The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy http://www.feedbooks.com/book/119 urn:isbn:0375760067 en 1886 Novels The Mayor of Casterbridge opens with a shocking and haunting scene: In a drunken rage, Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a visiting sailor at a local fair. When they return to Casterbridge some nineteen years later, Henchard—having gained power and success as the mayor—finds he cannot erase the past or the guilt that consumes him. The Mayor of Casterbridge is a rich, psychological novel about a man whose own flaws combine with fate to cause his ruin. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/119.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/119.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/119.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/119.mobi Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol http://www.feedbooks.com/book/12 urn:isbn:0679776443 en 1842 Novels Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity, and pomp. As Gogol's wily antihero, Chichikov, combs the back country wheeling and dealing for "dead souls"--deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants, landowners, and conniving petty officials, few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov's proposition. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/12.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/12.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/12.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/12.mobi The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas http://www.feedbooks.com/book/73 urn:isbn:037576030X en 1845 Novels Adventure The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is often considered, along with The Three Musketeers, as Dumas' most popular work. It is also among the highest selling books of all time. The writing of the work was completed in 1844. Like many of his novels, it is expanded from the plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet. The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and the Levant during the historical events of 1815–1838 (from just before the Hundred Days through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book. It is primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, forgiveness and death, and is told in the style of an adventure story. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/73.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/73.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/73.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/73.mobi The Longest Journey E. M. Forster http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2072 urn:isbn:0735100683 en 1907 Novels Rickie Elliot, a sensitive and congenitally lame young man, orphaned at the age of 15, escapes from the misery of suburban life and the bullying of public school to Cambridge, where, like Forster himself, he finds sympathetic friends, chief amongst them Ansell, a grocer's son. He has literary aspirations (his short stories, Arcadian pastoral fantasies, are remarkably like Forster's own), but is also attracted by Agnes Pembroke, the conventional but beautiful sister of a schoolmaster friend and protector, and by her handsome, athletic, ex-bully fiancé Gerald. This work was published before 1923 and is in the public domain in the USA only. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2072.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2072.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2072.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2072.mobi Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3230 urn:isbn:1853260738 en 1722 Novels The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (commonly known as simply "Moll Flanders") is a novel written by Daniel Defoe in 1722. Defoe wrote this after his work as a journalist and pamphleteer. By 1722, Defoe had become recognized as a novelist, with the success of Robinson Crusoe in 1719. His political work was tapering off at this point, due to the fall of both Whig and Tory party leaders with whom he had been associated; Robert Walpole was beginning his rise, and Defoe was never fully at home with the Walpole group. Defoe's Whig views are nevertheless evident in the story of Moll, and the novel's full title gives some insight into this and the outline of the plot: "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums." From Wikipedia http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3230.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3230.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3230.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3230.mobi The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe http://www.feedbooks.com/book/348 urn:isbn:0812969901 en 1774 Novels The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787. Werther was an important novel of the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and it also influenced the later Romantic literary movement. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/348.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/348.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/348.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/348.mobi The Scarlet Pimpernel Baroness Emma Orczy http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3568 urn:isbn:014037454X en 1905 Novels History Adventure In this historical adventure set during the French Revolution, the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel sets out to rescue men, women and children facing the horrors of the guillotine, while evading the relentless pursuit of his arch enemy, Chauvelin. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50 or in the USA (published before 1923). http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3568.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3568.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3568.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3568.mobi Jude The Obscure Thomas Hardy http://www.feedbooks.com/book/753 urn:isbn:0486452433 en 1895 Novels Hardy's masterpiece traces a poor stonemason's ill-fated romance with his free-spirited cousin. No Victorian institution is spared — marriage, religion, education — and the outrage following publication led the embittered author to renounce fiction. Modern critics hail this novel as a pioneering work of feminism and socialist thought. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/753.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/753.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/753.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/753.mobi War and Peace Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy http://www.feedbooks.com/book/83 urn:isbn:067003469X en 1869 Novels History War War and Peace is a novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russkii Vestnik, which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy's two major masterpieces (the other being Anna Karenina) as well as one of the world's greatest novels. War and Peace offered a new kind of fiction, with a great many characters caught up in a plot that covered nothing less than the grand subjects indicated by the title, combined with the equally large topics of youth, marriage, age, and death. Though it is often called a novel today, it broke so many conventions of the form that it was not considered a novel in its time. Indeed, Tolstoy himself considered Anna Karenina (1878) to be his first attempt at a novel in the European sense. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/83.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/83.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/83.