A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens http://www.feedbooks.com/book/81 urn:isbn:0553211765 en 1859 Novels History A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is the second historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. It depicts the plight of the French proletariat under the brutal oppression of the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, and the corresponding savage brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events, most notably Charles Darnay, a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Sydney Carton, a dissipated English barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/81.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/81.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/81.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/81.mobi Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë http://www.feedbooks.com/book/135 urn:isbn:0553212583 en 1847 Novels Gothic Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte. The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story centres (as an adjective, wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent weather). The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/135.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/135.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/135.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/135.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 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad http://www.feedbooks.com/book/15 urn:isbn:0486264645 en 1902 Novels Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Polish-born writer Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski). Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood's Magazine. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon. This highly symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts, from dusk through to late night, his adventure into the Congo to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary. The story details an incident when Marlow, an Englishman, took a foreign assignment as a ferry-boat captain, employed by a Belgian trading company. Although the river is never specifically named, readers may assume it is the Congo River, in the Congo Free State, a private colony of King Leopold II. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver; however, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization in a cover up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/15.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/15.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/15.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/15.mobi The Dream Mary Shelley http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1350 en 1832 Short Fiction http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1350.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1350.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1350.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1350.mobi The Mortal Immortal Mary Shelley http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1348 urn:isbn:1892391015 en 1910 Short Fiction http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1348.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1348.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1348.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1348.mobi The Last Man Mary Shelley http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1347 urn:isbn:0192838652 en 1826 Novels Science Fiction A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, and demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem the doomed characters. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1347.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1347.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1347.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1347.mobi The Arabian Nights Andrew Lang http://www.feedbooks.com/book/208 urn:isbn:1605896403 en 1898 Novels Young Readers One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of stories collected over many centuries by various authors, translators and scholars in various countries across the Middle East and South Asia. These collections of tales trace their roots back to ancient Arabia and Yemen, ancient Indian literature and Persian literature, ancient Egyptian literature and Mesopotamian mythology, ancient Syria and Asia Minor, and medieval Arabic folk stories from the Caliphate era. Though the oldest Arabic manuscript dates from the fourteenth century, scholarship generally dates the collection's genesis to somewhere between AD 800–900. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/208.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/208.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/208.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/208.mobi The New Arabian Nights Robert Louis Stevenson http://www.feedbooks.com/book/211 en 1882 Short Fiction Collections New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1882, is a collection of short stories previously published in magazines between 1877 and 1880. The collection contains Stevenson's first published fiction, and a few of the stories are considered by some critics to be his best work, as well as pioneering works in the English short story tradition. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/211.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/211.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/211.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/211.mobi The Valley of Fear Arthur Conan Doyle http://www.feedbooks.com/book/64 urn:isbn:0330244248 en 1915 Novels Crime/Mystery The plot of the novel is based very loosely on the real-life activities of the Molly Maguires and, particularly, of Pinkerton agent James McParland. The novel is divided into two parts: in the first, Holmes investigates an apparent murder and discovers that the body belongs to another man; and in the second, the story of the man originally thought to have been the victim is told. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/64.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/64.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/64.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/64.mobi A Study in Scarlet Arthur Conan Doyle http://www.feedbooks.com/book/57 urn:isbn:1840224118 en 1887 Novels Crime/Mystery A Study in Scarlet is a detective mystery novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which was first published in 1887. It is the first story to feature the character of Sherlock Holmes, who would later become one of the most famous and iconic literary detective characters, with long-lasting interest and appeal. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes to his companion Doctor Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his "study in scarlet": "There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it." This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/57.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/57.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/57.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/57.mobi The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1 urn:isbn:068983571X en 1902 Novels Crime/Mystery The rich landowner Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead in the park of his manor surrounded by the grim moor of Dartmoor, in the county of Devon. His death seems to have been caused by a heart attack, but the victim's best friend, Dr. Mortimer, is convinced that the strike was due to a supernatural creature, which haunts the moor in the shape of an enormous hound, with blazing eyes and jaws. In order to protect Baskerville's heir, Sir Henry, who's arriving to London from Canada, Dr. Mortimer asks for Sherlock Holmes' help, telling him also of the so-called Baskervilles' curse, according to which a monstrous hound has been haunting and killing the family males for centuries, in revenge for the misdeeds of one Sir Hugo Baskerville, who lived at the time of Oliver Cromwell. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1.mobi The Sign of the Four Arthur Conan Doyle http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2 urn:isbn:1605200492 en 1890 Novels Crime/Mystery First published in 1890, The Sign of Four is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's second book starring legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. The story is complex, involving a secret between four ex-cons from India and a hidden treasure. More complex than the first Holmes novel, The Sign of Four also introduces the detective's drug habit and leaves breadcrumbs for the reader that lead toward the final resolution. