The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1523 en 1850 Novels Romance Gothic The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, is an American novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and is generally considered to be his magnum opus. Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth after committing adultery, refuses to name the father, and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne explores questions of grace, legalism, sin and guilt. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1523.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1523.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1523.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1523.mobi The Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling http://www.feedbooks.com/book/162 urn:isbn:0763623172 en 1894 Novels Fantasy The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories written by Rudyard Kipling.The tales in the book (and also those in The Second Jungle Book which followed in 1895, and which includes five further stories about Mowgli) are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to give moral lessons. The verses of The Law of the Jungle, for example, lay down rules for the safety of individuals, families and communities. Kipling put in them nearly everything he knew or "heard or dreamed about the Indian jungle." This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/162.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/162.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/162.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/162.mobi Dracula Bram Stoker http://www.feedbooks.com/book/88 urn:isbn:0743477367 en 1897 Novels Horror Gothic Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, featuring as its primary antagonist the vampire Count Dracula. Dracula has been attributed to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature. Structurally it is an epistolary novel, that is, told as a series of diary entries and letters. Literary critics have examined many themes in the novel, such as the role of women in Victorian culture, conventional and conservative sexuality, immigration, colonialism, postcolonialism and folklore. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, the novel's influence on the popularity of vampires has been singularly responsible for many theatrical and film interpretations throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/88.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/88.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/88.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/88.mobi Frankenstein Mary Shelley http://www.feedbooks.com/book/91 urn:isbn:0743487583 en 1818 Novels Science Fiction Horror Gothic Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, generally known as Frankenstein, is a novel written by the British author Mary Shelley. The title of the novel refers to a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness of man, but larger than average and more powerful. In popular culture, people have tended to refer to the Creature as "Frankenstein", despite this being the name of the scientist. Frankenstein is a novel infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement. It was also a warning against the "over-reaching" of modern man and the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus. The story has had an influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films. It is arguably considered the first fully realized science fiction novel. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/91.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/91.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/91.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/91.mobi Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift http://www.feedbooks.com/book/159 urn:isbn:0451527321 en 1726 Novels Humor/Satire Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships, is a novel by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/159.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/159.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/159.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/159.mobi The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka http://www.feedbooks.com/book/8 urn:isbn:0553213695 en 1912 Short Fiction Horror The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/8.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/8.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/8.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/8.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 Tell-Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe http://www.feedbooks.com/book/814 urn:isbn:0553212281 en 1843 Short Fiction Horror Gothic "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by cutting it into pieces and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt manifests itself in the hallucination that the man's heart is still beating under the floorboards. It is unclear what relationship, if any, the old man and his murderer share. It has been suggested that the old man is a father figure or, perhaps, that his vulture eye represents some sort of veiled secret. The ambiguity and lack of details about the two main characters stand in stark contrast to the specific plot details leading up to the murder. The story was first published in James Russell Lowell's The Pioneer in January 1843. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is widely considered a classic of the Gothic fiction genre and one of Poe's most famous short stories. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/814.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/814.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/814.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/814.mobi Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe http://www.feedbooks.com/book/102 urn:isbn:0375757325 en 1719 Novels Adventure The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (of York, Mariner Who lived Eight and Twenty Years all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where in all the Men perished but Himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates) is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the first novel in English. The book is a fictional autobiography of the title character, an English castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Venezuela, encountering Native Americans, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. This device, presenting an account of supposedly factual events, is known as a "false document" and gives a realistic frame story. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/102.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/102.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/102.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/102.mobi The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1421 urn:isbn:0199536953 en 1892 Short Fiction Crime/Mystery Collections The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his famous detective and illustrated by Sidney Paget. These are the first of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, originally published as single stories in the Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The book was published in England on October 14, 1892 by George Newnes Ltd and in a US Edition on October 15 by Harper. The initial combined print run was 14,500 copies. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1421.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1421.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1421.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1421.mobi Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson http://www.feedbooks.com/book/97 urn:isbn:1416500294 en 1883 Novels Adventure While going through the possessions of a deceased guest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her son find a treasure map that leads them to a pirate's fortune. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/97.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/97.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/97.