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books tagged “19C”
books tagged “19C”
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20,000 Leagues Under the Seaby Jules VerneISBN 0439227151 (0-439-22715-1)
Softcover, Scholastic Paperbacks
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› Find signed collectible books: '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea'Book summary:A huge sea monster has attacked and wrecked several ships from beneath the sea. Professor Arronax bravely joins a mission to hunt down the beast. He goes aboard the Nautilus, a secret submarine helmed by the mysterious Captain Nemo. At first, the mission is exciting, as Nemo takes Arronax on a voyage around the underwater world. But when things start to go wrong, Arronax finds there's no escape from the Nautilus. He is now Captain Nemo's captive--20,000 leagues under the sea![via]More editions of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea:
Abraham Lincolnby Carl SandburgISBN 0440300088 (0-440-30008-8)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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The Americanby Henry JamesISBN 0451522419 (0-451-52241-9)
Softcover, New Amer Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Americans'Book summary:Henry James brilliantly combines comedy, tragedy, romance, and melodrama in this tale of a wealthy American businessman in Paris. Determined to marry Claire de Cintré, a scintillating and beautiful aristocrat, Christopher Newman comes up against the machinations of her impoverished but proud family in a dramatic clash between the Old World and the New. A co-production with the BBC, starring Diana Rigg, Matthew Modine, and Brenda Fricker. [via]
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The Anubis Gatesby Tim PowersISBN 0441004016 (0-441-00401-6)
Softcover, Ace Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Anubis Gates'Book summary:Author Tim Powers evokes 17th-century England with a combination of meticulously researched historic detail and imaginative flights in this sci-fi tale of time travel. Winner of the 1984 Philip K. Dick Award for best original science fiction paperback, this 1989 edition of the book that took the fantasy world by storm is the first hardcover version to be published in the United States. In his brief introduction, Ramsey Campbell sets The Anubis Gates in an adventure context, citing Powers's achievement of "extraordinary scenes of underground horror, of comedy both high and grotesque, of bizarre menace, of poetic fantasy."
The colonization of Egypt by western European powers is the launch point for power plays and machinations. Steeping together in this time-warp stew are such characters as an unassuming Coleridge scholar, ancient gods, wizards, the Knights Templar, werewolves, and other quasi-mortals, all wrapped in the organizing fabric of Egyptian mythology. In the best of fantasy traditions, the reluctant heroes fight for survival against an evil that lurks beneath the surface of their everyday lives. [via]
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The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopinby Kate Chopin, Barbara H. SolomonISBN 0451524489 (0-451-52448-9)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin'Book summary:The Awakening tells of a wife who discovers the strength of her own sexuality and tries to wrench it from the hands of a patriarchal society- and her upper-class Cajun family.This and Chopin's other short stories are standard-setting masterpieces. [via]
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Billy Budd and Other Talesby Herman MelvilleISBN 0451524462 (0-451-52446-2)
Softcover, New Amer Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Billy Budd and Other Tales'Book summary:Like Melville's great novel, Moby Dick, his stories are unique in narrative method, profound in theme, and full of delights at all levels. (from back cover) [via]
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Bismarck:the Man and the Statesman: The Man and the Statesmanby A.J.P. TaylorISBN 0450001245 (0-450-00124-5)
Hardcover, New English Library
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Bismarck, the Man and the Statesmanby Alan John Percivale TaylorISBN 0450021688 (0-450-02168-8)
Hardcover, New English Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bismarck, the Man and the Statesman'Book summary:J.P.Taylor broke new ground in this study, first published in 1955, of one of the most influential figures in Germany's history. Treating Bismarck as a man of his times, he surveys his political policy and actions, as well as investigating the psychology of a man whose life and achievements continue to be a subject of controversy. [via]
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Bostoniansby Henry JamesISBN 0451525507 (0-451-52550-7)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bostonians'Book summary:From Boston's social underworld emerges Verena Tarrant, a girl with extraordinary oratorical gifts, which she deploys in tawdry meeting-houses on behalf of "the sisterhood of women." She acquires two admirers of a very different stamp: Olive Chancellor, devotee of radical causes and marked out for tragedy; and Basil Ransom, a veteran of the Civil War who holds rigid views concerning society and women's place therein. Is the lovely, lighthearted Verena made for public movements or private passions? A struggle to possess her, body and soul, develops between Olive and Basil.The exploitation of Verena's unregenerate innocence reflects a society whose moral and cultural values are failing to survive the new dawn of liberalism and democracy. When it was first published in 1886, The Bostonians was not welcomed by Henry James's fellow countrymen, who failed to appreciate its delicacy and wit. But over a century later, this book is widely regarded as James's finest American fiction and perhaps his comic masterpiece.[via]More editions of Bostonians:
