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This is James Joyce's first novel, the semi-autobiographical story of a young Irish boy who struggles with family, country, and religion to become an artist and a man. (Summary by Peter Bobbe)...

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Literature

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Excerpt: The life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings and Complete Career of the Nickelby Family by Charles Dickens....

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Great Expectations is written in the first person and is virtually a fictional autobiography of “Pip” from his childhood, through often painful experiences, to adulthood. It charts his progress as he moves from the Kent marshes - his social status radically changed having gained an unknown benefactor - to busy commercial London. The book is richly populated with a variety of extraordinary characters many of whom, unbeknownst to them, have lives that are inextricably linked to the others. It is all there, love, hate, passion, humour, rejection, duplicity, betrayal, a whole gamut of emotions and human strengths and weaknesses . This is one of Dickens most fascinating, and disturbing novels. (Summary by Peter Keeble)...

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Fiction, Literature

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Excerpt: Easter Holidays; Hail! festal Easter that dost bring Approach of sweetly-smiling spring, When Nature?s clad in green: When feather?d songsters through the grove With beasts confess the power of love And brighten all the scene. Now youths the breaking stages load That swiftly rattling o?er the road To Greenwich haste away: While some with sounding oars divide Of smoothly-flowing Thames the tide All sing the festive lay. With mirthful dance they beat the ground, Their shouts of joy the hills resound And catch the jocund noise: Without a tear, without a sigh Their moments all in transports fly Till evening ends their joys....

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Table of Contents: Easter Holidays, 1 -- Dura Navis, 2 -- Nil Pejus est Caelibe Vit‘, 4 -- Sonnet to the Autumnal Moon, 5 -- Anthem for the Children of Christ?s Hospital, 6 -- Julia, 7 -- Quae Nocent Docent, 8 -- The Nose, 9 -- To the Muse, 11 -- Destruction of the Bastile, 12 -- Life, 14 -- Progress of Vice, 15 -- Monody on the Death of Chatterton, 16 -- An Invocation, 19 -- Anna and Harland, 20 -- To the Evening Star, 21 -- Pain, 22 -- On a Lady Weeping: Imitation from the Latin of Nicolaus Archius, 23 -- Monody on a Tea-kettle, 24 -- Genevieve, 26 -- On Receiving an Account that his Only Sister?s Death was Inevitable, 27 -- On Seeing a Youth Affectionately Welcomed by a Sister, 28 -- A Mathematical Problem, 29 -- Honour, 32 -- On Imitation, 34 -- Inside the Coach, 35 -- Devonshire Roads, 36 -- Music, 37 -- Sonnet: On Quitting School for College, 38 -- Absence: A Farewell Ode on Quitting School for Jesus College, Cambridge, 39 -- Happiness, 40 -- A Wish: Written in Jesus Wood, Feb. 10, 1792, 43 -- An Ode in the Manner of Anacreon, 44 -- To Disappointment, 45 -- A Fragment Found in a Lecture-Room, 46 -- Ode, 47 -- A Lover?s Complai...

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The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) is a tragic novel by English author Thomas Hardy subtitled, The Life and Death of a Man of Character. It is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge (based on the town of Dorchester in Dorset). The book is one of Hardy's Wessex novels, all set in a fictional rustic England. (Wikipedia)A poor, disgruntled, drunken young man sells his wife and child to the highest bidder. When he awakens, sober, the next day he regrets his rash act and vows to give up drink and find his family and bring them home. Eventually he is forced to give up the search and move on with his life. He does this quite successfully until, nearly 20 years later, his past comes back to haunt him. (DebraLynn)...

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Literature, Fiction

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. My father?s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip....

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Excerpt: BOOK I; Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, Sing Heav?nly Muse, that on the secret top Of OREB, or of SINAI, didst inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav?ns and Earth Rose out of CHAOS: Or if SION Hill Delight thee more, and SILOA?S Brook that flow?d Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th? AONIAN Mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime. And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th? upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know?st; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad?st it pregnant: What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great Argument I may assert th? Eternal Providence, And justifie the wayes of God to men. Say first, for Heav?n hides nothi...

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Table of Contents: BOOK I., 1 -- BOOK II., 20 -- BOOK III, 45 -- BOOK IV., 62 -- BOOK V., 86 -- BOOK VI., 108 -- BOOK VII., 130 -- BOOK VIII., 160 -- BOOK IX., 188 -- BOOK X., 214...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1; THE family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner, as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old Gentleman?s days were comfortably spent. His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and ...

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Table of Contents: I 1 -- Chapter 1, 3 -- Chapter 2, 6 -- Chapter 3, 10 -- Chapter 4, 13 -- Chapter 5, 17 -- Chapter 6, 19 -- Chapter 7, 22 -- Chapter 8, 24 -- Chapter 9, 27 -- Chapter 10, 31 -- Chapter 11, 35 -- Chapter 12, 38 -- Chapter 13, 42 -- Chapter 14, 47 -- Chapter 15, 50 -- Chapter 16, 55 -- Chapter 17, 60 -- Chapter 18, 64 -- Chapter 19, 67 -- Chapter 20, 73 -- Chapter 21, 78 -- Chapter 22, 84 -- II 91 -- Chapter 23, 93 -- Chapter 24, 97...

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Excerpt: Two Poets by Honore de Balzac, translated by Ellen Marriage.