faeries. Yeats' passion in these tales comes forth through the pages and adds a new dimension to these age-old tales. Though the stories are short in length, there is no scarcity of depth.
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The King in Yellow
Robert William Chambers 试读
Classic novel by the American artist and writer, most well known for his collection of weird fiction short stories The King in Yellow. According to some estimates, Chambers was one of the most successful literary careers of his period, his later novels selling well and a handful achieving best-seller status.
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Out of the Primitive
Robert Ames Bennet 试读
The second night north of the Zambezi, as well as the first, the little tramp rescue steamer had run out many miles into the offing and laid-to during the hours of darkness. The vicinity of the coral reefs that fringe the southeast coast of Africa is decidedly undesirable on moonless nights.(This paragraph from the first chapter)
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English Past and Present
Richard Chenevix Trench 试读
In editing the present volume I have thought it well to follow the same rule which I laid down for myself in editing The Study of Words,and have made no alteration in the text of Dr. Trench’s work (the fifth edition).
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She Stoops to Conquer
Oliver Goldsmith 试读
"She Stoops to Conquer" is the comedic drama that depicts the story of Charles Marlow, a wealthy young man who is promised to a woman that he has never met. While he is eager to meet her, Charles is quite shy in the company of women of wealth, however in the company of women of the lower classes he transforms into a lecherous rogue. Learning of this, Kate Hardcastle, the woman he is promised too, pretends to be a serving-maid in order to win Charles's affections. "She Stoops to Conquer" is a charming and light-hearted play.
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How to Tell a Story and Other Essays
Mark Twain 试读
"How to Tell a Story and Other Essays" is a collection of essays on various subjects by America's most famous satirist, Mark Twain. Contained in this volume you will find the following essays: How to Tell a Story, In Defense of Harriet Shelley, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses, Travelling With a Reformer, Private History of the 'Jumping Frog' Story, Mental Telegraphy Again, What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us, A Little Note to M. Paul Bourget, The Invalid's Story, The Captain's Story, Stirring Times in Austria, Concerning the Jews, From the 'London Times' of 1904, and At the Appetite-Cure.
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New Chronicles of Rebecca
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin 试读
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
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Red Saunders Pets and Other Critters
Henry Wallace Phillips 试读
"Of all the worlds I ever broke into, this one's the most curious," said Red. "And one of the curiousest things in it is that I think it's queer. Why should I, now? What put it into our heads that affairs ought to go so and so and so, when they never do anything of the sort?
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In the Valley
Harold Frederic 试读
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.
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Opera Stories from Wagner
Florence Akin 试读
It presents the stories in simplified form, though not always true to the Wagner version. For example, at the end of the book, Siegfried and Brunnhilde return the ring to the Rhine maidens and, it is implied, live happily ever after. It was a good way for readers to become familiar with the characters and the basics of the story.
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He Fell in Love with His Wife
Edward Payson Roe 试读
Reverend Edward Payson Roe (1838-1888) was an American novelist born in Moodna, Orange County, New York. He studied at Williams College and at Auburn Theological Seminary. In 1862 he became chaplain of the Second New York Cavalry, U.S. V., and in 1864 chaplain of Hampton Hospital in Virginia. In 1866-74 he was pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Highland Falls, New York. In 1874 he moved to Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, where he devoted himself to the writing of fiction and to horticulture. During the American Civil War he wrote weekly letters to the New York Evangelist, and subsequently lectured on the war and wrote for periodicals. Amongst his novels are: Barriers Burned Away (1872), What Can She Do? (1873), Opening a Chestnut Burr (1874), Success with Small Fruits (1880), A Day of Fate (1880), Without a Home (1881), His Sombre Rivals (1884), A Young Girl's Wooing (1884), An Original Belle (1885), He Fell in Love with His Wife (1886), Driven Back to Eden (1886) The Earth Trembled (1887), Miss Lou (1888), Nature's Serial Story (1889), Taken Alive, and Other Stories (1892), and The Home Acre.
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How to Do It
Edward Everett Hale 试读
Edward Everett Hale (April 3, 1822 - June 10, 1909) was an American author and Unitarian clergyman.