The Collected Plays of Jack B. Yeatsby Jack Butler YeatsISBN 0436468204 (0-436-46820-4)
Hardcover, Secker and Warburg
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The Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wildeby Oscar WildeISBN 0451524357 (0-451-52435-7)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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Confidence Manby Herman MelvilleISBN 0451520181 (0-451-52018-1)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Courtby Mark TwainISBN 0451523539 (0-451-52353-9)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'Book summary:A blow on the head transports a Yankee to 528 A.D. where he proceeds to modernize King Arthur's kingdom by organizing a school system, constructing telephone lines, and inventing the printing press. [via]
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Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectationsby Christopher LaschISBN 0446974951 (0-446-97495-1)
Hardcover, Warner Books Inc
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Darwinby James Moore, Adrian DesmondISBN 0446515892 (0-446-51589-2)
Hardcover, Grand Central Pub
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Death Of Ivan Ilych And Other Storiesby Leo TolstoyISBN 0451516761 (0-451-51676-1)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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Diary of a Madmanby Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol, Andrew Robert MacAndrewISBN 0451524039 (0-451-52403-9)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hydeby Robert Louis StevensonISBN 0448170159 (0-448-17015-9)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydeby Robert Louis Stevenson, Vladimir Vladimirovich NabokovISBN 0451523938 (0-451-52393-8)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'Book summary:The classic, chilling tale of a legendary double life, with an introduction from best-selling author Garth Nix.[via]
Respectable citizen by day . . . killer by night? This is Robert Louis Stevenson's harrowing tale of good and evil -- caught in the same person.More editions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:
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Fall of the House of Usher and Other Talesby Edgar Allan PoeISBN 0451524632 (0-451-52463-2)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Stories'Book summary:Partial contents: The balloon-hoax -- The purloined letter -- The cask of Amontillado -- The masque of the red death. [via]
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Flatlandby Edwin A. AbottISBN 0451518411 (0-451-51841-1)
Softcover, Signet Classic
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions'Book summary:Flatland is one of the very few novels about math and philosophy that can appeal to almost any layperson. Published in 1880, this short fantasy takes us to a completely flat world of two physical dimensions where all the inhabitants are geometric shapes, and who think the planar world of length and width that they know is all there is. But one inhabitant discovers the existence of a third physical dimension, enabling him to finally grasp the concept of a fourth dimension. Watching our Flatland narrator, we begin to get an idea of the limitations of our own assumptions about reality, and we start to learn how to think about the confusing problem of higher dimensions. The book is also quite a funny satire on society and class distinctions of Victorian England. [via]
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Four Major Playsby Henrik IbsenISBN 0451524063 (0-451-52406-3)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Four Major Plays'Book summary:Among the greatest and best known of Ibsen's works, these four plays--A Doll's House, The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder--brilliantly embody his landmark contributions to the theater. Rich in symbolism and often autobiographical, each work deals convincingly with the human emotions of greed, fear, and sexual hostility, and confronts the external conflicts between reality and illusion. Reissue. [via]
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Frankenstein/Dracula/Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydeby Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Bram StokerISBN 0451523636 (0-451-52363-6)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Frankenstein/Dracula/Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'Book summary:Three horror classicswith an introduction by Stephen King[via]
Some of literatures most popular and enduring horror icons in one indispensable tome.
@NotoriousDOC Just did a bit-torrent-style grave robbery. My new man will be an artful collage. Also, good conversation starter.
Its alive! Id better beat it over the head repeatedly with a fire extinguisher.
So sometimes you build something, and it gets away. Theyre gonna can me at the university if they find out about this.
