Description

Hidden in the forest, the poet Trirodov attempts to secede from the troubled society of early twentieth century Russia to build his own utopia: a school for the quiet children he cares for. Nothing is ever that easy though, and his personal connections to the outside world tie him into the political whirlwind of agitators, factions and power struggles that threaten his solitude.

The Created Legend portrays a stark contrast to the protagonists of Sologub’s earlier work The Little Demon, even though the setting is the same town of Skorodozh. There, they varied from at best well-meaning to actively malignant; here the lead characters are idealistic, and isolate themselves from the trials of Russian society in an attempt to maintain their idealism. Trirodov sees beauty and mystery everywhere he looks, and (following the title) works to create his own legend.

This volume, originally titled “Drops of Blood,” is the first of the “Created Legend” trilogy and the only one translated contemporaneously into English. It was received with some bewilderment by critics: the combination of current affairs and magical events proved too strange for many. However, treated as an early example of magic realism and with the benefit of hindsight, the setting and symbolism is less shocking and more readily accessible to the modern reader.

Description

The gentleman-thief Arsène Lupin returns in this set of ten short stories to confess—or perhaps boast about—his crimes to the unnamed narrator. Mostly set around Lupin’s attempts to frustrate Chief-Inspector Ganimard and pocket some cash in the process, they also show off his knack for escaping from seemingly impossible situations, and even playing the role of the master detective.

In the chronology of Arsène Lupin, these tales were published after, but set before, the darker stories of The Hollow Needle and 813. They were serialised in Je Sais Tout from 1911, and collected into a single publication in 1913.

Description

Tess of the d’Urbervilles is said to be Thomas Hardy’s fictional masterpiece and is considered to be an important nineteenth century novel. It explores themes of love, sex, class and morality in an aching love story.

It initially appeared in a censored, serialised version in The Graphic in 1891 and was published in a single volume the following year. Early reviews were mixed, partly because of its challenge to Victorian sexual morals—it is now looked upon much more favorably.

Tess Durbeyfield is the oldest child of uneducated peasants who are given the impression that they may have noble blood, as their surname is a corruption of that of an extinct Norman family. When Tess participates in the village May Dance, she meets Angel, who stops to join the dance but notices Tess too late to dance with her. That night, Tess’s father gets too drunk to drive to the market, so she undertakes the journey herself. However, she falls asleep at the reins, and the family’s only horse encounters a speeding wagon and is fatally wounded. Tess feels so guilty over the consequences for the family that she agrees to try to claim kin with a rich widow who lives in a neighbouring town. The story traces Tess’s life through the following years.

The novel has been adapted for the stage, theatre, opera, cinema and television numerous times since its publication.

Description

At the height of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, a mysterious daredevil rescues French aristocrats from execution and smuggles them out of France. This secretive escape artist is known to the French authorities only by the drawings of a flower, the scarlet pimpernel, that he leaves as his calling card.

Marguerite St. Just has avoided the worst of the revolutionary turmoil. Her recent marriage to the English baronet Sir Percy Blakeney has taken her away from the chaos in France to England, where she is quickly recognized as the most fashionable and clever lady in London. But even in England, she is unable to escape the effects of the Revolution, and she is soon blackmailed into a plot to unmask and capture the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel.

With The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy introduced the world to a talented, adventurous hero hiding behind a dull and ineffectual secret identity. Countless imitators followed, until the “secret identity” became a common feature of adventure stories.

In addition to the novel, Orczy wrote with her husband a stage play of the same name, which broke stage records and saw several revivals. Both the play and the novel received much critical and popular acclaim, and Orczy went on to write several sequels about the mysterious Pimpernel and his companions.

Description

The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope is an adventure novel first published in 1894 that takes place in the fictional Kingdom of Ruritania.

It tells the story of Rudolph Rassendyll, who is, because of past indiscretions in the family and unbeknownst to him, the near twin of King Rudolph V of Ruritania. Labeled a ne’er-do-well by his sister-in-law, young Rudolph determines to escape his family and secretly travel to Ruritania for the coronation of his distant relative. But when the king is drugged and abducted on the eve of this ceremony, young Rassendyll is convinced to take his place to try and save the day.

But things don’t go as planned as the conspirators fail to reckon with the king’s brother, the dastardly Duke of Strelsau or his fiancée, the beautiful Princess Flavia. What follows is a tale of bravery, sacrifice and love, filled with romance and feats of derring-do that still stands the test of time.

The Prisoner of Zenda was Hope’s most famous novel and achieved instant success. Such was the impact of this novel that the setting of Ruritania became famous in its own right as the generic term referring to romantic stories set in fictional central European countries. It went on to spawn numerous adaptations, retellings and homages. Anthony Hope wrote a sequel in 1898 called Rupert of Hentzau but it never achieved the success of the original.

