The thirteenth novel in ??mile Zola??s great Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity??s capacity for compassion and hope. Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Forced to take a back-breaking job at Le […]
Throughout John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath, the author uses spare prose to complement his protagonists difficulty expressing their needs and desires. Still considered the authors masterpiece, the work is undergoing a critical reevaluation as scholars debate its merits as a universal story of human endurance. The title, John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath, part […]
The original CliffsNotes study guides offer a look into key elements and ideas within classic works of literature. The latest generation of titles in this series also features glossaries and visual elements that complement the familiar format. “CliffsNotes on Fahrenheit 451” explores a twenty-fourth century world in which books are considered evil because they inspire […]
Night A terrifying account of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of his family…the death of his innocence…and the death of his God. Penetrating and powerful, as personal as The Diary Of Anne Frank, Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its […]
From Publishers Weekly In the “ideal” world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These childrens adolescent sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by […]
Dubliners is a landmark in modern literature, and one of the twentieth centurys finest collections of short stories. Together, the stories form one interwoven tapestry which provides a rich and subtle picture of the struggles of men and women to rise above the constraints of their everyday lives in Dublin.
Often considered Charles Dickens??s masterpiece, Bleak House blends together several literary genres??detective fiction, romance, melodrama, and satire??to create an unforgettable portrait of the decay and corruption at the heart of English law and society in the Victorian era. Opening in the swirling mists of London, the novel revolves around a court case that has dragged […]
A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Once arrested, he is released, but must report to court on a regular basis–an event that […]
Following the success of “Pickwick Papers” and “Oliver Twist”, “Nicholas Nickleby” was hailed as a comic triumph and firmly established Dickens as a literary gentleman. It has a full supporting cast of delectable characters that range from the iniquitous Wackford Squeers and his family, to the delightful Mrs Nickleby, taking in the eccentric Crummles and […]
Surprisingly, this long essay about society and art and sexism is one of Woolfs most accessible works. Woolf, a major modernist writer and critic, takes us on an erudite yet conversational–and completely entertaining–walk around the history of women in writing, smoothly comparing the architecture of sentences by the likes of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, […]
A stunning and brilliantly realized future world in which individuality has been crushed is the theme of Ayn Rands bestselling masterpiece, “Anthem”. Rand presents her tale of a man who dares to make individual choices, to seek knowledge in a dark age, to love the woman of his choice. In a society in which people […]
London 1843 few know any leisure, and Christmas has all but been forgotten… …Enter Charles Dickens and his “Ghostly little book,” in which he invents the modern concept of Christmas Spirit and offers one of the world s most adapted and imitated stories. We know Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, […]
Twelfth Night is one of the ten most popular titles from the best-selling Cambridge School Shakespeare series now available in a new edition. The new edition includes new and revised activities throughout, new black and white photos from the widest selection of stage and film interpretations of the plays, and a larger glossary providing extra […]
A charming tale of the battle between bourgeois repression and radical romanticism, E. M. Forster??s third novel has long been the most popular of his early works. A young girl, Lucy Honeychurch, and her chaperon??products of proper Edwardian England??visit a tempestuous, passionate Italy. Their ??room with a view? allows them to look into a world […]