From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or LessMore editions of Frankenstein/Dracula/Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:
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Grimm's Fairy Talesby Wilhelm Grimm, Brothers Grimm, Fritz Kredel, Marian Edwardes, E.V. Lucas, Lucy CraneISBN 0448409410 (0-448-40941-0)
Hardcover, Grosset & Dunlap
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Grimm's Fairy Tales'Book summary:An illustrated collection of fifty-five traditional tales collected by the Grimm brothers. [via]
Grimms Fairy Tal/Specby Jacob GrimmISBN 0448424363 (0-448-42436-3)
Softcover, Grosset & Dunlap
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Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharerby Joseph ConradISBN 0451526570 (0-451-52657-0)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer'Book summary:ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP
Two of Joseph Conrad's most compelling and haunting works, in which the deepest perceptions and desires of the human heart and mind are explored.
EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: " A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
" A chronology of the author's life and work
" A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
" An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
" Detailed explanatory notes
" Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
" Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
" A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential. [via]SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON
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House of the Seven Gablesby Nathaniel HawthorneISBN 0451527917 (0-451-52791-7)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'House of the Seven Gables'Book summary:An evil house, cursed through the centuries by a man who was hanged for witchcraft, is haunted by the ghosts of its sinful dead and wracked by the fear of its frightened living. [via]
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The Hunchback of Notre Dameby Victor Hugo, Walter J. CobbISBN 0451527887 (0-451-52788-7)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'Book summary:Kindle edition of Victor Hugo's classic work with an active table of contents. [via]
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The Idiotby Fyodor DostoevskyISBN 0440339456 (0-440-33945-6)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Idiot: Library Edition'Book summary:An introduction by Agnes Cardinal, Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum in Switzerland. As he becomes embroiled in the frantic amatory and financial intrigues which centre around a cast of brilliantly realised characters and which ultimately lead to tragedy, he emerges as a unique combination of the Christian ideal of perfection and Dostoevsky's own views, afflictions and manners. His serene selflessness is contrasted with the worldly qualities of every other character in the novel. Dostoevsky supplies a harsh indictment of the Russian ruling class of his day who have created a world which cannot accomodate the goodness of this idiot. [via]
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The Illustrated Leaves of Grassby Walt Whitman, Howard ChapnickISBN 0448020742 (0-448-02074-2)
Hardcover, Madison Square Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Illustrated Leaves of Grass'Book summary:Introduction by William Carlos Williams. [via]
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The Importance of Being Earnestby Oscar WildeISBN 0451518993 (0-451-51899-3)
Softcover, New Amer Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Importance of Being Earnest'Book summary:Wilde was both a glittering wordsmith and a social outsider. His drama emerges out of these two perhaps contradictory identities, combining epigrammatic brilliance and shrewd social observation. This book includes "Lady Windermere's Fan", "Salome", "A Woman of No Importance", "An Ideal Husband", "A Florentine Tragedy" and "The Importance of Being Earnest", which appears in full with the 'Grigsby' scene which originally made up the fourth act. [via]
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girlby Harriet A. JacobsISBN 0451527526 (0-451-52752-6)
Softcover, Signet Classic
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'Book summary:In one of the most significant slave narratives ever written, Harriet Jacobs, born a slave to mulatto parents in 1813 North Carolina, recounts her remarkable story. From her sale to an abusive master, to her bid for freedom as the lover of a white man, to her ultimate and harrowing emancipation, this work is an outstanding example of a woman's extraordinary courage--and one of the most provocative first-person accounts of slavery in American history.
Afterword by Myrlie Evers-Williams
"One of the major autobiographies of the Afro-American tradition."-- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. [via]More editions of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl:
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Journey to the Center of the Earthby Jules VerneISBN 0451519825 (0-451-51982-5)
Softcover, New Amer Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Journey to the Center of the Earth'Book summary:A team of explorers makes an expedition into a crater in Iceland which leads to the center of the earth and to incredible and horrifying discoveries. [via]
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Leaves of Grassby Walt WhitmanISBN 0451524853 (0-451-52485-3)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Leaves of Grass'Book summary:Leaves of Grass (1855) is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. Among the poems in the collection are "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," and in later editions, Whitman's elegy to the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death.
Leaves of Grass has its genesis in an essay called The Poet by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in 1845, which expressed the need for the United States to have its own new and unique poet to write about the new country's virtues and vices. Whitman, reading the essay, consciously set out to answer Emerson's call as he began work on the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman, however, downplayed Emerson's influence, stating, "I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil".
