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  The Jelly-Bean

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  A short Southern story, Fitzgerald takes the listener on a trip to Lily of Tarleton, Georgia. "The Jelly-Bean," published in "The Metropolitan," was written under strange circumstances shortly after his first novel was published, and, moreover, it was the first story in which he had a collaborator. Fitzgerald's wife, who was a Southern girl, acted as his expert on the topic.

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  The Great Gatsby

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  The year is 1922, and young Nick Carraway moves to the village of West Egg, where he discovers that his neighbor is the eclectic millionaire Jay Gatsby. As he and Gatsby become acquainted, Nick is thrown into a world full of dazzling parties, unrequited love, and unchecked idealism. Gatsby, surrounded by riches, yearns for the love of a woman who chose another man. He waits for her every night, using a green light at the end of his dock to call out to her from across the water. Daisy, stuck in a loveless marriage, dreams of what could have been—and gets a taste for it after she is re-acquainted with Gatsby through Nick. Considered by critics to be one of the greatest novels ever written, this 1925 masterpiece is a portrait of the Roaring Twenties that’s full of literary intrigue, resounding metaphors, and decadent glimpses into the glitz and glam of early twentieth-century America. As relevant today as ever, it offers a cautionary tale of the American Dream, warning against the temptation to believe that enough money paired with equal desire can achieve anything—even reverse the deepest regrets.

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  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

  Washington Irving

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  Headless horsemen were staples of Northern European storytelling, featuring in German, Irish (e.g. Dullahan), Scandinavian (e.g. the Wild Hunt) and English legends and were included in Robert Burns's "Tam o' Shanter" (1790), and Burger's Der wilde Jager, translated as The Wild Huntsman (1796). Usually viewed as omens of ill-fortune for those who chose to disregard their apparitions, these specters found their victims in proud, scheming persons and characters with hubris and arrogance. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite specter of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. The story was immediately matched by a thrice marvelous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod.

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  Black Jack (Unabridged)

  Rudyard Kipling

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  First published in the Soldiers Three volume of The Indian Railway Library in 1888, and collected in Soldiers Three and Other Stories in the same year.Many years before, as a private in the Black Tyrone, Mulvaney had found himself living in a barrack room with a group of bad characters. Their sergeant was hard on them, and they planned to get revenge on him, but Mulvaney would have nothing to do with the idea.

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  Sea Stories (Unabridged)

  Cyrus Townsend Brady, Frank...

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  SEA STORIES, tells the entire tale. You will find excerpts of some of the most famous nautical stories of all time. Most of us have passed through a period of life during which we have ardently longed to be, if not actually a rover, a buccaneer, or a pirate, at least and really a sailor! To run away to sea has been the misdirected ambition of many a youngster, and some lads there are who have realized their desire to their sorrow. The boy who has not cherished in his heart and exhibited in his actions at sometime or other during his youthful days, a love of ships and salt water, is fit for-well, he is fit for the shore, and that is the worst thing a sailor could say about him! The virile nations, the strong peoples, are those whose countries border on the sea. They who go down to the great deep in ships are they who master the world. On the ocean as well as on the mountain top dwells the spirit of freedom. When men have struggled with each other in the shock of war, or the emulation of peace, when they have matched skill against skill, strength to strength, courage with courage, the higher quality of manhood in each instance has been required upon the sea; for there the sharp contention has been not only between man and man but between nature and man as well. A double portion of heroic spirit is needed to meet the double demand. That is the reason we love the sea. It is this Homeric spirit of the Ocean Masters that fills the dreams of youth and stirs the memories of old age. In these dreams and memories the veriest boy catches glimpses of the perpetual Titanic struggle of, and on, the deep; dimly discerning in his youthful way, a thousand generations of heroic achievement before, and through which, he begins to be; and he realizes that the ocean affords such a field for the exhibition of every high quality that goes to make a man as may be found nowhere else.

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  North and South

  Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

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  North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell: "North and South" follows the journey of Margaret Hale, a young woman who relocates from rural southern England to the industrialized northern town of Milton. As Margaret grapples with the stark contrasts between the two regions and the social issues arising from the industrial revolution, she becomes entangled with the enigmatic mill owner, John Thornton. The novel delves into the complexities of class struggle, workers' rights, and the clash between traditional values and the modern world. Elizabeth Gaskell's insightful portrayal of industrial life and her nuanced exploration of romance and social issues make "North and South" a compelling and thought-provoking work of Victorian fiction. 
  Elizabeth Gaskell, an English novelist, is known for her compassionate portrayals of Victorian social issues and her insightful examination of the human condition. Her works, such as "North and South," "Cranford," and "Wives and Daughters," explored the impact of industrialization on society and offered a nuanced understanding of class and gender dynamics during the 19th century.

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