Catalog Search Results
Author
Series
Summary
Most people go to an optician if their vision is bad. However, when Richard Henry Dana's sight was affected by measles while he was at Harvard College, he decided a sea voyage round Cape Horn was the best solution.
He joined the crew of a merchant ship at Boston, kept a daily diary of his adventures, then produced this American classic. 'Two Years Before the Mast' is a vivid account of the true life of a common sailor at sea.
Throughout his journey,...
Author
Lexile Measure
720L
Summary
A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens's great historical novel, set against the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author's novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores...
Author
Lexile Measure
990L
Summary
A deluxe Harper Perennial Legacy Edition, with an introduction from John Swansburg, Deputy Editor at SlateOne of the best-selling books of all time, Lew Wallace's enduring epic is a tale of revenge, betrayal, honor, compassion and the power of forgiveness, set during the life of Christ. At the beginning of the first century, Judah Ben-Hur lived as a prince, descended from the royal line of Judea and one of Jerusalem's most prosperous merchant families....
Author
Series
Lexile Measure
900L
Summary
"'As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to sleep: And as I slept I dreamed a Dream.'" "So begins one of the best-loved and most widely read books in English literature. An acknowledged classic of the heroic Puritan tradition, and a founding text in the development of the English novel, The Pilgrim's Progress has inspired readers for over three centuries. The...
Author
Series
Everyman's library. Fiction
Everyman's library volume no. 325
Everyman's library volume no. 326
More Series...
Everyman's library volume no. 325
Everyman's library volume no. 326
More Series...
Lexile Measure
1240L
Summary
Brought up at Dorlcote Mill, Maggie Tulliver worships her brother Tom and is desperate to win the approval of her parents, but her passionate, wayward nature and her fierce intelligence bring her into constant conflict with her family. As she reaches adulthood, the clash between their expectations and her desires is painfully played out as she finds herself torn between her relationships with three very different men: her proud and stubborn brother,...
7) Black Beauty
Author
Lexile Measure
850L
Appears on list
Summary
One of the best loved animal stories ever written, the dramatic and heartwarming Black Beauty is told by the magnificent horse himself, from his idyllic days on a country squire's estate to his harsh fate as a London cab horse. No one can ever forget the gallant Black Beauty, a horse with a white star on his forehead and a heart of unyielding courage.
Author
Lexile Measure
700L
Appears on list
Summary
Dorian Gray is arrogant. He is pompous, selfish, devastatingly narcissistic, and for much of his life he has never had to think twice about the ramifications of his actions.When the arrival of artist Basil Hallard forces Gray to confront his deepest insecurities, Dorian's most vulnerable self is imminently revealed. After having traded his righteousness for riches, Dorian Gray becomes faced with many regrettable truths he must learn to tackle head...
Author
Lexile Measure
1280L
Summary
In seventeenth-century Boston, Hester Prynne shoulders the scorn of her fellow Puritan townsfolk for bearing a child out of wedlock. For her refusal to name the father of her daughter Pearl, Hester is made to wear a scarlet 'A' stitched conspicuously upon her dress. But though she bears the stigma of the shame her peers would confer upon her, others feel the guilt for her transgression more acutely--notably the pious Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the...
Author
Lexile Measure
750L
Summary
Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and demonic money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens's portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made The Old Curiosity Shop an instant...
Author
Summary
An enduring tale of love, desire, and the universal longing both to leave one's home and to return to it, this novel is one of Hardy's greatest and most affecting works. Hardy's passionately drawn characters and his vivid rendering of their valiant but ultimately ineffective struggle in destiny's web result in a masterpiece of melancholy brilliance.
Author
Lexile Measure
1180L
Summary
Jane Austen's first published novel, sparkling with wit and artistry, captures the inequities of birth, class, and marriage faced by the sisters Dashwood. Published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility has delighted generations of readers with its masterfully crafted portrait of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Forced to leave their home after their father's death, Elinor and Marianne must rely on making good marriages as their means of support....
16) Dracula
Author
Series
Lexile Measure
990L
Summary
First published in 1897, Dracula by Bram Stoker has become the standard against which all other vampire stories are compare and the inspiration for countless film and stage adaptations. Indeed, the name "Dracula" has been synonymous with the Undead for at least a century, and the original novels till has the power to chill. Come then to Castle Dracula, hidden in the forbidding peaks of the Carpathian Mountains, where an undying creature of evil casts...
Author
Series
Lexile Measure
1050L
Summary
"Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a classic work of American literature that explores the harsh realities of slavery in the nineteenth century. Published in 1852, the novel follows the lives of several characters, including the titular character Tom, a long-suffering slave on a plantation in Kentucky. Through the characters' stories, Stowe paints a vivid picture of life in slavery, as well as its psychological, emotional, and spiritual...
18) Silas Marner
Author
Lexile Measure
1240L
Summary
A miser finds redemption through caring for an abandoned child.
Author
Series
Lexile Measure
880L
Summary
"Commemorating the 150th anniversary of one of the most beloved classics of children's literature, this illustrated edition presents Alice like you've never seen her before. In 1865, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an Oxford mathematician and Anglican deacon, published a story about a little girl who tumbles down a rabbit hole. Thus was the world first introduced to Alice and her pseudonymous creator, Lewis Carroll. This beautiful new edition of Alice's...
20) Kim
Author
Lexile Measure
940L
Summary
Rudyard Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India is also his greatest long work. Born in India and growing into early manhood, Kim is the son of an Irish soldier born under British Imperial rule in 19th century India. Left in the care of a half-caste woman, Kim is free to explore the back allies and bazaars of Lahore. But when he meets with his father's old regiment he trades his native clothes for European suits and abandons his...