On May 15, 1855, Whitman registered the title Leaves of Grass with the clerk of the United States District Court, Southern District of New Jersey, and received its copyright. The first edition was published in Brooklyn at the Fulton Street printing shop of two Scottish immigrants, James and Andrew Rome, whom Whitman had known since the 1840s, on July 4, 1855. Whitman paid for and did much of the typesetting for the first edition himself. The book did not include the author's name, instead offering an engraving by Samuel Hollyer depicting the poet in work clothes and a jaunty hat, arms at his side. Early advertisements for the first edition appealed to "lovers of literary curiosities" as an oddity. Sales on the book were few but Whitman was not discouraged.
The first edition was very small, collecting only twelve unnamed poems in 95 pages. Whitman once said he intended the book to be small enough to be carried in a pocket. "That would tend to induce people to take me along with them and read me in the open air: I am nearly always successful with the reader in the open air. "About 800 were printed, though only 200 were bound in its trademark green cloth cover. The only American library known to have purchased a copy of the first edition was in Philadelphia. The poems of the first edition, which were given titles in later issues, were "Song of Myself," "A Song For Occupations," "To Think of Time," "The Sleepers," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Faces," "Song of the Answerer," "Europe: The 72d and 73d Years of These States," "A Boston Ballad," "There Was a Child Went Forth," "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?", and "Great Are the Myths."
The title Leaves of Grass was a pun. "Grass" was a term given by publishers to works of minor value and "leaves" is another name for the pages on which they were printed.
Whitman sent a copy of the first edition of Leaves of Grass to Emerson, the man who had inspired its creation. In a letter to Whitman, Emerson said "I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed." He went on, "I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy." [via] -
Little Womenby Louisa May Alcott, Paula DanzigerISBN 0439101360 (0-439-10136-0)
Softcover, Scholastic Paperbacks
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Little Women'Book summary:Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy manage to lead interesting lives despite Father's absence at war and the family's lack of money. Whether they're putting on a play or forming a secret society, their gaiety is infectious. Written from Louisa May Alcott's own experiences, this remarkable novel has been treasured for generations. [via]
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- Little Women: ISBN 0448172569 (0-448-17256-9)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group - Little Women: ISBN 0448060191 (0-448-06019-1)
Hardcover, Price Stern Sloan - Little Women: ISBN 0440447682 (0-440-44768-2)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept - Little Women: ISBN 0448110199 (0-448-11019-9)
Softcover, Putnam Berkley - Little Women: ISBN 0451523415 (0-451-52341-5)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics - Little Women: ISBN 0448023644 (0-448-02364-4)
Hardcover, Grosset & Dunlap - Little Women: ISBN 0448054663 (0-448-05466-3)
Hardcover, Grosset & Dunlap - Little Women: ISBN 0439101360 (0-439-10136-0)
Softcover, Scholastic Paperbacks
- Little Women: ISBN 0448172569 (0-448-17256-9)
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Looking Backwardby Edward BellamyISBN 0451527631 (0-451-52763-1)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Looking Backward'Book summary:Edward Bellamy's classic look at the future has been translated into over twenty languages and is the most widely read novel of its time. A young Boston gentleman is mysteriously transported from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century--from a world of war and want to one of peace and plenty. This brilliant vision became the blueprint of utopia that stimulated some of the greatest thinkers of our age. [via]
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Looking Backward, 2000-1887by Edward Bellamy, Erich FrommISBN 0451524128 (0-451-52412-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Looking Backward, 2000-1887'Book summary:Originally published in 1888, Looking Backward is Edward Bellamy's most famous work. The story revolves around Julian West, a man who falls asleep near the end of the 19th century and wakes up in the year 2000. During the time he slept, the United States became a socialist utopia. The majority of the book is a vehicle for Bellamy to expound upon his ideas about societal improvement. Americans in his year 2000 work fewer hours, retire early, and receive all they need from the government. Entertaining and oddly prophetic in some ways, Bellamy's vision of the future from the perspective of the late 19th century is highly engaging. American author EDWARD BELLAMY (1850-1898) also wrote Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880), Equality (1897), and The Duke of Stockbridge (1900). [via]
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The Mill on the Flossby George Eliot, Morton BermanISBN 0451523962 (0-451-52396-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mill on the Floss'Book summary:Maggie Tulliver, the heroine who has aspirations beyond her sex and station has atoned for her sin and, finally, dies trying to save the brother whose love she could not win. [via]
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The Moonstoneby Wilkie CollinsISBN 0451523946 (0-451-52394-6)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Moonstone'Book summary:A novel which reflects the underside of Victorian life. A tale of a stolen jewel, foreign menace and violent death. A telling social portrait. [via]
