First Avenue Classics | Main Natrona County Library

1) A Christmas carol: a ghost story of Christmas

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1983

Summary

Click to view

A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future.

2) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court

Author

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

Earliest Publication Date

1901

Summary

Click to view

"The book relates the tale of Hank Morgan, an engineer from 19th century Hartford Connecticut, who is inexplicably transported to the early medieval England of King Arthur. While there he uses his knowledge of modern technology to appear as though he is a magician. Despite his best intentions, Hank?s attempts to modernize the past bring about a tragic end. A bittersweet depiction of the Arthurian legend through the eyes of a 19th century American..."...

3) A doll's house

Author

Ibsen, Henrik, 1828-1906

Earliest Publication Date

1994

Summary

Click to view

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen is a groundbreaking and thought-provoking masterpiece that challenges societal norms and explores the complex dynamics of marriage and identity. Set in 19th-century Norway, the play revolves around Nora Helmer, a seemingly content wife and mother, and her husband Torvald. As the plot unfolds, the audience is drawn into a web of secrets, lies, and personal revelations. Nora's journey from a docile, doll-like existence...

4) Alice's adventures in Wonderland

Author

Carroll, Lewis, 1832-1898

Earliest Publication Date

1900

Summary

Click to view

"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...

5) A little princess

Author

Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 1849-1924

Earliest Publication Date

1975

Summary

Click to view

Seven year old Sara Crewe learns of the tragic death of her father not long after she is left in the care of Miss Michin, headmistress of a boarding school. Now an orphan and stripped of her family fortune, Sara must survive the emotional trials of loss and the mental anguish of abuse at the hands of her new caretakers.

6) A midsummer night's dream

Author

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616

Earliest Publication Date

1897

Summary

Click to view

The original play by Shakespeare's drama telling how Demetrius and Lysander love Hermia, Hermia loves Lysander but is betrothed to Demetrius, much to her dismay. And no one loves Helena, though her heart belongs to Demetrius. When Hermia and Lysander escape escape through the forest to elope, Demetrius chases them, and Helena chases Demetrius. With the magic of the forest bewitching the hand of fate, perhaps their dream of love will come true.

7) Anna Karenina

Author

Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910

Earliest Publication Date

1939

Summary

Click to view

"Tolstoy produced many drafts of Anna Karenina. Crafting and recrafting each sentence with careful intent, he was anything but casual in his use of language. His project, translator Marian Schwartz observes, "was to bend language to his will, as an instrument of his aesthetic and moral convictions." In her magnificent new translation, Schwartz embraces Tolstoy's unusual style - she is the first English language translator ever to do so. Previous translations...

8) Antony and Cleopatra

Author

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616

Earliest Publication Date

1901

Summary

Click to view

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.

9) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Author

James Joyce

Earliest Publication Date

2015

Summary

Click to view

Late 19th-century Ireland is full of social, political, and religious turmoil. It is in the midst of this strife that Stephen Dedalus grows up. From his struggles with his classmates as a schoolboy to the sexual and Christian awakenings he experiences as a young adult, Stephen's life is shaped by the state of Ireland around him. Ultimately, he must decide if the life of beauty he desires can even be found in Ireland at all. This renowned coming-of-age...

10) Around the world in eighty days

Author

Verne, Jules, 1828-1905

Earliest Publication Date

1924

Summary

Click to view

One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and dangerous locations, they seize whatever transportation is at hand - whether train or elephant - overcoming set-backs and always racing against the clock.

11) As you like it

Author

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616

Earliest Publication Date

1901

Summary

Click to view

"Much of the action takes place on an almost clinically bare stage, and the fear and violence in the usurping Duke's court, where everyone wears formal black Elizabethan dress, is chilling. With his lame eye and air of festering resentment, Sandy Neilson's Duke Frederick has a touch of the psychotic about him ... Boyd ... shows us the bloody reality of rural life as the shepherd Corin (excellent Geoffrey Freshwater) slowly skins and beheads a dead...

12) A tale of two cities

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1859

Summary

Click to view

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...

13) Beowulf

Author

Anonymous

Earliest Publication Date

2007

Summary

Click to view

Literary scholar, professor, and poet J. Lesslie Hall is best known for his 1897 translation of the Old English epic poem "Beowulf." The story focuses on the titular character of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who comes to the aid of the Danes to save their land from a human-demon monster named Grendel. After defeating Grendel, Beowulf must then kill Grendel's mother. He returns to Scandinavia with more fame and accord and eventually becomes king. Then...

14) Black Beauty

Author

Sewell, Anna, 1820-1878

Earliest Publication Date

1890

Summary

Click to view

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.

15) Candide

Author

Voltaire, 1694-1778

Earliest Publication Date

1918

Summary

Click to view

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.

16) Crime and Punishment

Author

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

Earliest Publication Date

2007

Summary

Click to view

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov lives in a garret in St. Petersburg. Destitute and feeling cut off from humanity, he considers committing a terrible crime—killing a pawnbroker—to steal her money. After hearing people say that society would be better off without the pawnbroker, he murders her—and her sister, who walks in while Raskolnikov is raiding the pawnbroker's wares. As the novel's psychological drama unfolds, Raskolnikov lives in constant...

17) David Copperfield

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1907

Summary

Click to view

David Copperfield enjoys an idyllic life with his gentle, widowed mother and his loving nurse, Peggotty. Then tragedy strikes when Mr. Murdstone weds David's mother and drives her to an early grave. Despised by his stepfather, the boy is forced to live in misery and poverty until he runs away to throw himself upon the mercy of his eccentric aunt. Charles Dickens's classic tale of growing up.

18) Don Quixote

Author

Saavedra, Miguel de Cervantes

Earliest Publication Date

2014

Summary

Click to view

Obsessed with tales of gallant knights, Don Quixote, a middle-aged man from La Mancha, decides to take his own adventure. Donning rusty armor and riding upon an old horse, he sets off to change the world and save his invented damsel in distress in the name of chivalry. Unfortunately, Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza are met with a host of ill-intentioned characters, and the pair often find themselves the butt of a joke rather than chivalrous...

19) Dracula

Author

Stoker, Bram, 1847-1912

Earliest Publication Date

1897

Summary

Click to view

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...

20) Dubliners

Author

Joyce, James, 1882-1941

Earliest Publication Date

1926

Summary

Click to view

Fifteen stories evoke the character, atmosphere, and people of Dublin at the turn of the century.