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A Crooked Path A Novel
Mrs. Alexander 试读
The London season had not yet reached its height, some years ago, before the arch admitting to Constitution Hill had been swept back to make room for the huge, ever-increasing stream of traffic, or the plebeian 'bus had been permitted to penetrate the precincts of Hamilton Place. It was the forenoon of a splendid day, one of the earliest of June, and at that hour the roadway between the entrance to Hyde Park and the gate then surmounted by the statue of the Duke of Wellington on his drooping steed was comparatively free, when two gentlemen coming from opposite directions recognized each other, and paused at the gate of Apsley House—the elder, a stout, florid man of military aspect, middle age, and average height, with large gray mustache and small, slightly bloodshot eyes; the younger, who was tall and bony, might have been thirty, or even forty, so grave and sedate was his bearing, although his erect carriage, elastic step, and clear keen dark eyes suggested earlier manhood.
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Don Rodriguez; chronicles of Shadow Valley
Plunkett,Edward J. M. D.,Lord Dunsany 试读
After long and patient research I am still unable to give to the reader of these Chronicles the exact date of the times that they tell of. Were it merely a matter of history there could be no doubts about the period but where magic is concerned, to however slight an extent, there must always be some element of mystery, arising partly out of ignorance and partly from the compulsion of those oaths by which magic protects its precincts from the tiptoe of curiosity. Moreover, magic, even in small quantities, appears to affect time, much as acids affect some metals, curiously changing its substance, until dates seem to melt into a mercurial form that renders them elusive even to the eye of the most watchful historian. It is the magic appearing in Chronicles III and IV that has gravely affected the date, so that all I can tell the reader with certainty of the period is that it fell in the later years of the Golden Age in Spain.
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I, Thou, and the Other One A Love Story
Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr 试读
Beyond Thirsk and Northallerton, through the Cleveland Hills to the sea eastward, and by Roseberry Topping, northward, there is a lovely, lonely district, very little known even at the present day. The winds stream through its hills, as cool and fresh as living water; and whatever beauty there is of mountain, valley, or moorland, Farndale and Westerdale can show it; while no part of England is so rich in those picturesque manor-houses which have been the homes of the same families for twenty generations.
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The Romance of Golden Star ..
George Chetwynd Griffith 试读
'Ah, what a thing it would be for us if his Inca Highness were really only asleep, as he looks to be! Just think what he could tell us—how easily he could re-create that lost wonderland of his for us, what riddles he could answer, what lies he could contradict. And then think of all the lost treasures that he could show us the way to. Upon my word, if Mephistopheles were to walk into this room just now, I think I should be tempted to make a bargain with him. Do you know, Djama, I believe I would give half the remainder of my own life, whatever that may be, to learn the secrets that were once locked up in that withered, desiccated brain of his.'
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A First Family of Tasajara
Bret Harte 试读
Bret Harte is best known for his stories about pioneering life in California. Harte moved to California in 1853 where he worked as a miner, journalist, teacher and messenger. The story begins, "It blows," said Joe Wingate. As if to accent the words of the speaker a heavy gust of wind at that moment shook the long light wooden structure which served as the general store of Sidon settlement, in Contra Costa. Even after it had passed a prolonged whistle came through the keyhole, sides, and openings of the closed glass front doors, that served equally for windows, and filled the canvas ceiling which hid the roof above like a bellying sail. A wave of enthusiastic emotion seemed to be communicated to a line of straw hats and sou-westers suspended from a cross-beam, and swung them with every appearance of festive rejoicing, while a few dusters, overcoats, and "hickory" shirts hanging on the side walls exhibited such marked hough idiotic animation that it had the effect of a satirical comment on the lazy, purposeless figures of the four living inmates of the store."
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A Fool for Love
Francis Lynde 试读
Francis Lynde (1856-1930) was an American author who wrote The Master of Appleby (1902), The Grafters (1904), A Fool for Love (1905), The Quickening (1906), Empire Builders (1907), The Taming of Red Butte Western (1911), The Price (1911), The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush (1913), Branded (1918), The Golden Spider (1923) and Mr. Arnold (1923). " It was a December morning, --the Missouri December of mild temperatures and saturated skies, --and the Chicago and Alton's fast train, dripping from the rush through the wet night, had steamed briskly to its terminal track in the Union Station at Kansas City. "
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The Worlds Desire
Andrew Lang 试读
Odysseus is an older man now, the lone survivor of a plague that has swept away all that he knew & loved on Ithaca. Shifting his fealty from Athena to Aphrodite, he embarks on a new voyage, one that leads him to Egypt during the time of Moses. As an outsider, he brings a unique perspective to the Biblical tale -- and it never bogs down in too much Victorian piety, either. The emphasis is on story, first & foremost.
