Other books that might interest you

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  This Side of Paradise

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  The book that launched F. Scott Fitzgerald to stardom 
   
  This Side of Paradise was first published in 1920 and was considered daring and intellectual in its day. Its enormous popularity helped to launch young Fitzgerald's career as a major writer. 
   
  Amory Blaine has been brought-up by a wealthy, idiosyncratic, and alcoholic mother. Snobbish because he knows no better, he is uncomfortable with others and must learn the proper social etiquette and values embraced by his peers. As he progresses to Princeton University from the Midwest, he flirts with some predatory young women and chances friendship with some intellectual young men. Will he find happiness, or will his life be forever burdened by his ineptitude this side of paradise? 
   
  This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

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  Colonel Benyon's Entanglement -...

  Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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  Mary Elizabeth Braddon was born in London on the 4th October 1835. 
   
  At age 5 her parents separated but her ambition to succeed was not daunted.  After being privately educated she took to acting, and the minor roles she obtained where enough to support both her and her mother.  This potential career waned as soon as she began writing and secured an income from it. 
   
  In 1860, she met John Maxwell, a publisher of periodicals, and moved in with him the following year.  At the time Maxwell was already married with five children but his wife was confined to an Irish mental asylum.  On her death they married and she had six children by him. 
   
  Braddon was prolific and wrote over 80 novels, perhaps the most famous is ‘Lady Audley's Secret’ (1862), which won her both sales and a fortune as a bestseller.  She also wrote a number of historical fiction novels which again increased her reputation. 
   
  She was equally prolific as a short story writer, primarily supernatural and ghost stories, all of which continue to be anthologized to this day, such is the high regard they are kept in. 
   
  Braddon founded Belgravia magazine in 1866, its fare being serialised sensation novels, poems, travel narratives and biographies, along with essays on fashion, history and science, all lavishly illustrated.  She also edited Temple Bar magazine. 
   
  Mary Elizabeth Braddon died on 4th February 1915 and is buried in Richmond Cemetery. 
   
  In this story Colonel Benyon returns from service abroad on sick leave to find that England is very much changed.  He accepts a friend’s invitation to take a short recuperation at his home in Cornwall, which has lain empty for some time.  The Colonel takes up the offer, but things do not go quite as planned.

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  De Profundis (Unabridged)

  Oscar Wilde

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  De Profundis is a 50,000 word letter written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to Lord Alfred Douglas, his lover. Wilde wrote the letter between January and March 1897; he was not allowed to send it, but took it with him upon release. In it he repudiates Lord Alfred for what Wilde finally sees as his arrogance and vanity; he had not forgotten Douglas's remark, when he was ill, "When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting." He also felt redemption and fulfillment in his ordeal, realizing that his hardship had filled the soul with the fruit of experience, however bitter it tasted at the time.

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  Heart of Darkness

  Joseph Conrad

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  Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon. The story tells of Charles Marlow, an Englishman who took a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Heart of Darkness exposes the myth behind colonization while exploring the three levels of darkness that the protagonist, Marlow, encounters--the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the European's cruel treatment of the natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil. Although Conrad does not give the name of the river, at the time of writing the Congo Free State, the location of the large and important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. 
  Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization, in a cover-up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region. This symbolic story is a story within a story or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts from dusk through to late night, to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary his Congolese adventure. The passage of time and the darkening sky during the fictitious narrative-within-the-narrative parallel the atmosphere of the story.

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  The White Cat

  Hugh Walpole

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  Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist, famous for his skill at scene setting and vivid plots. He was a best-selling author in the '20s and '30s and remains popular to this day."The White Cat" is the story of a young American man in Hollywood who, being at the end of his financial possibilities, conceives a plan to marry a wealthy English widow. The only difficulty is that the lady's cat does not appear to approve of the match...and it is a very peculiar and oddly sinister feline....

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  Her Lover

  Maxim Gorky

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  Maxim Gorky, whose real name was Alexey Maximovich Pyeshkov, is probably the best-known late-19th-century Russian fiction writer among the English-speaking world. His pen name translates as Maxim the Bitter, an attitude reflected in many of his works.Much of his writing reflects his own terrible life experiences and suffering. It is in his short stories that he reveals his true genius. "Her Lover" describes the plight of a lonely, alienated woman who creates an imaginary lover for herself.

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