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Literary Reference Center
Novels, short stories, poems, plot summaries and synopses, and literary criticism. Research guides, lesson plans, and citation tools support student learning.
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"The Castle of Otranto (1764) is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most influential works of Gothic fiction. It inaugurated a literary genre that will be forever associated with the effects that Walpole pioneered. Professing to be a translation of a mysterious Italian tale from the darkest Middle Ages, the novel tells of Manfred, prince of Otranto, whose fear of an ancient prophecy sets him on a course of destruction. After the grotesque...
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Eisenhower Public Library Staff Picks: Literary Fiction
Horror (Adult Fiction)
OBD Happy Halloween - Adult
Horror (Adult Fiction)
OBD Happy Halloween - Adult
Description
Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, first published in 1910, remained a perennial favorite throughout the twentieth century and into the early 2000s. It was adapted to several popular motion pictures and into one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. Its main character, Erik, is a romantic figure whose appeal reaches across different cultures and times. He is a sensitive soul, an accomplished composer and musician whose great...
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Banned SF/Fantasy Books
Digital Minds: Fictional Tales of AI
Green Hills All Staff Favorites
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Digital Minds: Fictional Tales of AI
Green Hills All Staff Favorites
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Description
"A stunning new clothbound edition of Mary Shelley's infamous work of horror fiction, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectible Penguin editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. But his botched creature,...
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Overview: Alexandre Dumas's novel of justice, retribution, and self-discovery - one of the most enduringly popular adventure tales ever written - appears here in a newly revised translation. "This novel tells the story of Edmond Dantes, wrongfully imprisoned for life in the supposedly impregnable sea fortress the Chateau d'If. After a daring escape, and after unearthing a hidden treasure revealed to him by a fellow prisoner, he devotes the rest...
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"A timeless classic, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is both a coming-of-age story and a parody of the Gothic novels of the nineteenth century. Catherine Morland is destined to be the heroine of her own life story as she navigates friendships and romantic relationships, and as she learns to let go of childish notions of fantasy regarding the lives of others. Held from publication for more than a decade, this story was an instant success when it was...
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Moving from the industrial riots of discontented millworkers through to the unsought passions of a middle-class woman, and from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of naval mutiny, it poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Through the story of Margaret Hale, the middle-class southerner who moves to the northern industrial town of Milton, Gaskell skilfully explores issues of class and gender in the...
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Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) is a novel by English author E.M. Forster. The work was Forster's first novel, and its success helped launch his lengthy and critically acclaimed career as a writer of literary fiction. Where Angels Fear to Tread, the title is drawn from Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism (1711), is a moving meditation on class, gender, social convention, and the grieving process.
Following the death of her husband, a widow named...
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"In this lively, intimate portrayal of county society Trollope introduces two of his most endearing heroines. Lilian and Bell Dale live with their mother at the Small house in Allington, near their uncle, who inhabits the adjoining Great house. Pretty, spirited and warm-hearted, they are not short of suitors. Before long Lily has succumbed to the charms of the dashing young swell Alphonse Crosbie, while their cousin Bernard, spurred on by their uncle,...
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"Serving on the jury at a murder trail, Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov is devasted when he sees the prisoner - Katyusha, a young woman he seduced and abandoned years before. As Dmitri faces the consequences of his actions, he decides to give up his life of wealth and luxury to devote himself to rescuing Katyusha, even if it means following her into exile in Siberia. But can a man truly find redemption by saving another person? Tolstoy's most controversial...
13) Babbitt
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Prosperous and socially prominent, George Babbitt appears to have everything a man could wish. But when a personal crisis forces the middle-aged real estate agent to reexamine his life, Babbitt mounts a rebellion that jeopardizes everything he values. Widely considered Sinclair Lewis' greatest novel, this satire of the American social landscape created a sensation upon its 1922 publication. Babbitt's name became an instant and enduring synonym for...
14) The financier
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The Financier (1912) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. The first installment of Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire, The Financier has endured as a classic of naturalist fiction and remains a powerful example of social critique over a century after its publication. Followed by The Titan (1914) and The Stoic (1947), The Financier captures the greed at the heart of the Gilded Age, a time when tycoons rose with total impunity to take over swaths of American industry....
16) Adam Bede
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Arthur's seduction of an innocent, young country girl results in remorse, suffering, and regret.
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Classics - St. Charles Public Library
Historical Fiction Set in India
If you Like The Covenant of Water, try...
Historical Fiction Set in India
If you Like The Covenant of Water, try...
Description
In this hard-hitting novel, first published in 1924, the murky personal relationship between an Englishwoman and an Indian doctor mirrors the troubled politics of colonialism. Adela Quested and her fellow British travelers, eager to experience the "real" India, develop a friendship with the urbane Dr. Aziz. While on a group outing, Adela and Dr. Aziz visit the Marabar caves together. As they emerge, Adela accuses the doctor of assaulting her. While...
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The Longest Journey (1907) is a novel by English author E.M. Forster. Despite its critical success, the novel was a commercial failure for Forster, but has since grown in reputation and readership to help cement his reception as one of twentieth century England's most talented writers.
Rickie Elliot enters Cambridge as a young man, exploring his interests in poetry and art and joining a circle of intellectuals centered around, a philosopher named...
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"Miles Franklin began the candid, passionate, and contrary My Brilliant Career when she was only sixteen, intending it to be the Australian answer to Jane Eyre. But the book she produced--a thinly veiled autobiographical novel about a young girl hungering for life and love in the outback--so scandalized her country upon its appearance in 1901 that she insisted it not be published again until ten years after her death"--Publisher.
20) Treasure Island
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English
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ARRGH You Ready to Read?
Classics - St. Charles Public Library
Explore the Classics - YOUTH
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Classics - St. Charles Public Library
Explore the Classics - YOUTH
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Description
Mauritian artist, Shiraz Bayjoo, works with film, painting, photography, performance, and installation. His research-based practice focuses on personal and public archives addressing cultural memory and postcolonial nationhood in a manner that challenges dominant cultural narratives. He has created a new artist's book in response to 'Treasure Island'. Presented alongside Stevenson's text, Bayjoo's images take us from the ports of England to landscapes...
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