Genre Other. Page - 299
Description
The Island of Doctor Moreau is the narration of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man who finds himself on a mysterious island full of humanoid animal creatures. He comes to find that these creatures are the work of Dr. Moreau, a man who experiments in vivisection, and his assistant Montgomery.
The story of Dr. Moreau’s island began as an article in the January, 1895 issue of Saturday Review. It was later adapted into a novel. Its themes reflect concerns growing in the society of the day, like the cruelty of vivisection, degenerationism, and the theory of evolution.
Description
Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim, published in 1901, tells the story of Kimberly O’Hara (“Kim”), the orphaned son of an Anglo-Irish soldier, who grows up as a street-urchin on the streets of Lahore in India during the time of the British Raj. Knowing little of his parentage, he is as much a native as his companions, speaking Hindi and Urdu rather than English, cunning and street-wise.
At about the age of twelve, Kim encounters an old Tibetan lama on a pilgrimage in search of a holy river. He decides to fall in with the lama on his travels, and becomes in essence the old man’s disciple. Not long after, Kim is captured at an encampment of British soldiers under suspicion of being a thief. His parentage is discovered and the officers decide he must be raised as a “Sahib” (an Englishman) and sent off to school. The interest of the British officers in Kim is not entirely disinterested, however, as they see his potential for acting as a courier and spy as part of their “Great Game” of espionage against their bitter rivals the Russians, and ensure that he is trained accordingly.
Kim is a well-loved book, often being listed as one of the best English-language novels. Its depiction of the India of the time, its varied races, religions, customs and scenery is detailed, rich and sympathetic. And the manoeuverings of the players in the Great Game make for an entertaining adventure story.
Description
Perhaps the most influential and widely read political work of the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ The Manifesto of the Communist Party succinctly lays out the political theory and history of class struggle.
Following a short introduction, the Manifesto develops over four short chapters, discussing the historical background of class struggle, the relationship of Communists with other socialist and working class movements, a critical review of other contemporary socialist literature and thinking, and finally a brief summary of the Communist position related to the contemporary political situations in various European countries, concluding with the rousing call-to-arms, “Workingmen of all countries unite!”
This edition, translated by Samuel Moore, includes Engels’ own Preface and footnote annotations written for the English edition of 1888.
Description
In Silas Marner, author George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans) introduces an embittered linen weaver who withdraws from society after a betrayal of trust. He retreats to work his loom or count and re-count his accumulated gold and silver. The abrupt theft of his money sends Marner into despair, which is interrupted just as suddenly by the appearance of an abandoned infant on his hearth. Marner adopts and raises the child, finding a new place among his community.
Silas Marner was well-received at the time of its release for its “fairy tale” charm, and has since gained appreciation for Eliot’s treatment of alienation, religious feeling and community. It has remained popular ever since its publication and has been adapted many times to stage and film.
Description
Griffin, a scientist, has devoted his life to the study of optics. As his work progresses, he invents a method of making a person invisible. After testing the experiment on himself, he comes to realize that while the experiment was a complete success, he has no way of reversing his invisibility.
Written in a time of rapid scientific progress and industrial development, Wells uses Griffin’s struggle with his condition and descent into obsession and madness to reflect on the dangers of unbridled scientific progress untempered by compassion or humanity.
The Invisible Man was initially serialized in Pearson’s Weekly in 1897, after which it was published as a whole novel that same year.
Description
Poetry of T. S. Eliot collects all of his early work through “The Hollow Men.” Poems like “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Whispers of Immortality,” and “Gerontion” ponder aging and mortality, while “Sweeney Erect,” “Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Service,” and “Sweeney Among the Nightingales” sketch the temptations and agonies of the modern man in the character of Sweeney.
Woven throughout with allusions to works in six foreign languages and sporting over fifty footnotes by the author, “The Waste Land” is as notorious for its bleak picture of a post-war world as it is for its density and difficulty. “The Hollow Men” ends with one of the most famous stanzas in English poetry.
Eliot’s flashes of insight bring the everyday into stark relief. Whether suffering an insufferable bore, observing the lives of strangers on the streets, or juxtaposing the sacred and the profane, his sometimes autobiographical vignettes of modern life still feel current a century after they were penned.
Description
Alice Adams is Booth Tarkington’s second novel to win a Pulitzer Prize, just three years after his novel The Magnificent Ambersons won it. The novel tells the story of Alice, a Midwestern girl who grows up in a lower-middle-class family just after World War I. Alice meets a wealthy young man and tries to win his affection, despite her lower-class upbringing.
Alice Adams was twice adapted for film, with the second adaptation starring Katherine Hepburn and earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Description
Something New is the first novel of what became known as the “Blandings Castle Saga” by P. G. Wodehouse and was published in the United States in 1915. Two Americans, Ashe Marson and Joan Valentine, endeavor to retrieve a scarab pilfered from an American millionaire by the absent-minded Lord Emsworth. Marson and Valentine soon find themselves impersonating servants while evading the Efficient Baxter.
The story was originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post as Something Fresh in 1915. It introduced who would become the recurring characters of Blandings Castle: Lord Emsworth, Freddie Threepwood, Rupert Baxter, and Sebastian Beach.
Description
The Woman in White tells the story of Walter Hartright, a young and impoverished drawing teacher who falls in love with his aristocratic pupil, Laura Fairlie. He cannot hope to marry her, however, and she is married off against her will to a baronet, Sir Percival Glyde, who is seeking her fortune. The terms of her marriage settlement prevent Glyde accessing her money while she lives, so together with his deceptively charming and cunning friend, Count Fosco, they hatch an unscrupulous deception to do so nonetheless. In an early 19th Century version of “identity theft,” they contrive to fake Laura’s death and confine her to a mental asylum. Their plot is eventually uncovered and exposed by Hartright with the help of Laura’s resourceful half-sister, Marian Halcombe.
The Woman in White was the most popular of Wilkie Collins’ novels in the genre then known as “sensation fiction.” It has never been out of print and is frequently included in lists of the best novels of all time. Published initially in serial form in 1859–60, it achieved an early and remarkable following, probably because of the strength of its characters, in particular the smooth and charming but utterly wicked villain Count Fosco, and the intelligent and steadfast Marian Halcombe opposed to him.
Description
Crime and Punishment tells the story of Rodion Raskolnikov, an ex-student who plans to murder a pawnbroker to test his theory of personality. Having accomplished the deed, Raskolnikov struggles with mental anguish while trying to both avoid the consequences and hide his guilt from his friends and family.
Dostoevsky’s original idea for the novel centered on the Marmeladov family and the impact of alcoholism in Russia, but inspired by a double murder in France he decided to rework it around the new character of Raskolnikov. The novel was first serialized in The Russian Messenger over the course of 1866, where it was an instant success. It was published in a single volume in 1867. Presented here is Constance Garnett’s 1914 translation.