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AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
Jules Verne 试读
In this classic adventure story, a wealthy gentleman, Phileas Fogg, makes a bet that he can travel around the world in eighty days. Fogg and his servant set off immediately, determined to win this race against time. Little do they know they aren't making the journey alone.... Fogg has been fingered as the culprit in a bank robbery, and a detective in hot pursuit is trailing them as they cross every continent.
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HEART OF DARKNESS黑暗之心
Joseph Conrad 试读
In a novella which remains highly controversial to this day, Conrad explores the relations between Africa and Europe. On the surface, this is a horrifying tale of colonial exploitation. The narrator, Marlowe journeys on business deep into the heart of Africa. But there he encounters Kurtz, an idealist apparently crazed and depraved by his power over the natives, and the meeting prompts Marlowe to reflect on the darkness at the heart of all men. This short but complex and often ambiguous story, which has been the basis of several films and plays, continues to provoke interpretation and discussion.作
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Aesop‘s Fables
Aesop 试读
203 of Aesop's most enduring and popular fables, translated into readable, modern American English and beautifully illustrated with 50 classic woodcuts by the great French artist J.J. Grandville.
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Great Expectations
Charles Dickens 试读
Great Expectations tells the unforgettable story of the orphan Pip and his coming of age with the help of a mysterious benefactor. It is at once an expertly crafted novel and a profound reappraisal of the Victorian middle class and its values.
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Pride and Prejudice
简·奥斯汀 试读
11Pride and Prejudice is the story of Mr and Mrs Bennet (minor gentry), their five daughters, and the various romantic adventures at their Hertfordshire residence of Longbourn. The parents' characters are greatly contrasted: Mr Bennet being a wise and witty gentleman; while Mrs Bennet is permanently distracted by the issue of marrying off her daughters at any cost. The reason for Mrs Bennet's obsession is that their estate will pass by law after Mr Bennet's death to his closest blood relative: his cousin, the Reverend William Collins (a fatuous, tactless and pompous man). Austen's tale is spurred on by the arrival of the young and wealthy bachelor Charles Bingley and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy. It is the story of the various affections, affectations and engagement shenanigans that develop due to Mrs Bennet's relentless matchmaking and the dashing Darcy's tempestuous relationship with Elizabeth Bennet who Jane Austen claimed was favourite amongst her literary offspring. Its 1797 earlier version was turned down for publication and it appeared in this form in 1813.
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A Double Barrelled Detective Story
Mark Twain 试读
Mark Twain is best known for his novels and short stories. Twain uses his incredible whit to depict life in America. His books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have been read by school children for generations. His life on the Mississippi River has peeked the imagination of boys to go and build a raft and sail off into unknown adventures. Double Barrelled Detective Story is a story in which Sherlock Holmes finds himself in the Old West. From Wikipedia, At a mining camp in California, Fetlock Jones, a nephew of Sherlock Holmes, kills his master, a silver-miner, by blowing up his cabin. Since this occurs when Holmes happens to be visiting, he brings his skills to bear upon the case and arrives at logically worked conclusions that are proved to be abysmally wrong by an amateur detective with an extremely keen sense of smell, which he employs in solving the case. This could be seen as yet another piece where Twain tries to prove that life does not quite follow logic.
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A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett 试读
Captain Crewe is very wealthy and states that Sara is destined for a lavish, comfortable future. Despite being pampered all her life in India, Sara herself is very intelligent, polite, and creative. Headmistress Miss Minchin is secretly jealous and dislikes Sara for her cleverness, but openly praises and flatters her because of her father's wealth. Before departing for India, Captain Crewe purchases Sara an elegant wardrobe and a doll whom Sara adores and names "Emily." Sara's friendliness and love for pretending and storytelling makes her popular with most of the school's students.
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A Short History of the World
赫伯特·乔治·威尔斯 试读
A Short History of the World is a period—piece non—fictional historic work by H.G. Wells first published by Cassell & Co,Ltd Publishing in 1922. It was republished under Penguin Classics in 2006. The book was largely inspired by Wells earlier 1919 work The Outline of History. The book tells of the history of the world,starting with the believed origins of the Earth around 2,000 million years ago,now known to be 4,404 million years according to 2005 estimates.The book then goes on to explain the,at the time believed,development of the Earth and life on Earth,until reaching primitive thought and the development of humankind from the Cradle of Civilisation. The book ends with the outcome of the First World War,the Russian famine of 1921,and the League of Nations in 1922.
