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  Peter Pan

  J. M. Barrie

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  Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, often known simply as Peter Pan, is a work by Scottish novelist J. M. Barrie, in the form of a 1904 play and a 1911 novel titled Peter and Wendy. Both versions tell the story of Peter Pan, a mischievous little boy who can fly, and has many adventures on the island of Neverland that is inhabited by mermaids, fairies, Native Americans and pirates. The Peter Pan stories also involve the characters Wendy Darling and her two brothers John and Michael, Peter's fairy Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys, and the pirate Captain Hook.

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  The Tapestried Chamber - From...

  Sir Walter Scott

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  Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, FRSE, was a Scottish playwright, novelist and poet who became the first English-language author to be internationally celebrated within their own lifetime. Although he wrote extensively, he was by profession an advocate and judge, and continued to practice alongside his writing career.  Scott was fascinated by the oral tradition of the Scottish borders, with its poetry, folklore and legend, and he collected stories throughout his youth and as a young man, almost obsessively.  Scott’s friend, James Ballantyne, had founded a printing press in 1796 , and had published much of Scott’s early work, including the Lay of the Last Minstrel which firmly established Scott’ position in the Scottish literary tradition, and that of English literature as a whole.  Scott was by now printing regularly with the Ballantynes and convinced them to relocate their press to Edinburgh and became a partner in their business.  In 1813 Scott was offered the post of Poet Laureate, but turned the offer down and the position was taken by Robert Southey. Until now he had predominately written poetry however he became interested in the novel form despite its comparative unpopularity for a supposed aesthetic inferiority. Owing to this he published his first novel, Waverley, anonymously, in 1814. Its success encouraged several more novels, all of which were published under “Author of Waverley” as a means of piggybacking the success of Waverley and because Scott feared his traditional father would disapprove of such a trivial pursuit as novel writing. Scott came to be known as the “Wizard of the North” for his writing, and among literary circles it was an open secret that he was the author of these novels. In 1815 the Prince Regent, George, dined with him as he wished to meet the “Author of Waverley”.  By 1825 a banking crisis was crippling the nation and the Ballantyne printing company went under with Scott left with debts of £130,000 (approx. £10mil in 2014).  His pride kept him from accepting financial aid (even from his admirer, King George) or declaring himself bankrupt.  He resolved to continue writing until he could pay his debts. Compounding these unfortunate circumstances was the death of his wife in 1826. However, he maintained his enormous literary output until 1831 by which point his health had begun to fail and he died on September 21st 1832. At his death he was still in debt, the continuing sales of his work ensured that all debt was discharged shortly after he died.

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  Great Gatsby The: Original 1925...

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  The Great Jazz Age Novel 
  The 1925 Original Version 
  The Great Gatsby is considered F. Scott Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, exploring themes of decadence, idealism, social stigmas, patriarchal norms, and the deleterious effects of unencumbered wealth in capitalistic society, set against the backdrop of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. At its heart, it’s a cautionary tale, a revealing look into the darker side to the American Dream. 
  “When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men...”

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  The Choephori

  Aeschylus

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  Produced in 458 BC, Aeschylus' Choephori is the second play in the Oresteian trilogy. The bloodshed begun in the first play with the murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra is here continued when Agamemnon's son Orestes avenges his father's death by killing Clytemnestra. It is not until the third and final play, Eumenides, that peace is restored to the family of the Atreidae. The introduction discusses the pre-Aeschylean 'Orestes' tradition in literature and art, as well as the place of Choephori within the Oresteia, its imagery and dramatic structure, the questions of staging the play, and the manuscript tradition.

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  Birthday Girl

  Maria Krestovskaya

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  An everyday tragedy brought into stark relief and elevated to high drama by the skilled pen of Maria Krestovskaya, as she focuses her readers' attention on someone, whose life would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

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  Death Comes for the Archbishop

  Willa Cather

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  Two priests. One vast frontier. A quiet mission that becomes a lifelong journey of faith, beauty, and profound human connection.
  When Bishop Jean Marie Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant travel into the raw, breathtaking landscapes of the New Mexico Territory, they encounter a world of dramatic contrasts—desert silence and frontier hardship, Native traditions and Catholic devotion, loneliness and deep companionship. Through decades of service, the two men build churches, face trials, and witness the slow shaping of a new world.
  
  Praised as "one of the most beautiful novels in American literature," Cather's masterpiece offers quiet drama, spiritual depth, and luminous writing that captures the soul of the American Southwest. Readers treasure its serene power, vivid landscapes, and unforgettable portrayal of friendship and purpose.
  
  If you love reflective storytelling, historical richness, and novels that unfold with gentle emotional force, this classic will stay with you long after the last page.
  
  Open the book—and step into a landscape where faith, friendship, and the desert wind shape a life's calling.

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