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Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished St. Petersburg student who formulates and executes a plan to kill a hated, unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money, thereby solving his financial problems and at the same time, he argues, ridding the world of evil. Crime and Punishment is considered by many as the first of Dostoevsky's cycle of great novels, which would culminate with his last completed work, The Brothers Karamazov, shortly before his death. (Summary from Wikipedia)

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Fiction, Literature

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In The Blonde Lady, being a record of the duel of wits between Arsène Lupin and the English detective - original title Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes - the gentleman-burglar once more meets his enemy, the English detective Herlock Sholmes. If in the last story of Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar Sherlock Holmes arrives too late (the name was at a later date changed to Herlock Sholmes in reply to complaints and threats by Conan Doyle regarding copyrights), in the two stories that compose The Blonde Lady these two great intellects are bound in opposite directions. Where one chooses to abide to the law, the other uses his power and wits to crime - and who is going to win? These two stories appeared in chapters and as separate pieces in the magazine Je Sais Tout , during the years of 1906 and 1907, and were published together as a book first in 1908, being the second of the books where Arsène Lupin, the kind-hearted and humorous thief, is the main character. (Summary by Leni)...

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Adventure, Spy stories, Mystery

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Ill feelings exist between the Meadowcroft sons and John Jago, the foreman of the Meadowcroft estate. Then, John Jago disappears, and a body is found in a kiln. The Meadowcroft brothers stand accused of the crime, but are they guilty? The Dead Alive is a novel written by Wilkie Collins based on the true-life Boorn Brothers murder conviction case of 1819. Jesse and Stephen Boorn were sentenced to death for the murder of their brother-in-law, but were they wrongly convicted? (Summary by M Z Spark, Phil, and Barry)...

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Fiction, Tragedy

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Valeria Brinton marries Eustace Woodville despite objections from Woodville's family leading to disquiet for Valeria's own family and friends. Just a few days after the wedding, various incidents lead Valeria to suspect her husband is hiding a dark secret in his past and she discovers that he has been using a false name. He refuses to discuss it leading them to curtail their honeymoon and return to London where Valeria learns that he was on trial for his first wife's murder by arsenic. He was tried in a Scottish court and the verdict was 'Not Proven' rather than 'not guilty' implying his guilt but without enough proof for a jury to convict him. Valeria sets out to save their happiness by proving her husband innocent of the crime. In her quest, she comes across the disabled character Miserrimus Dexter, a fascinating but mentally unstable genius, and his devoted female cousin, Ariel. Dexter will prove crucial to uncovering the disturbing truth behind the mysterious death....

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Mystery

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The Riot Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1714, the first year of the reign of George I, and came into effect in August 1715. This was a time of widespread social disturbance, as the preamble describes; the Act sought to put an end to this. A group of twelve or more people, “being unlawfully, riotously and tumultuously assembled”, would be read a proclamation; they must disperse within an hour, on pain of death. The same fate would befall anyone preventing the reading of the proclamation, or damaging buildings while on a riot. If the law enforcement officers happened to injure or kill a rioter, they were immune from prosecution. The reading of the proclamation, the wording of which is detailed in the Act, was the necessary first step before action could be taken against the rioters. This gave us the phrase “to read the riot act”, to give a stern warning or rebuke. The Act was repealed in Britain in 1973, but had long since fallen into disuse there. A version is still in force in Canada....

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Essay/Short nonfiction

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Le Père Goriot est un roman d’Honoré de Balzac, écrit en 1834, dont la publication débute dans la Revue de Paris et qui paraît en 1835 en librairie. Il fait partie des Scènes de la vie privée de la Comédie humaine. Le Père Goriot établit les bases de ce qui deviendra un véritable édifice : la Comédie humaine, construction littéraire unique en son genre, avec des liens entre les volumes, des passerelles, des renvois. (Résumé par Wikipédia) Le Père Goriot (English: Father Goriot or Old Goriot ) is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), included in the Scènes de la vie privée section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine . Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three characters: the elderly doting Goriot; a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named Vautrin; and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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In What Prohibition Has Done to America , Fabian Franklin presents a concise but forceful argument against the Eighteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Beginning in 1920, this Amendment prohibited the sale and manufacture of alcoholic beverages in the United States, until it was repealed in 1933. Franklin contends that the Amendment is not only a crime against the Constitution of the United States, and not only a crime against the whole spirit of our Federal system, but a crime against the first principles of rational government. Writing only two years after Prohibition began, he correctly predicts many of its disastrous consequences, such as runaway bootlegging and organized crime. The book is both a passionate defense of liberty, and a reminder to Americans of the perils of surrendering it. (Summary by Leon Mire)...

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Politics, History

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FOR more than six hundred years that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws. So begins Spooner's epic on the jury, its origins and history. Spooner examines the history and powers of a jury, from the magna carta in King John's time, to the practices in the 18th century. A classic work on law, Spooner argues that the decision of the jury is sovereign over the king's law. (Summary by Bethanne)...

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History, Philosophy

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Volume One of the New and Complete Newgate Calendar, covering the years 1700 through 1723, relates stories of British trials, the persons accused and the crimes committed. It is primarily based upon contemporary newspaper and pamphlet accounts of these trials. Where the criminal is particularly well known, such as the highwayman, burglar and escape artist Jack Sheppard, other sources were used as well. The readings used here are selected to illustrate different aspects of the eighteenth century criminal world and the British legal system.(Summary by Roy Shreiber)...

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History