In the Classic Literature section we hope to make available in eBook
format the excellent books that over time have been recognized as
"Classics". Those books you have wanted to read for the first time, or
perhaps again and again. We hope you enjoy our presentation.
Anna Karenina
By Leo Nikoleyvich Tolstoy
In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy moved away from the vast historical sweep of War
and Peace to tell, with extraordinary understanding, the story of an
aristocratic woman who brings ruin on herself. Anna's tragedy is interwoven
with the courtship and marriage of Kitty and Levin as well as the lives of
many other characters. Rich in incident, powerful in characterization, the
novel also expresses Tolstoy's own moral vision.
First Published: 1882
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Adobe, Microsoft, Palm
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Beowulf
By Burton Raffel
Beowulf is the earliest extant poem in a modern European language. It was
composed in England four centuries before the Norman Conquest. As a social
document this great epic poem is invaluable--reflecting a feudal, newly
Christian world of heroes and monsters, blood and victory, life and death.
As a work of art it is quite unique; Beowulf rings with a beauty, power,
and artistry that have kept it alive for more than twelve centuries. The
noble simplicity of Beowulf's anonymous Anglo-Saxon singer is recaptured in
this vivid translation by Burton Raffel.
First Published: 1833
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Adobe, Microsoft, Palm
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The Brothers Karamazov
By Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel, The Karamazov Brothers, is both
a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The
dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered; his sons are
all at some level involved. Bound up with this intense family
drama is Dostoevsky's exploration of many deeply felt ideas about the
existence of God, the question of human freedom, the collective nature of
guilt, the disastrous consequences of rationalism. The novel is also richly
comic: the Russian Orthodox Church, the legal system, and even the author's
most cherished causes and beliefs are presented with a note of irreverence,
so that orthodoxy and radicalism, sanity and madness, love and hatred,
right and wrong are no longer mutually exclusive.
First Published: 1880
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Microsoft, Palm
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The Count of Monte Cristo
By Alexandre Dumas
Set against the tumultuous years of the Post-Napoleonic era, Dumas's grand
historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes,
a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long
imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a
vision of France that has become immortal.
First Published: 1845
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Adobe, Microsoft, Palm
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Hamlet
By William Shakespeare
One of the most famous dramas of all time, Hamlet is the story of a young
prince torn between his dual roles of ruler and son, between introspective
moral questioning and swift action. The play is filled with action and
provocative inquiry.
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Microsoft
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Journey to the Centre of the Earth
By Jules Verne
When Axel deciphers an old parchment that describes a secret passage through
a volcano to the centre of the earth, nothing will stop his eccentric Uncle
Lidenbrock from setting out at once. So, with silent Hans the guide, the
two men embark on a perilous, astonishing, terrifying journey through the
subterranean world--the most incredible voyage ever!
First Published: 1872
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Adobe, Microsoft, Palm
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Moby Dick
By Herman Melville
Written by one of America's greatest authors, Moby-Dick is a work of
tremendous power and depth--one of world literature's great poetic epics.
In the novel, Herman
Melville recounts the Promethean quest of Captain Ahab, who, having lost a
leg in a earlier battle with a White Whale, is determined to catch the beast
and destroy it. By the time readers meet Ahab, he is a vengeful, crazed,
and terror-provoking figure, for Moby-Dick has come to represent for him
all the evil in the world. The relentless voyage of Ahab and his crew, a
finely etched group of weird and wonderful characters who seem both
flesh-and-blood individuals and symbolic of the varying qualities of men,
becomes a masterful drama of life at sea. Through realistic storytelling,
symbolic allegory, and allusive and figurative language, Melville achieves
in Moby-Dick a special intensity that readers will marvel at, and not soon
forget.
First Published: 1851
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Adobe, Microsoft, Palm
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Mrs. Dalloway
By Virginia Woolf
A landmark work of world literature, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is an
account of one day in the life of an upper class British woman, her husband,
and her circle of friends. Woolf's narration of Clarissa Dalloway's day
begins with her protagonist's preparations for a party she is holding at
her house that evening, and it ends as the party gets underway. Clarissa
reflects on the choices she has made and the significant
moments that have shaped the course of her life. By juxtaposing Clarissa's
present experience with flashbacks to her life as it was thirty years ago,
Woolf sets up a number of remarkable tensions that in many ways define the
thematic import of the novel.
First Published: 1925
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Adobe, Microsoft
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The Old Man and the Sea
By Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in
language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban
fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal--a relentless, agonizing
battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway
recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in
the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this
hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary
world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for
Literature.
First Published: 1952
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Microsoft, Palm
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Pride and Prejudice
By Jane Austen
Pride 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. 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.
First Published: 1813
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Adobe, Microsoft, Palm
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Walking
By Henry David Thoreau
A meandering ode to the simple act and accomplished art of taking a walk.
Profound and humorous, companionable and curmudgeonly. Walking, by America's
first nature writer, is your personal and portable guide to the activity
that, like no other, awakens the senses and soul to the 'absolute freedom
and wildness' of nature.
First Published: 1862
Genre: Classic Literature
Format: Adobe, Microsoft, Palm
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