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  The Best of Thomas Hardy

  Thomas Hardy

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  This collection includes two of the most notable titles from author Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd. Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of an impoverished family, must navigate a world of desire and romance once she meets Alec d'Urberville. The son of a rich widow, he takes a fancy to her and gets her a position as the poultry keeper on his family's estate. However, her good fortune is soon complicated by Alec's libertine ways, and Tess returns home shamed. Once recovered, she separates herself from the gossip by finding work at a dairy farm outside the village. There, she meets and falls for Angel Clare, the eligible youngest son of the local reverend. But as her life begins to change for the better, she is troubled by a moral dilemma: whether or not to tell Angel about her past. Gabriel Oak is a shepherd struggling to get ahead when Bathsheba Everdene moves next door. Although he loves her, she sees him as a friend and rejects him for two other suitors. After she leaves town, she and Gabriel are reunited years later, once everything has changed. In this classic novel, Thomas Hardy depicts the English countryside as idyllic but also hard and unforgiving, much like the Victorian mindsets of the day.

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  Collection of Ghost Stories A...

  E.F. Benson

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  E. F. Benson's (1867-1940) ghost and supernatural stories are marvellous jewels, that combine elegant writing with moments of blood-curdling horror. This collection comprises thirteen of his finest stories: 
  The Man Who Went Too FarThe Horror HornThe Other BedGavon's EveThe Room in the TowerAli Abdul's GraveHow Fear departed from the Long GalleryThe Shootings of AchnaleishThe Dust-CloudThe Confession of Charles LinkworthCaterpillarsAt the FarmhouseThe Bus-Conductor

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  Kidnapped

  Robert Louis Stevenson

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  This classic of Robert Louis Stevenson, charts the tale of David Balfour in the Year 1751: Who upon arriving at his uncles house after his Fathers death, is then promptly kidnapped on his orders. All seems lost until a chance encounter with one Alan Breck, which leads to adventure, shipwreck, and a journey across the Highlands of Scotland, pursued by Redcoats in a land still rife with unrest in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745. Believed to based in parts on the real life drama of James Annesly from 1731 this story has remained a well known and regarded fiction classic across the years and centuries since it's first publication. 
  Narrated by Michael Ward

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  The Adventures of Gerard

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Brigadier Gerard is an officer in Napoleon's army-recklessly brave, engagingly openhearted, and unshakable (if not a little absurd) in his devotion to the enigmatic emperor. Arthur Conan Doyle's wonderful stories about the brigadier are as funny as they are hair-raising, and the brigadier himself has long since found a place in the hearts of his admirers second only to that of Doyle's incomparable Sherlock Holmes. Gerard's comic adventures are sure to find new devotees among the ardent fans of such writers as Patrick O'Brian and George MacDonald Fraser.The Adventures of Gerard contains eight exciting tales of the brigadier's exploits. They are "How Brigadier Gerard Lost His Ear," "How the Brigadier Captured Saragossa," "How the Brigadier Slew the Fox," "How the Brigadier Saved the Army," "How the Brigadier Triumphed in England," "How the Brigadier Rode to Minsk," "How the Brigadier Bore Himself to Waterloo," and "The Last Adventure of the Brigadier."

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  Candide - The Classic Tale

  Voltaire

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  Candide is characterized by its tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious coming-of-age narrative, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is bitter and matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so does Candide in this short theological novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers. Through Candide, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism. 
   
  Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned to the public because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition, and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, Candide is considered as Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon. It is among the most frequently taught works of French literature. The British poet and literary critic Martin Seymour-Smith listed Candide as one of the 100 most influential books ever written.

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  Kew Gardens

  Virginia Woolf

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  Adeline Virginia Woolf (January 1882-1941) was an English writer and one of the preeminent modernists of the 20th century."Kew Gardens" is a short story set in the London botanic garden of the same name on a hot July day. The narrative consists of brief evocative snapshots of four groups of people as they pass by a flowerbed.

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