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  Wuthering Heights

  Emily Brontë

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  Perhaps the most haunting and tragic love story ever written, Wuthering Heights is the tale of Heathcliff, a brooding, troubled orphan, and his doomed love for Catherine Earnshaw. His desire for her leads him to madness when Catherine is made to marry a wealthy lord, sending Heathcliff on a lifelong quest to avenge himself upon those who stole his only love and his life.In this gripping chronicle of the never-ending conflict between the heart and the mind-and the pain and passion of true romance-Emily Brontë created an unforgettable classic saga of love, desperation, vengeance, and forgiveness. Published just one year before Brontë's death in 1848 at the age of thirty, Wuthering Heights endures as one of the world's greatest love stories and a classic of English literature.

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  Bartleby the Scrivener

  Herman Melville

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  Herman Melville was born in New York City on 1st August 1819.   
   
  At the age of 7 Melville contracted scarlet fever which permanently diminished his eyesight. Add this to a contemporary description of being "very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension" and his opportunities for success seemed limited. 
   
  His father died when he was 12 leaving the family in very straitened times. 2 years later Melville took a job in a bank and followed up with a failed stint as a surveyor. He went to sea and travelled across to Liverpool and then to the Pacific on adventures which included a mutiny, being jailed and falling in love with a South Pacific beauty. He was also a figure of opposition to the coercion of native Hawaiians to the Christian religion.  These experiences helped provide the novels ‘Typee’, ‘Omoo’, and ‘White-Jacket’. 
   
  By 1851 his ambitious masterpiece, ‘Moby Dick’, was ready to be published.  It never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville’s earnings on his masterpiece was a mere $556.37. 
   
  In succeeding years his reputation waned, life was increasingly difficult.  His family was growing and a stable income was essential. Melville took the advice of friends to try public lecturing, as others had, to increase his revenues. He embarked on three successful lecture tours, speaking on Roman statuary and sightseeing in Rome.  
   
  In 1876 he was at last able to publish privately his 16,000 line epic poem ‘Clarel’. It was to no avail.  The book had an initial printing of 350 copies, but sales failed miserably. 
   
  It was only in late 1885 that Melville was at last able to retire after his wife inherited several legacies, enough to provide them with a reasonable income. 
   
   
  Herman Melville, novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist, died at his home on 28th September 1891 from cardiovascular disease. 
   
  Perhaps his best known short story is ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’ an enduring story of a Wall Street lawyer and his very particular assistant.

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  A Considerable Murder

  Barry Pain

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  Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864-1928) was an English journalist, poet, and writer best known for his outstanding mystery and horror stories, often with a strange twist at the end."A Considerable Murder" is the odd tale of a retired gentleman and his daughter who are suddenly imposed upon by an old, sick and highly cantankerous old man... a former friend of their father and grandfather, who had helped them out in earlier years. The old man is dying... is not expected to live more than a few days... and desperately needs somewhere to stay.But the old man does not die. For weeks... months... he hangs on, terrorizing the household. And in the desk, there are little packets of two drugs, which if combined, create an untraceable poison so potent that it will kill within the hour. Can the temptation to murder be resisted? And for how long?

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  Character Building (Unabridged)

  Booker T. Washington

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  Booker T. Washington has been regarded as the leading figure in African American life, and as the man who brought his people from slavery to unfettered economic, political, and social involvement in the American mainstream. He has also been strongly criticized for advancing the cause of racial accommodation when the political agenda dictated the development of an independent black standpoint in all areas of the industrial structure. This agenda went far beyond educational reform and agrarian participation.Character Building first appeared in 1902. While enormous changes have occurred in all phases of African American rights and responsibilities, Booker T. Washington's broad outlines on building moral character have remained intact. Washington's book can be viewed as a Dale Carnegie volume on How to Win Friends and Influence People_black and white_as noted by the very title of the chapters: "Helping Others," "Influencing by Example," "Education that Educates," "The Gospel of Service," etc.For those in search of the ideological roots of black life in post-slavery times, this text will be a reminder of where the American nation has come from and, arguably, where it is going.

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  They

  Rudyard Kipling

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  "I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches; miraculous brooks diving under stone bridges built for heavier traffic than would ever vex them again; tithe-barns larger than their churches, and an old smithy that cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the Knights of the Temple. Gypsies I found on a common where ...the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little further on I disturbed a red fox rolling dog-fashion in the naked sunlight."  "They" is one of the spookiest and most moving short stories ever written.

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  Story of the Last Trump The...

  H. G. Wells

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  The Story of the Last Trump is a humorous, symbolic tale with a theological theme, albeit somewhat esoteric. It was first published in 1915 and is the final chapter in a satirical literary work, titled “Boon”. Upon publication the author of the book was given as Reginald Bliss and initially Wells denied being the writer of the work, officially only having written the introduction. However Reginald Bliss was but a Nom de Plume. The book received mixed reviews and did not sell well. However, acclaimed British writer Hugh Walpole expressed his admiration for the “Story of the Last Trump” commenting: “It is a satire so audacious, yet so effective, that it alone should give the book a permanent repute.”Wells, noted for his visionary tales and his keen observations regarding human behavior wrote this story over 100 years ago, yet it appears eerily contemporary. However any parallels that might be detected regarding current circumstances, occurrences, names and issues surely are only guided by the imagination and interpretation of the astute listener...

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