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2.mobi The Prince Niccolò Machiavelli http://www.feedbooks.com/book/94 urn:isbn:0553212788 en 1513 Non-Fiction Philosophy War Politics Il Principe (The Prince) is a political treatise by the Florentine public servant and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. Originally called De Principatibus (About Principalities), it was written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. The treatise is not representative of the work published during his lifetime, but it is the most remembered, and the work responsible for bringing "Machiavellian" into wide usage as a pejorative term. It has also been suggested by some critics that the piece is, in fact, a satire. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/94.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/94.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/94.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/94.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 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 The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells http://www.feedbooks.com/book/35 urn:isbn:0812505158 en 1898 Novels Science Fiction War The War of the Worlds (1898), by H. G. Wells, is an early science fiction novel which describes an invasion of England by aliens from Mars. It is one of the earliest and best-known depictions of an alien invasion of Earth, and has influenced many others, as well as spawning several films, radio dramas, comic book adaptations, and a television series based on the story. The 1938 radio broadcast caused public outcry against the episode, as many listeners believed that an actual Martian invasion was in progress, a notable example of mass hysteria. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50 or in the USA (published before 1923). http://www.feedbooks.com/book/35.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/35.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/35.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/35.mobi The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri http://www.feedbooks.com/book/206 urn:isbn:0451208633 en 1306 Poetry Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise-the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/206.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/206.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/206.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/206.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 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 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain http://www.feedbooks.com/book/71 urn:isbn:0520228383 en 1885 Novels Young Readers Adventure Humor/Satire Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (often shortened to Huck Finn) is a novel written by American humorist Mark Twain. It is commonly used and accounted as one of the first Great American Novels. It is also one of the first major American novels written using Local Color Regionalism, or vernacular, told in the first person by the eponymous Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer and hero of three other Mark Twain books. The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. By satirizing Southern antebellum society that was already a quarter-century in the past by the time of publication, the book is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. The drifting journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/71.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/71.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/71.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/71.mobi Utopia Thomas More http://www.feedbooks.com/book/198 urn:isbn:0393961451 en 1515 Non-Fiction Philosophy De Optimo Republicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia (translated On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia) or more simply Utopia is a 1516 book by Sir (Saint) Thomas More. The book, written in Latin, is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. The name of the place is derived from the Greek words οὐ u ("not") and τόπος tópos ("place"), with the topographical suffix -εία eía, hence Οὐτοπεία outopeía (Latinized as Utopia), “no-place land.” It also contains a pun, however, because “Utopia” could also be the Latinization of Εὐτοπεία eutopeía, “good-place land,” which uses the Greek prefix ευ eu, “good,” instead of οὐ. One interpretation holds that this suggests that while Utopia might be some sort of perfected society, it is ultimately unreachable. Despite modern connotations of the word "utopia," it is widely accepted that the society More describes in this work was not actually his own "perfect society." Rather he wished to use the contrast between the imaginary land's unusual political ideas and the chaotic politics of his own day as a platform from which to discuss social issues in Europe. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/198.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/198.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/198.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/198.mobi Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche http://www.feedbooks.com/book/172 urn:isbn:1845882423 en 1885 Non-Fiction Philosophy Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also sprach Zarathustra, sometimes translated Thus Spake Zarathustra), subtitled A Book for All and None (Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen), is a written work by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885. Much of the work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same", the parable on the "death of God", and the "prophecy" of the Overman, which were first introduced in The Gay Science. Described by Nietzsche himself as "the deepest ever written", the book is a dense and esoteric treatise on philosophy and morality, featuring as protagonist a fictionalized Zarathustra. A central irony of the text is that the style of the Bible is used by Nietzsche to present ideas of his which fundamentally oppose Judaeo-Christian morality and tradition. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/172.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/172.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/172.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/172.mobi The Art of War Sun Tzu http://www.feedbooks.com/book/168 urn:isbn:0762415983 en -514 Non-Fiction Philosophy War The Art of War is a Chinese military treatise that was written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it has long been praised as the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time. The Art of War is one of the oldest books on military strategy in the world. It is the first and one of the most successful works on strategy and has had a huge influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, and beyond. Sun Tzu was the first to recognize the importance of positioning in strategy and that position is affected both by objective conditions in the physical environment and the subjective opinions of competitive actors in that environment. He taught that strategy was not planning in the sense of working through a to-do list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. Planning works in a controlled environment, but in a competitive environment, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/168.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/168.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/168.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/168.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 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 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen http://www.feedbooks.com/book/52 urn:isbn:0553213105 en 1813 Novels Romance Pride And Prejudice, the story of Mrs. Bennet's attempts to marry off her five daughters is one of the best-loved and most enduring classics in English literature. Excitement fizzes through the Bennet household at Longbourn in Hertfordshire when young, eligible Mr. Charles Bingley rents the fine house nearby. He may have sisters, but he also has male friends, and one of these—the haughty, and even wealthier, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy—irks the vivacious Elizabeth Bennet, the second of the Bennet girls. She annoys him. Which is how we know they must one day marry. The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and Darcy is a splendid rendition of civilized sparring. As the characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, Jane Austen's radiantly caustic wit and keen observation sparkle. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/52.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/52.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/52.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/52.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