Sheba Blake
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A gentlemanly Irish physician is innocently condemned to a life of slavery in the English colonies across the sea. There, on a Caribbean Island plantation, the good Dr. Peter Blood, toils as a slave. A chance raid by Spaniards affords Blood his opportunity to escape into a life of piracy and crime upon the high seas. But Blood is a pirate with a sense of honor. How Blood distinguishes himself against his enemies, is the tale in this enjoyable historical...
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Thuvia, Maid of Mars is a science fantasy novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth of the Barsoom series. The principal characters are Carthoris (the son of John Carter of Mars) and Thuvia of Ptarth, each of whom appeared in the previous two novels.
While typical in many ways of Burrough's Barsoom novels, it also includes some inventive elements.
Carthoris is madly in love with Thuvia. This love was foreshadowed at the end of the previous novel....
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"While walking in the Swiss Alps, two English travellers fall into a space-warp, and suddenly find themselves in another world. In many ways the same as our own - even down to the characters that inhabit it - this new planet is still somehow radically different, for the two walkers are now upon a Utopian Earth controlled by a single World Government. Here, as they soon learn, all share a common language, there is sexual, economic and racial equality,...
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Illustrated with beautiful chapter headings that match the book cover!
From the mysterious Druids and noble King Alfred to the notorious Henry VIII and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Charles Dickens traced his country's history for the benefit of young Victorians. Written with the beloved storyteller's customary panache, this series of historical vignettes reads like a fast-paced novel, rich in anecdotes and colorful stories. Dickens' unsparing,...
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The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabeled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and supply a happy ending.
The play has been...
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Soon after the American Civil War, Confederate soldier John Carter joins the gold rush in Arizona. After striking a vein of gold, Carter runs into trouble with the natives of the area. In attempts to evade their pursuit, Carter hides in a cave, unaware of its magical properties. Mysteriously, Carter is transported to Mars, which the planet inhabitants call "Barsoom". When Carter discovers that the gravity difference between Mars and Earth has granted...
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In this classic adventure novel, first published in 1873, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a 20,000 pound wager set by his friends at the Reform Club - and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman and his manservant immediately set off.
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A Study in Scarlet is a detective novel by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Written in 1886, the story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who would become two of the most famous characters in popular fiction. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, an amateur detective, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his "study in...
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960L
Appears on list
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Geologist Otto Lidenbrock is perusing an ancient Icelandic manuscript when he discovers a mysterious encrypted note. The message reveals the account of a sixteenth-century explorer who claims to have found a passageway to the center of the earth. In his quest to penetrate the planet's primordial secrets, the impetuous professor, together with his quaking nephew, Axel, and their devoted guide, Hans, sets off immediately for Iceland. Descending through...
13) Candide
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1010L
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Candide is about a man who believes in the philosophy that: "what happens, happens for the best in the end." that was taught to him by his personal philosopher Dr. Panlosss. Candide goes through many, many trials and everyone he meets has had something terrible happen to them. He searches the world over for his love Cundgonde. And in the end finds that the simplest things in life: love, friends, and health are all that matters.
14) Bleak House
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1180L
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Bleak House is one of Dickens' finest achievements, establishing his reputation as a serious and mature novelist, as well as a brilliant comic writer. It is at once a complex mystery story that fully engages the reader in the work of detection, and an unforgettable indictment of an indifferent society. Its representations of a great city's underworld, and of the law's corruption and delay, draw upon the author's personal knowledge and experience....
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980L
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Fresh from his escapades with Tom Sawyer, with six thousand dollars in the bank and the Widow Douglas as his guardian, Huck Finn faces a new challenge: his father, Pap, who is so determined to get his hands on Huck's fortune that he kidnaps Huck and threatens to kill him. Escaping from Pap, Huck meets the runaway slave, Jim, who plans to head north and buy his wife and children our of slavery. Huck joins Jim on a salvaged raft, and together the two...