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Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Thomas de Quincey 试读
HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. I here present you, courteous reader, with the record of a remarkable period in my life. The Confessions of an English Opium Eater is both a classic of the English autobiographical genre and a hard-nosed study of the effects of drugs on an artistic mind. A close associate of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the brilliant but troubled de Quincey recounts both the pleasures and pain of opium addiction in captivating prose. The result is by turns enlightened, nightmarish and witty – a faithful mirror of the drug itself.
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Daddy-Long-Legs
Jean Webster 试读
Bright and lively Judy Abbott is an orphan who dreams of escaping the drudgery of her life at the John Grier Home. One day she receives a marvelous opportunity—a wealthy male benefactor has agreed to fund her higher education. In return, Judy must keep him informed about the ups and downs of college life. From horrendous Latin lessons to falling in love, the result is a series of letters both hilarious and poignant. Fans of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women will relish this American-girl-power coming-of-age story. This gentle romance is the seventh book in the Looking Glass Library series.
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Ethan Frome
伊迪丝·华顿 试读
Tragic story of wasted lives, set against a bleak New England background. A poverty-stricken New England farmer, his ailing wife and a youthful housekeeper are drawn relentlessly into a deep-rooted domestic struggle in this hauntingly grim tale of thwarted love.
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Fathers and Children
Ivan Turgenev 试读
Examines the conflict of attitudes in mid-19th-century Russia, as distant pre-echoes of the Revolution continue to rumble through the remote rural landscape. The story follows the Kirsanov family, representatives of the old regime, and the violent character of the anti-hero Bazarov.
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Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray 试读
A deliciously satirical attack on a money-mad society, Vanity Fair, which first appeared in 1847, is an immensely moral novel, and an immensely witty one. Called in its subtitle "A Novel Without a Hero," Vanity Fair has instead two heroines: the faithful, loyal Amelia Sedley and the beautiful and scheming social climber Becky Sharp. It also engages a huge cast of wonderful supporting characters as the novel spins from Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies to affairs of love and war on the Continent to liaisons in the dazzling ballrooms of London. Thackeray's forte is the bon mot and it is amply exercised in a novel filled with memorably wicked lines. Lengthy and leisurely in pace, the novel follows the adventures of Becky and Amelia as their fortunes rise and fall, creating a tale of both picaresque and risqué. Thackery mercilessly skewers his society, especially the upper class, poking fun at their shallow values and pointedly jabbing at their hypocritical "morals." His weapons, however, are not fire and brimstone but an unerring eye for the absurd and a genius for observation of the foibles of his age. An enduring classic, this great novel is a brilliant study in duplicity and hypocrisy…and a mirror with which to view our own times.
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Northanger Abbey
简·奥斯汀 试读
Portraying social life in fashionable Bath and centred around Catherine Morland, this novel ridicules the popular tales of romance and terror and contrasts with these the normal realities of life.
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Of Human Bondage
毛姆 试读
The first and most autobiographical of Maugham's masterpieces. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as a would-be artist, he settles in London to train as a doctor where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a tortured and maso...
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Poor White
Sherwood Anderson 试读
Sherwood Anderson was a 20th century American writer of short stories. Anderson grew up in Ohio and after college became a copywriter in Chicago. He is most famous for his collection of interrelated short stories, Winesburg Ohio, which he began writing in 1919. Poor White was published in 1920. Hugh McVey is an inventor who rises from poverty. The story is set on the banks of the Mississippi River during the years when rural America is influenced by industrialization sweeping the country.
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Queer Little Folks
H·Stowe 试读
Now she bustled up to the parsonage at the top of the oak-tree, to tell old Parson Too-Whit what she thought he ought to preach for his next sermon, and how dreadful the morals of the parish were becoming. Then, having perfectly bewildered the poor old gentleman, who was always sleepy of a Monday morning, Mother Magpie would take a peep into Mrs. Oriole's nest, sit chattering on a bough above, and pour forth floods of advice, which, poor little Mrs. Oriole used to say to her husband, bewildered her more than a hard north-east storm.
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Sonnets from the Portuguese
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 试读
"I love your verse with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett . . . and I love you too," Robert Browning wrote in January 1845, thus initiating the most celebrated literary correspondence of the nineteenth century. During their courtship, Elizabeth privately wrote a series of forty-four sonnets to Robert, which she disclosed to no one -- not even to him -- until three years after their marriage. The poems were later collected in a volume entitled Sonnets form the Portuguese. In this elegant new edition, the poems are accompanied by relevant excerpts from Elizabeth and Robert's love letters.