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/97.mobi Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson http://www.feedbooks.com/book/95 urn:isbn:1593081316 en 1886 Novels Horror Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and first published in 1886. It is about a London lawyer who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the misanthropic Edward Hyde. The work is known for its vivid portrayal of a split personality, split in the sense that within the same person there is both an apparently good and an evil personality each being quite distinct from each other; in mainstream culture the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has come to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next. This is different from multiple personality disorder where the different personalities do not necessarily differ in any moral sense. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was an immediate success and one of Stevenson's best-selling works. Stage adaptations began in Boston and London within a year of its publication and it has gone on to inspire scores of major film and stage performances. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/95.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/95.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/95.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/95.mobi The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde http://www.feedbooks.com/book/6 urn:isbn:0375751513 en 1891 Novels Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works. Written in Wilde's characteristically dazzling manner, full of stinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of Dorian Gray's moral disintegration caused something of a scandal when it first appeared in 1890. Wilde was attacked for his decadence and corrupting influence, and a few years later the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde's homosexual liaisons, trials that resulted in his imprisonment. Of the book's value as autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps." http://www.feedbooks.com/book/6.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/6.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/6.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/6.mobi Just so Stories Rudyard Kipling http://www.feedbooks.com/book/865 urn:isbn:0517266555 en 1902 Short Fiction Fantasy Collections The stories, first published in 1902, are pourquoi stories, fantastic accounts of how various phenomena came about. A forerunner of these stories is "How Fear Came" in The Second Jungle Book (1895), in which Mowgli hears the story of how the tiger got his stripes. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/865.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/865.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/865.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/865.mobi Moby-Dick Herman Melville http://www.feedbooks.com/book/54 urn:isbn:0553213113 en 1851 Novels Adventure Moby-Dick is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville. The story tells the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whaling ship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby-Dick, a white whale of tremendous size and ferocity. Comparatively few whaling ships know of Moby-Dick, and fewer yet have encountered him. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg. Ahab intends to exact revenge. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/54.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/54.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/54.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/54.mobi The Time Machine H. G. Wells http://www.feedbooks.com/book/32 urn:isbn:0812505042 en 1895 Novels Science Fiction The book's protagonist is an amateur inventor or scientist living in London who is never named; he is identified simply as The Time Traveller. Having demonstrated to friends using a miniature model that time is a fourth dimension, and that a suitable apparatus can move back and forth in this fourth dimension, he builds a full-scale model capable of carrying himself. He sets off on a journey into the future. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50 or in the USA (published before 1923). http://www.feedbooks.com/book/32.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/32.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/32.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/32.mobi Through the Looking Glass (And What Alice Found There) Lewis Carroll http://www.feedbooks.com/book/23 urn:isbn:0688120490 en 1871 Novels Young Readers Fantasy Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) is a work of children's literature by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), generally categorized as literary nonsense. It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Although it makes no reference to the events in the earlier book, the themes and settings of Through the Looking-Glass make it a kind of mirror image of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm month of May, on Alice's birthday (May 4), uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, wintry night exactly six months later, on November 4 (the day before Guy Fawkes Night), uses frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of chess. In it, there are many mirror themes, including opposites, time running backwards, and so on. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/23.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/23.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/23.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/23.mobi The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1513 urn:isbn:0553212702 en 1851 Novels Romance Gothic In a sleepy little New England village stands a dark, weather-beaten, many-gabled house. This brooding mansion is haunted by a centuries-old curse that casts the shadow of ancestral sin upon the last four members of the distinctive Pyncheon family. Mysterious deaths threaten the living. Musty documents nestle behind hidden panels carrying the secret of the family’s salvation—or its downfall. Hawthorne called The House of the Seven Gables “a Romance,” and freely bestowed upon it many fascinating gothic touches. A brilliant intertwining of the popular, the symbolic, and the historical, the novel is a powerful exploration of personal and national guilt, a work that Henry James declared “the closest approach we are likely to have to the Great American Novel.” http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1513.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1513.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1513.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1513.mobi Ulysses James Joyce http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1232 urn:isbn:0141182806 en 1922 Novels Sexuality Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, in Paris. It is considered one of the most important works of Modernist literature. Ulysses chronicles the passage through Dublin by its main character, Leopold Bloom, during an ordinary day, June 16, 1904. The title alludes to the hero of Homer's Odyssey (Latinised into Ulysses), and there are many parallels, both implicit and explicit, between the two works (e.g., the correspondences between Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus). This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50 or in the USA (published before 1923). http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1232.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1232.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1232.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1232.mobi The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas http://www.feedbooks.com/book/398 urn:isbn:0670037796 en 1844 Novels History Romance Adventure The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to become a musketeer. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—inseparable friends who live by the motto, "One for all, and all for one". The story of d'Artagnan is continued in Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne. Those three novels by Dumas are together known as the D'Artagnan Romances. The Three Musketeers was first published in serial form in the magazine Le Siècle between March and July 1844. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/398.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/398.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/398.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/398.mobi