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  St John's Eve (Unabridged)

  Nikolai Gogol

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  No one could have recognized this village of ours a little over a hundred years ago: a hamlet it was, the poorest kind of a hamlet. Half a score of miserable izbas, unplastered, badly thatched, were scattered here and there about the fields. There was not an enclosure or decent shed to shelter animals or wagons.

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  Typee

  Herman Melville

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  "Typee" is a novel written by Herman Melville and published in 1846. It is partly based on Melville's own experiences as a sailor and his brief stay in the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. The novel follows the adventures of Tommo, the narrator, who jumps ship with his companion Toby and finds themselves living among the Typee people, a Polynesian tribe known for their reputed cannibalism. 
   
  "Typee" offers a fictionalized account of the time Melville spent living with the Typee tribe, providing vivid descriptions of the landscape, customs, and rituals of the people he encountered. The novel presents a contrast between the seemingly idyllic and harmonious life of the Typee and the harsh realities of Western civilization. Melville explores themes of cultural encounter, colonialism, and the clash between primitive and civilized societies. 
   
  Throughout the novel, Melville reflects on the inherent biases and misunderstandings that arise when encountering different cultures. He challenges prevailing stereotypes and offers a more nuanced portrayal of the Typee people, depicting them as complex and fully realized characters rather than exoticized caricatures. The novel raises questions about the nature of civilization, the impact of colonialism on indigenous peoples, and the tensions between individual freedom and societal norms. 
   
  "Typee" garnered significant attention upon its publication, captivating readers with its adventurous narrative and its exploration of the exotic and unfamiliar. The novel contributed to the growing interest in the South Pacific and its cultures during the 19th century, influencing subsequent literary works and travel writing. While "Typee" is often overshadowed by Melville's later and more renowned works, such as "Moby-Dick," it remains an important early work in his career and a fascinating exploration of cultural encounters and human nature.

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  Hound The (Unabridged)

  H.P. Lovecraft

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  The story opens with the unnamed narrator preparing to commit suicide. Lamenting his fate, he reflects upon the events which led him to this moment. The narrator and his friend, St. John, are a pair of loners who both have a deranged interest in robbing graves. They constantly defile crypts and often keep souvenirs of their nocturnal expeditions. Since they reside in the same house, they have the opportunity to set up a sort of morbid museum in their basement. Using the objects collected from the various graves they have robbed, the two men organize a private exhibition. The collection consists of headstones, preserved bodies, skulls, and several heads in different phases of decomposition. It also included statues, frightful paintings, and a locked portfolio bound in tanned human skin. One day, the two learn of a particular grave, which sparks a profound interest in them: an old grave in a Holland cemetery which holds a legendary tomb raider within, one who is said to have stolen, many years ago, a "potent thing from a mighty sepulchre." They travel to the old cemetery where the man was buried. The thought of exhuming the final resting place of a former grave robber is irresistibly appealing to them. That, and the fact that the body had been buried several centuries before, drives them to travel such long distances to reach the site. Upon reaching the old cemetery, they notice the distant baying of a giant hound in the distance. They ignore it and begin their excavation. After some time, they hit a solid object in the ground. Clearing the last of the dirt from it, the two men unearth a strange and elaborately-made casket. Upon opening the casket, they see that several places on the skeletal remains appear torn and shattered, as if attacked by a wild animal, yet the whole of the skeleton is still completely distinguishable. At that moment, they notice a jade amulet hanging from the skeleton's neck. They examine it and, after some observation, they recognize the amulet as one mentioned in "the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred." They immediately know they must have the amulet at all cost. They remove it from the skeleton and flee into the night. As they do, they notice once again the continuous sound of a baying hound in the distance. After they return home to England, strange events begin to occur. Odd sounds can be heard within and around their house, including the distant howling they heard in the cemetery. One night, St. John is violently attacked and killed by a mysterious creature, which the narrator claims the amulet had brought unto him. He destroys the macabre museum he and his friend made, before fleeing from the house and traveling to London. Still plagued by bizarre occurrences, he decides that he must return the amulet to its rightful owner. He travels to Holland, but the amulet is stolen from him before he can return it. The next day, he reads in the newspaper about a band of thieves savagely killed by an unknown creature. Slowly going insane, he returns to the churchyard and exhumes the coffin once more, only to find the skeleton within covered in caked blood and bits of flesh and hair, holding the lost amulet in its hand. Suddenly, the skeleton begins howling, the same howl that had tormented him since he first stole the amulet. The narrator flees the graveyard, succumbing to madness and despair. He states that he intends to kill himself with a revolver, believing death to be his only refuge from the crawling horror which grows within him.

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  The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

  Anne Brontë

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  The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel by the English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontë's novels, it had an instant and phenomenal success, but after Anne's death her sister Charlotte prevented its re-publication in England until 1854.The novel is framed as a series of letters from Gilbert Markham to his friend about the events connected with his meeting a mysterious young widow, calling herself Helen Graham, who arrives at Wildfell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion which has been empty for many years, with her young son and a servant. Contrary to the early 19th century norms, Helen pursues an artist's career and makes an income by selling her pictures. Mrs Graham's strict seclusion soon gives rise to gossip in the neighbouring village and she becomes a social outcast. Refusing to believe anything scandalous about her, Gilbert befriends Mrs Graham and discovers her past. In the diary she gives Gilbert, Helen chronicles her husband's physical and moral decline through alcohol and debauchery in the dissipated aristocratic society. Ultimately Helen flees with her son, whom she desperately wishes to save from his father's influence. The depiction of marital strife and women's professional identification has also a strong moral message mitigated by Anne Brontë's belief in universal salvation.Most critics now consider The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to be one of the first feminist novels. May Sinclair, in 1913, said that "the slamming of [Helen's] bedroom door against her husband reverberated throughout Victorian England". In leaving her husband and taking away their child, Helen violates not only social conventions but also the early 19th century English law.

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  Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

  Lewis Carroll

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  When seven year old Alice cannot resist following an unusual rabbit down a hole, she enters the dream like world of Wonderland. Here, everything is extraordinary – rabbits talk, cats materalise from nowhere, babies turn into pigs, and even Alice herself changes at times.  Furthermore, an entire magisterial court, led by the King Of Hearts, proves to be nothing but a pack of cards. However, Alice, a courageous and polite heroine, overcomes all the obstacles presented to her in the bizarre world in which she finds herself.

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  Man Who Fell In Love With The...

  Stella Benson

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  Stella Benson (1892-1933) was an English feminist, novelist, poet, and short story and travel writer. "The Man who fell in Love with the Cooperative Stores" is an amusing allegorical story about mercenary love, the gullibility of those men who keep a mistress and the cycnicism of those women who accept this kind of relationship.

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