Dickens considered Great Expectations one of his "little pieces," and indeed, it is slim compared to such weighty novels as David Copperfield or Nicholas Nickleby. But what this cautionary tale of a young man raised high above his station by a mysterious benefactor lacks in length, it more than makes up for in its remarkable characters and compelli...more
In SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, Jane Austen writes about two ways of looking at the world in the personalities of two sisters, Elinor the determinedly practical and Marianne the madly romantic. Forced to live in reduced circumstances with their widowed mother and younger sister, the Dashwood girls must rely on marrying well if they are to survive in the ...more
In SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, Jane Austen writes about two ways of looking at the world in the personalities of two sisters, Elinor the determinedly practical and Marianne the madly romantic. Forced to live in reduced circumstances with their widowed mother and younger sister, the Dashwood girls must rely on marrying well if they are to survive in the ...more
Set in post-war London, this novel of the racial, political, and social upheaval of the last half-century follows two families--the Joneses and the Iqbals, both outsiders from within the former British empire--as they make their way in modern England. A first novel.
When a dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in."Chandler [writes] like a slumming angel and invest[s] the sun-blinded stree...more
An immediate success when it was first published in 1874, Thomas Hardy's 'pastoral tale' of the wilful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene, her three suitors - the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, the lonely widower Farmer Boldwood, and the dashing but faithless Sergeant Troy - and the tragic consequence of her eventual choice remains one of the most e...more
The orphaned Pip is serving as a blackmith's apprentice when an unknown benefactor supplies the means for him to be educated in London as a gentleman of "great expectations."