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Description: Considered in turn a Gothic novel, a psychological case study of an unreliable narrator, and an examination of totalitarian thought, the ultimately unclassifiable novel is set in a pseudo-Christian world of angels, devils, and demonic possession. It has been the subject of increasing critical attention in recent years, and has received wide acclaim for its probing quest into the nature of religious fanaticism and Calvinist predestination. It is written in En...
Description: The unprecedented success of the romance of Varney the Vampyre, leaves the Author but little to say further, than that he accepts that success and its results as gratefully as it is possible for any one to do popular favours. A belief in the existence of Vampyres first took its rise in Norway and Sweden, from whence it rapidly spread to more southern regions, taking a firm hold of the imaginations of the more credulous portion of mankind. The following roman...
Description: Why don't you find yourself some nice little American girl, his father had often repeated. But George was on Venus ... and he loved pale green skin ... and globular heads and most of all, George loved Gistla.
Description: Emma is a comic novel by Jane Austen, first published in December 1815, about the perils of misconstrued romance. The main character, Emma Woodhouse, is described in the opening paragraph as handsome, clever, and rich but is also rather spoiled. Prior to starting the novel, Austen wrote, I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.
Description: Austen's most wicked tale, Lady Susan is a short epistolary novel by Jane Austen, possibly written in 1794 but not published until 1871. Lady Susan is a selfish, attractive woman, who tries to trap the best possible husband while maintaining a relationship with a married man. She subverts all the standards of the romantic novel; she has an active role, she's not only beautiful but intelligent and witty, and her suitors are significantly younger than she is.
Description: The final novel by the acclaimed writer places heroine Anne Elliot, a woman of integrity and deep emotion, against the brutality and hypocrisy of Regency England.
Description: Pride And Prejudice, the story of Mrs. Bennet's attempts to marry off her five daughters is one of the best-loved and most enduring classics in English literature. Excitement fizzes through the Bennet household at Longbourn in Hertfordshire when young, eligible Mr. Charles Bingley rents the fine house nearby. He may have sisters, but he also has male friends, and one of these—the haughty, and even wealthier, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy—irks the vivacious Elizabeth...
Description: Elinor and Marianne are two daughters of Mr. Dashwood by his second wife. They have a younger sister, Margaret, and an older half-brother named John. When their father dies, the family estate passes to John and the Dashwood women are left in reduced circumstances. Fortunately, a distant relative offers to rent the women a cottage on his property. The novel follows the Dashwood sisters to their new home, where they experience both romance and heartbreak.
Description: The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787. Werther was an important novel of the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and it also influenced the later Romantic literary movement.
Description: Set amidst the religious struggles of the 17th century, this is the story of a young minister's return to the town of his birth. There he finds a coven of Satan worshippers and falls deeply in love with one of their victims in a struggle for right and wrong.
Description: The Lost Stradivarius (1895), by J. Meade Falkner, is a short novel of ghosts and the evil that can be invested in an object, in this case an extremely fine Stradivarius violin. After finding the violin of the title in a hidden compartment in his college rooms, the protagonist, a wealthy young heir, becomes increasingly secretive as well as obsessed by a particular piece of music, which seems to have the power to call up the ghost of its previous owner. Roam...
Description: The Curse of Capistrano is a 1919 novella by Johnston McCulley and the first work to feature the fictional character Zorro (zorro is the Spanish word for fox). After the enormous success of the 1920 film adaptation, The Mark of Zorro, the story was republished under that name. Prior to being published in novella form, The Curse of Capistrano appeared as five serialized installments in the pulp magazine All-Story Weekly.