Genre Other. Page - 195

Description The Jungle Book is a short collection of stories published by Kipling in various magazines between 1893 and 1894. Kipling spent both his early years and his late teenage years in India, and that upbringing is front and center in these stories—despite them being written while he was living in Vermont, in the United States. The stories are fable-like, with most of them centering on the lives of anthropomorphised jungle animals and a few focused on human characters in India. The

Description Father Goriot, today considered one of Balzac’s most important works, is part of his novel sequence The Human Comedy. It’s the first of Balzac’s novels to feature recurring characters, a technique that he famously developed in his subsequent novels. Set in Paris during the Bourbon Restoration of the early 1800s, Father Goriot follows Eugène de Rastignac, a student born to noble roots but little means, as he tries to climb the social ladder in Paris. The impoverished Goriot is

Description Father Brown is a Catholic priest, but a slightly unusual one in that he’s also an amateur detective. Unlike his more famous literary cousin Sherlock, Father Brown takes a less analytical and more intuition-oriented approach to solving the many murders that he happens to come across. This collection of short murder mysteries is Brown’s first appearance on the literary stage. In it we see him practicing his unique brand of sleuthing alongside his sometimes-partner, the reformed

Description Little Women is the classic coming-of-age tale of four sisters on their journey to adulthood. Though today it’s considered a classic, Little Women almost wasn’t written: Alcott wanted to publish a collection of short stories instead, but her publisher and her father pressed her to write a book that would appeal to a wide audience of young girls. The first volume was written quickly and published in 1868; it was a huge success, and Alcott composed volume 2 just as quickly and

Description Three Men in a Boat is one of the most popular English travelogues, having never been out of print since its publication in 1889 and causing its publisher to comment, “I cannot imagine what becomes of all the copies of that book I issue. I often think the public must eat them.” The novel itself is a brisk, light-hearted, and funny account of a two-week boating holiday taken by three friends up the Thames river. Jerome is a sort of everyman narrator, and even the stodgiest reader can

Description The Luck of Barry Lyndon was first published as a serial in Fraser’s Magazine, then later as a complete volume entitled The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.—a title Thackeray disliked, but that was selected by his publisher. Thackeray had great difficulty composing the novel, and found himself frequently frustrated in his attempts to get Barry out of yet another jam. Ultimately he was displeased with his work, and considered it one of his lesser novels. Despite Thackeray’s neglect,

Description H. G. Wells’ classic tale of alien invasion has to this day never been out of print. Like many works of the era, it was originally published as a serial—though the publisher, Pearson’s Magazine, demanded to know the ending before committing to publication. The War of the Worlds, with its matter-of-fact narrative style and deft mixture of contemporary science and fictionalized interstellar war machines, became an instant hit. Its themes of colonialism, social Darwinism, good and

Description Don Quixote is a novel that doesn’t need much introduction. Not only is it widely considered the greatest Spanish literary work of all time, one of the greatest literary works in history, and a cornerstone of the Western literary canon, it’s also considered one of the first—if not the first—modern novels. This Standard Ebooks edition is believed to be the first ebook edition of Don Quixote to feature a full transcription of translator John Ormsby’s nearly 1,000 footnotes. Ormsby as

Description Right Ho, Jeeves is the second novel to feature P. G. Wodehouse’s popular Bertie Wooster and Jeeves characters. Bertie, a member of the English upper class and one of the “idle rich,” tries his best to arrange relationships between two pairs of his friends. Though he means well, Bertie’s bumbling attempts wind up doing more harm than good (as usual), leaving it to his valet, Jeeves, to see if he can sort things out. A smooth, easy, and often hilarious read, Right Ho, Jeeves is an

Description Initially serialized in Analog magazine between 1962 and 1963, Space Viking takes place after the events of H. Beam Piper’s earlier serialization, The Cosmic Computer. Space Viking is a classic space opera: what begins as an interstellar tale of revenge turns into a swashbuckling adventure yarn, and finally into a meditation on empire-building and galactic governance with direct allusions to our modern history. This richness of content makes Space Viking a unique read. The reader