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/83.mobi Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1469 urn:isbn:1593083653 en 1848 Novels “I think I could be a good woman, if I had five thousand a year,” observes beautiful and clever Becky Sharp, one of the wickedest—and most appealing—women in all of literature. Becky is just one of the many fascinating figures that populate William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair, a wonderfully satirical panorama of upper-middle-class life and manners in London at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Scorned for her lack of money and breeding, Becky must use all her wit, charm and considerable sex appeal to escape her drab destiny as a governess. From London’s ballrooms to the battlefields of Waterloo, the bewitching Becky works her wiles on a gallery of memorable characters, including her lecherous employer, Sir Pitt, his rich sister, Miss Crawley, and Pitt’s dashing son, Rawdon, the first of Becky’s misguided sexual entanglements. Filled with hilarious dialogue and superb characterizations, Vanity Fair is a richly entertaining comedy that asks the reader, “Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?” http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1469.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1469.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1469.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1469.mobi Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure John Cleland http://www.feedbooks.com/book/84 urn:isbn:1840224177 en 1749 Novels Sexuality Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, popularly known as Fanny Hill, is a novel by John Cleland. Written in 1748 while Cleland was in debtor's prison in London, it is considered the first modern "erotic novel" in English, and has become a byword for the battle of censorship of erotica. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/84.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/84.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/84.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/84.mobi The Black Tulip Alexandre Dumas http://www.feedbooks.com/book/118 urn:isbn:0199540462 en 1850 Novels Adventure http://www.feedbooks.com/book/118.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/118.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/118.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/118.mobi Grimm's Fairy Tales Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm Wilhem Karl Grimm http://www.feedbooks.com/book/187 urn:isbn:0517229250 en 1812 Young Readers Collections Children's and Household Tales (German: Kinder- und Hausmärchen) is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales (German: Grimms Märchen). http://www.feedbooks.com/book/187.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/187.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/187.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/187.mobi The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3645 urn:isbn:0451530144 en 1908 Novels Young Readers Fantasy The Wind in the Willows is a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3645.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3645.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3645.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3645.mobi King Solomon's Mines Henry Rider Haggard http://www.feedbooks.com/book/89 urn:isbn:0192834851 en 1885 Novels Adventure King Solomon's Mines (1885) is a popular novel by the Victorian adventure writer and fabulist, Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of a quest into an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain in search of the missing brother of one of the party. It is significant as the first English fictional adventure novel set in Africa, and is considered the genesis of the Lost World literary genre. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/89.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/89.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/89.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/89.mobi The Ambassadors Henry James http://www.feedbooks.com/book/481 en 1903 Novels This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/481.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/481.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/481.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/481.mobi Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë http://www.feedbooks.com/book/144 urn:isbn:1551111802 en 1847 Novels Romance Jane Eyre, the story of a young girl and her passage into adulthood, was an immediate commercial success at the time of its original publication in 1847. Its representation of the underside of domestic life and the hypocrisy behind religious enthusiasm drew both praise and bitter criticism, while Charlotte Brontë's striking expose of poor living conditions for children in charity schools as well as her poignant portrayal of the limitations faced by women who worked as governesses sparked great controversy and social debate. Jane Eyre, Brontë's best-known novel, remains an extraordinary coming-of-age narrative, and one of the great classics of literature. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/144.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/144.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/144.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/144.mobi The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky http://www.feedbooks.com/book/180 urn:isbn:0486437914 en 1880 Novels Psychology The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, and is generally considered the culmination of his life's work. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger and completed in November 1880. Dostoevsky intended it to be the first part in an epic story titled The Life of a Great Sinner,[1] but he died less than four months after its publication. The book portrays a parricide in which each of the murdered man's sons share a varying degree of complicity. On a deeper level, it is a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, reason, free will and modern Russia. Dostoevsky composed much of the novel in Staraya Russa, which is also the main setting of the novel. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/180.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/180.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/180.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/180.mobi A Room with a View E. M. Forster http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2068 urn:isbn:0553213237 en 1908 Novels Romance This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England. A charming young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson—who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist—Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires. Back in England, she is courted by a more acceptable, if stifling, suitor and soon realizes she must make a startling decision that will decide the course of her future: she is forced to choose between convention and passion. This work was published before 1923 and is in the public domain in the USA only. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2068.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2068.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2068.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2068.mobi Oblomov Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov http://www.feedbooks.com/book/10 urn:isbn:1933480092 en 1858 Novels Romance Oblomov is the best known novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov, first published in 1859. Oblomov is also the central character of the novel, often seen as the ultimate incarnation of the superfluous man, a symbolic character in 19th-century Russian literature. Oblomov was compared to Shakespeare's Hamlet as answering 'No!' to the question "To be or not to be?" Oblomov is a young, generous nobleman who seems incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions. Throughout the novel he rarely leaves his room or bed and famously fails to leave his bed for the first 150 pages of the novel. The book was considered a satire of Russian nobility whose social and economic function was increasingly in question in mid-nineteenth century Russia. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/10.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/10.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/10.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/10.mobi