Description

Moonfleet is a small village near the sea in the south of England, where village legend tells of the notorious Colonel John “Blackbeard” Mohune who is buried in a family crypt under the church. He is said to have stolen and hidden a diamond from King Charles I. His ghost is said to wander at night looking for the diamond, and the mysterious lights in the churchyard are attributed to his activities.

One night a bad storm floods the village. While attending the Sunday service at church, John Trenchard—an orphan who lives with his aunt—hears strange sounds from the crypt below. Investigating, he soon finds himself in a smuggler’s hideout, where he discovers a locket in a coffin that holds a piece of paper inscribed with Bible verses.

John soon finds himself swept up in a smuggling venture planned by Elzevir Block, the smugglers’ leader, and inadvertently finds out that the verses from Blackbeard’s locket contain a code that will reveal the location of the famous diamond.

Moonfleet was hugely popular in its day and was even sometimes studied in schools. Adaptations to screen, radio, and theater continue today.

Description

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the classic American children’s novel about the adventures of Dorothy, a young girl who along with her dog Toto is swept away by a cyclone to the magical Land of Oz. It was written by L. Frank Baum and published in May 1900.

Dorothy lives with her Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and Toto on a farm in the Kansas prairie. One day, Dorothy and Toto are caught up in a cyclone that deposits her farmhouse into Munchkin Country in the magical Land of Oz. The falling house has killed the Wicked Witch of the East, the evil ruler of the Munchkins. The Good Witch of the North arrives with three grateful Munchkins and gives Dorothy the magical Silver Shoes that once belonged to the Wicked Witch. The Good Witch tells Dorothy that the only way she can return home is to go to the Emerald City and ask the great and powerful Wizard of Oz to help her.

The Library of Congress has declared it “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairy-tale.” Its groundbreaking success and the success of the Broadway musical adaptation led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books which serve as sequels to the first story. The 1939 film musical adaptation starring Judy Garland is considered by many to be one of the greatest films in cinema history.

Description

Aristotle examines how best to live by looking at the nature of those virtues that characterize the most thriving human beings, and then at how to acquire and develop such virtues. This book is considered the founding document of what is now known as the “virtue ethics” tradition.

Along the way, Aristotle delves into pleasure, happiness, justice, friendship, and willpower. He intended the Nicomachean Ethics to be the foundation on which to build his Politics.

Nicomachean Ethics is based on Aristotle’s lectures at the Lyceum and was originally collected as a series of ten scrolls. In translation it was hugely influential in the development of Western philosophic tradition, quickly becoming one of the core works of medieval philosophy.

Description

Anne Elliot is the under-valued daughter of a vain and improvident English baronet, Sir Walter Elliot. The family is in debt, and in order to save money, they rent their noble property to a retired Admiral and his wife. As the rest of her family removes to Bath, Anne remains behind to attend to her married younger sister, and in doing so finds herself in unexpected contact with Frederick Wentworth, the brother of the Admiral’s wife. Eight years previously, Wentworth had proposed to Anne, only to be rejected by her at the urging of a family friend. Anne initially dreads the reunion, as Wentworth, now a successful captain returned from the Napoleonic Wars, pays his attentions to Anne’s younger sisters-in-law.

Persuasion follows Anne as she supports family and friends alike amidst the upheaval of her family’s relocation, the unexpected return of her estranged cousin (Sir Walter’s heir), Wentworth’s apparent indifference, and the vestiges of regret at her earlier decisions.

Persuasion was published in 1817, six months after Jane Austen’s death, and is the last novel she completed in full. It was well-regarded on publication and has been turned into several television series and movies.

Description

Struggles and Triumphs is the autobiography of P. T. Barnum, the celebrated American showman. Though subtitled Forty Years’ Recollections, it covers a period of over 60 years, from his birth in 1810, to the later years of his career in the 1870s.

Barnum has an engaging style, and his autobiography is crammed with many amusing and interesting incidents as he tells how he learned to make money entertaining the public through circuses, “freak shows,” theatrical presentations, concert tours and the like. On the way he builds up an impressive fortune, only to lose it all through a fraudulous speculation perpetrated on him. Then he starts again, pays off his debts and builds up another, greater fortune. Though often labelled as a “humbug” or “a mere charlatan” it’s clear that the majority of his contemporary Americans held him in affectionate regard.

However modern readers may be upset by Barnum’s rather cavalier treatment of the animals under his care in the various menageries and aquariums he created, and be distressed by the details of how they were lost in the several fires which destroyed Barnum’s Museums.

Also of great interest are Barnum’s philanthropic endeavours: lecturing on teetotalism; supporting negro equality; and funding civic developments.