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  Raffles - The Adventures of the...

  E. W. Hornung

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  A. J. Raffles is an 'amateur cracksman' and a gentleman-thief who with his wit and ingenuity befools everyone to get what he wants. Raffles is an antihero. Although a thief, he never steals from his hosts, he helps old friends in trouble. Additionally, the recognition of the problems of the distribution of wealth is a recurrent subtext throughout the stories. Raffles is, in many ways, a deliberate inversion of Sherlock Holmes on which he is based—he is a "gentleman thief", living at the Albany, a prestigious address in London, playing cricket for the Gentlemen of England and supporting himself by carrying out ingenious burglaries. He is called the "Amateur Cracksman", and often, at first, differentiates between himself and the "professors"—professional criminals from the lower classes. The critics complained about the criminal aspect; The Spectator declared "this sort of book presents crime in a form too entertaining and attractive to be moral".

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  The Comedy of Errors

  William Shakespeare

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  The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare's earliest and shortest plays. This comedy utilizes slapstick humor, word play, and mistaken identities to create a series of farcical accidents. Over time, the play's title has become an idiom used to describe "an event or series of events made ridiculous by the number of errors that were made throughout."
  In Ephesus, the law forbids entry to any merchants from Syracuse, and if they are discovered within the city, they must pay a thousand marks or be put to death. Aegeon, an old Syracusian merchant, is arrested and Solinus, the Duke of Ephesus, listens to his story of coming to the city. Long ago, Aegeon was on a sea voyage. Traveling with him was his wife, his twin sons, and their twin slaves. The family becomes separated during a tempest; Aegeon, one son, and one slave were rescued together, and the others were never to be seen again. Years later his son Antipholus and his slave Dromio left to search for their long lost siblings; after the boys didn't return, Aegeon set out to bring his son back home. Moved by this story, the duke allows Aegeon one day to get the money to pay his fine and to find his family.

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  The Merchant of Venice

  William Shakespeare

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  Hugh Griffin, Harry Andrews, Ian Holm and Roy Dotrice perform Shakespeare's tragic comedy.

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  A Tale of Two Cities

  Charles Dickens

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  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’. A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens’s only historical novel, sets personal happiness against the terrors of the French Revolution where the search for social justice sacrifices individual rights. Dr Manette has emerged from eighteen years’ unjust imprisonment in the Bastille: by an ironic twist of fate, his daughter Lucie’s marriage draws the family into a terrifying web of circumstance which, it seems, can only end in death by the guillotine.

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  The Brothers

  Louisa May Alcott

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  Louisa May Alcott was born on 29th November 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. 
   
  She is most definitely a writer of her own experiences.  Her father was a transcendentalist, philosopher and educational experimenter who founded, Fruitlands, a utopian community. Although poor, her liberal and progressive parents provided Louisa with much of her education, which was enhanced by many family friends that included Thoreau, Hawthorne and Emerson, a neighbour whose library she was often found reading in.    
   
  She started writing stories as a way of providing the family with some financial stability. Times were difficult and the effects of poverty were always close at hand.  During the Civil War she went to Washington to be a nurse and became ill with typhoid fever although she continued to write and build her success.  However, the treatment for typhus gave her mercury poisoning which caused further health issues for the rest of her life and eventually contributed to her death.   
   
  Alcott visited her father on his deathbed in Boston. Two days later on 6th March 1888 she also died resulting in a joint funeral.   
   
  Well-loved for her classic ‘Little Women’ she was a superb writer in difficult times for any woman, a strong advocate of women’s issues, the anti-slavery movement, temperance and social reform.    
   
  Her work often reflects on the rich experiences in her life and these poignant short stories are a fine testament to this. Additionally under pseudonyms she wrote dozens of gothic thrillers and sensation stories.  She is also famed for her children’s stories.  
   
  One of Alcott’s most startling stories is the ‘The Brothers’ a tale of two brothers during the Civil War and the after-effects.

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  A Midsummer Night's Dream

  Maria Krestovskaya

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  Maria Krestovskaya demonstrates her incredibly astute understanding of human mind as she gives us a unique glimpse into the mental turmoils associated with one boy's first love.

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