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Mr. Midshipman Easyby Frederick MarryatISBN 0451527968 (0-451-52796-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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My Antoniaby Willa Cather, Sharon O'BrienISBN 0451525795 (0-451-52579-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'My Antonia'Book summary:It seems almost sacrilege to infringe upon a book as soulful and rich as Willa Cather's My Ántonia by offering comment. First published in 1918, and set in Nebraska in the late 19th century, this tale of the spirited daughter of a Bohemian immigrant family planning to farm on the untamed land ("not a country at all but the material out of which countries are made") comes to us through the romantic eyes of Jim Burden. He is, at the time of their meeting, newly orphaned and arriving at his grandparents' neighboring farm on the same night her family strikes out to make good in their new country. Jim chooses the opening words of his recollections deliberately: "I first heard of Ántonia on what seemed to be an interminable journey across the great midland plain of North America," and it seems almost certain that readers of Cather's masterpiece will just as easily pinpoint the first time they heard of Ántonia and her world. It seems equally certain that they, too, will remember that moment as one of great light in an otherwise unremarkable trip through the world.
Ántonia, who, even as a grown woman somewhat downtrodden by circumstance and hard work, "had not lost the fire of life," lies at the center of almost every human condition that Cather's novel effortlessly untangles. She represents immigrant struggles with a foreign land and tongue, the restraints on women of the time (with which Cather was very much concerned), the more general desires for love, family, and companionship, and the great capacity for forbearance that marked the earliest settlers on the frontier.
As if all this humanity weren't enough, Cather paints her descriptions of the vastness of nature--the high, red grass, the road that "ran about like a wild thing," the endless wind on the plains--with strokes so vivid as to make us feel in our bones that we've just come in from a walk on that very terrain ourselves. As the story progresses, Jim goes off to the University in Lincoln to study Latin (later moving on to Harvard and eventually staying put on the East Coast in another neat encompassing of a stage in America's development) and learns Virgil's phrase "Optima dies ... prima fugit" that Cather uses as the novel's epigraph. "The best days are the first to flee"--this could be said equally of childhood and the earliest hours of this country in which the open land, much like My Ántonia, was nothing short of a rhapsody in prairie sky blue. --Melanie Rehak [via]
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The Mysteries of Sherlock Holmesby Arthur Conan Doyle, Paul BachemISBN 0448409577 (0-448-40957-7)
Hardcover, Grosset & Dunlap
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The New Nietzsche: Contemporary Styles of Interpretationby David B. AllisonISBN 044055876X (0-440-55876-X)
Hardcover, Dell Pub Co
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Nicholas and Alexandraby Robert K. MassieISBN 0440363586 (0-440-36358-6)
Softcover, Dell Publishing
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nicholas and Alexandra'Book summary:Massie offers a moving, tragic, and unforgettable account of the extraordinary Imperial dynasty of Tsar Nicholas II, his doomed empire, and a revolution that would inexorably change the world forever. "A larger than life drama."--Saturday Review. Photo insert. [via]
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Raj: A Novelby Gita MehtaISBN 0449905667 (0-449-90566-7)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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The Return of the Nativeby Thomas Hardy, Jane SmileyISBN 0451527380 (0-451-52738-0)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Return of the Native'Book summary:A poetic and compassionate novel of 19th Century England. [via]
Roughing Itby Mark TwainISBN 0451524071 (0-451-52407-1)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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The Secret Agent: A Simple Taleby Joseph Conrad, Frederick R. KarlISBN 0451524160 (0-451-52416-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale'Book summary:One one of the great detective novels of all time, "The Secret Conrad", written in 1903, is a magisterial thriller of terrorists and police in London in the early years of the 20th century. [via]
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Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emersonby William H. GilmanISBN 0451524047 (0-451-52404-7)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries: 22 Storiesby Arthur Conan DoyleISBN 0451524314 (0-451-52431-4)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloeby George Eliot, Frederick R. KarlISBN 0451527216 (0-451-52721-6)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe'Book summary:Eliot's touching novel of a miser and a little child combines the charm of a fairy tale with the humor and pathos of realistic fiction. The gentle linen weaver, Silas Marner, exiles himself to the town of Raveloe after being falsely accused of a heinous theft. There he begins to find redemption and spiritual rebirth through his unselfish love for an abandoned child he discovers in his isolated cottage. [via]
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Sister Carrieby Theodore Dreiser, Richard LingemanISBN 0451527607 (0-451-52760-7)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sister Carrie'Book summary:Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser's revolutionary first novel, was published in 1900--sort of. The story of Carrie Meeber, an 18-year-old country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman, was strong stuff at the turn of the century, and what Dreiser's wary publisher released was a highly expurgated version. Times change, and we now have a restored "author's cut" of Sister Carrie that shows how truly ahead of his time Dreiser was. First and foremost, he has written an astute, nonmoralizing account of a woman and her limited options in late-19th-century America. That's impressive in and of itself, but Dreiser doesn't stop there. Digging deeply into the psychological underpinnings of his characters, he gives us people who are often strangers to themselves, drifting numbly until fate pushes them on a path they can later neither defend nor even remember choosing.
Dreiser's story unfolds in the measured cadences of an earlier era. This sometimes works brilliantly as we follow the choices, small and large, that lead some characters to doom and others to glory. On the other hand, the middle chapters--of which there are many--do drag somewhat, even when one appreciates Dreiser's intentions. If you can make it through the sagging midsection, however, you'll be rewarded by Sister Carrie's last 150 pages, which depict the harrowing downward spiral of one of the book's central characters. Here Dreiser portrays with brutal power how the wrong decision--or lack of decision--can lay waste to a life. --Rebecca Gleason [via]
The Songcatcherby Sharyn McCrumbISBN 0451202503 (0-451-20250-3)
Softcover, Signet
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Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writingsby Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Catherine Hutter, Hermann J. WeigandISBN 0451523032 (0-451-52303-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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The Sorrows of Young Werther: Easyread Comfort Editionby Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheISBN 0451517369 (0-451-51736-9)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydeby Robert Louis StevensonISBN 0450018431 (0-450-01843-1)
Hardcover, New English Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'Book summary:The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.
This University of Nebraska Press edition is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a "mythopoetic figure" like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares Stevenson's creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde, and Dickens.
This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings, is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, "I went so far as to have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and, like Stevenson, not show Hyde's face." (Also recommended: the edition of Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster [via]
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Tess of the D'Urbervillesby Thomas HardyISBN 0451525469 (0-451-52546-9)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'Book summary:Thomas Hardy broke the boundaries of the acceptable Victorian heroine with "Tess of the D'Urbervilles", Victimized by lust, poverty, and hypocrisy, Tess is a woman whose intense vitality flares unforgettably against the bleak background of a dying rural society. Shaped by an acute sense of social injustice and by a vision of human fate cosmic in scope, her story is a singular blending of harsh realism and indelibly poignant beauty. This classic novel remains a triumph of literary art and a timeless commentary on the human condition. [via]
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Turn of the Screwby Henry JamesISBN 0451526066 (0-451-52606-6)
Softcover, Signet Classic
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Turn of the Screw'Book summary:The story starts conventionally enough with friends sharing ghost stories 'round the fire on Christmas Eve. One of the guests tells about a governess at a country house plagued by supernatural visitors. But in the hands of Henry James, the master of nuance, this little tale of terror is an exquisite gem of sexual and psychological ambiguity. Only the young governess can see the ghosts; only she suspects that the previous governess and her lover are controlling the two orphaned children (a girl and a boy) for some evil purpose. The household staff don't know what she's talking about, the children are evasive when questioned, and the master of the house (the children's uncle) is absent. Why does the young girl claim not to see a perfectly visible woman standing on the far side of the lake? Are the children being deceptive, or is the governess being paranoid? By leaving the questions unanswered, The Turn of Screw generates spine-tingling anxiety in its mesmerized readers. [via]
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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seaby Jules VerneISBN 0448411091 (0-448-41109-1)
Hardcover, Price Stern Sloan
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'Book summary:The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. [via]
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Twenty Years at Hull-Houseby Jane AddamsISBN 0451527399 (0-451-52739-9)
Softcover, Signet
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Twenty Years at Hull-House'Book summary:While on a trip to East London in 1883, Jane Addams witnessed a distressing scene late one night: masses of poor people were bidding on rotten vegetables that were unsalable anywhere else.
Their pale faces were dominated by that most unlovely of human expressions, the cunning and shrewdness of the bargain-hunter who starves if he cannot make a successful trade, and yet the final impression was not of ragged, tawdry clothing nor of pinched and sallow faces, but of myriads of hands, empty, pathetic, nerveless, and workworn, showing white in the uncertain light of the street, and clutching forward for food which was already unfit to eat.
This scene haunted Addams for the next two years as she traveled through Europe, and she hoped to find a way to ease such suffering. Five years later, she visited Toynbee Hall, a London settlement house, and resolved to replicate the experiment in the U.S. On September 18, 1889, Jane Addams and her friend Ellen Starr moved into the second floor of a rundown mansion in Chicago's West Side. From the outset, they imagined Hull-House as a "center for a higher civic and social life" in the industrial districts of the city. Addams, Starr, and several like-minded individuals lived and worked among the poor, establishing (among other things) art classes, discussion groups, cooperatives, a kindergarten, a coffee house, a lending library, and a gymnasium. In a time when many well-to-do Americans were beginning to feel threatened by immigrants, Hull-House embraced them, showed them the true meaning of democracy, and served as a center for philanthropic efforts throughout Chicago.
Hull-House also provided an outlet for the energies of the first generation of female college graduates, who were educated for work yet prevented from doing it. In some respects, however, Addams's impressive work, often hailed by historians as "revolutionary," was nothing of the sort. She embraced the sexual stereotypes of her day, and, though she was clearly an independent woman, soothed public fears by acting primarily in the traditional roles of nurturer and caregiver. Hull-House was a rousing success, and it inspired others to follow in Addams's footsteps.
Though Twenty Years at Hull-House is meant to be an autobiography, it is Hull-House itself that stands in the spotlight. Addams devotes the first third of the book to her upbringing and influences, but the remainder focuses on the organization she built--and the benefits accruing to those who work with the poor as well as to the poor themselves. At times Addams's prose is difficult to follow, but her ideals and her actions are truly inspiring. A classic work of history--and a model for today's would-be philanthropists. --Sunny Delaney [via]
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Up from Slavery: An Autobiographyby Booker T. WashingtonISBN 0451527542 (0-451-52754-2)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Up from Slavery: An Autobiography'Book summary:Nineteenth-century African American businessman, activist, and educator Booker Taliaferro Washington's Up from Slavery is one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. Its mantras of black economic empowerment, land ownership, and self-help inspired generations of black leaders, including Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. In rags-to-riches fashion, Washington recounts his ascendance from early life as a mulatto slave in Virginia to a 34-year term as president of the influential, agriculturally based Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. From that position, Washington reigned as the most important leader of his people, with slogans like "cast down your buckets," which emphasized vocational merit rather than the academic and political excellence championed by his contemporary rival W.E.B. Du Bois. Though many considered him too accommodating to segregationists, Washington, as he said in his historic "Atlanta Compromise" speech of 1895, believed that "political agitation alone would not save [the Negro]," and that "property, industry, skill, intelligence, and character" would prove necessary to black Americans' success. The potency of his philosophies are alive today in the nationalist and conservative camps that compose the complex quilt of black American society. [via]
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Walden Or, Life in the Woods and "on the Duty of Civil Disobedience"by Henry David ThoreauISBN 0451527070 (0-451-52707-0)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden Or, Life in the Woods and "on the Duty of Civil Disobedience"'Book summary:A philosophy of life and observations on government included in these famous books. [via]
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The Wings of the Doveby Henry James, Brenda WineappleISBN 0451527283 (0-451-52728-3)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics
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