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  Jude the Obscure

  Thomas Hardy

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  Jude the Obscure, written by Thomas Hardy, is a poignant exploration of ambition, love, and societal constraints set in Victorian England. The novel follows Jude Fawley, a working-class stonemason with aspirations of studying at the prestigious university in Christminster, inspired by his former teacher, Richard Phillotson. 
  Raised by his great-aunt after becoming an orphan, Jude dedicates his life to self-education while working in her bakery.Jude's dreams are derailed when he is seduced by Arabella Donn, a manipulative local woman who tricks him into marriage by pretending to be pregnant.

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  The Encantadas

  Herman Melville

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  "The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles" is a novella by American author Herman Melville. First published in Putnam's Magazine in 1854, it consists of ten philosophical "Sketches" on the Encantadas, or Galápagos Islands. It was collected in The Piazza Tales in 1856. The Encantadas was a success with the critics, and contained some of Melville's "most memorable prose".
  An anonymous narrator unites the ten disparate "Sketches", each of which begin with a few lines of poetry, mostly taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. All of the stories are replete with symbolism reinforcing the cruelty of life on the Encantadas. "Sketch First" is a description of the islands; though they are the Enchanted Isles they are depicted as desolate and hellish. "Sketch Second" is a meditation on the narrator's encounter with ancient Galápagos tortoises, while "Sketch Third" concerns the narrator's trip up the enormous tower called the Rock Rodondo. "Sketch Fourth" details the narrator's musings from atop the tower, and his recollection of the islands' accidental discovery by Juan Fernández. "Sketch Fifth" describes the USS Essex' encounter with a phantom British ship near the area during the War of 1812.

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  A Nocturne - From their pens to...

  Clothilde Graves

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  Clotilde Augusta Inez Mary Graves was born on the 3rd June 1863 at Buttevant Castle, Co. Cork, to parents with military backgrounds. 
  At age nine, the family moved to Southsea in England for yet another military posting.  Her father’s postings gave her valuable experiences that would be put to good use in later years in some of her literary works. 
  She was educated at a Catholic convent in Lourdes before returning to London in 1884 to study art in Bloomsbury.  She worked part-time at the British Museum and the Royal Female School of Art and generated further income by drawing little pen-and-ink grotesques for the comic papers.  
  A few years later a chance meeting found her writing extra lyrics for a pantomime version of Puss in Boots.  She followed up with several financially successful plays, both in London and New York, and gained a measure of notoriety in one with the comparison of marriage and prostitution.   
  Despite her dramatic success she published her first novel in 1911 under the pseudonym of Richard Dehan which she continued to use for later works.  As well as novels and plays she published collections of short stories which glow with talent and invention. 
  She was an unusual figure in London society, wearing her hair short, taking on a masculine manner and cut of clothing, and smoking cigarettes in public when such traits were considered eccentric at best.  Add to this her admired collection of Chinese and Japanese trophies, her enthusiasm for fly-fishing and her riding of a tricycle and you have a perfect image of this fascinating writer. 
  Clotilde Graves died at the convent of Our Lady of Lourdes at Hatch End in Middlesex, on the 3rd December 1932.  She was 69.

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  All the Sad Young Men

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  All the Sad Young Men is the third collection of short stories written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published by Scribners in February 1926. Fitzgerald wrote the stories at a time of disillusionment. He was in financial difficulty, he believed his wife Zelda was romantically involved with another man, she had suffered a series of physical illnesses, and his play The Vegetable had been a failure. The book was dedicated to Ring and Ellis Lardner, who were neighbors at the time the book was published.
  Included in this collection:
  1. The Rich Boy
  2. Winter Dreams
  3. The Baby Party
  4. Absolution
  5. Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr-nce of W-les
  6. The Adjuster
  7. Hot and Cold Blood
  8. "The Sensible Thing"
  9. Gretchen's Forty Winks

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  Manon Lescaut

  Abbé Prevost

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  ‘The sweetness of her glance – or rather, my evil star already in its
  ascendant and drawing me to my ruin – did not allow me to hesitate
  for a moment...’ So begins the story of Manon Lescaut, a tale of
  passion and betrayal, of delinquency and misalliance, which moves
  from early 18th-century Paris – with its theatres, assemblies, and
  gaming-houses – via prison and deportation to a tragic denouement
  in the treeless wastes of Louisiana. It is one of the great love stories,
  and also one of the most enigmatic: how reliable a witness is Des
  Grieux, Manon’s lover, whose tale he narrates? Is Manon a thief and
  a whore, the image of love itself, or a thoroughly modern woman?
  Prévost is careful to leave the ambiguities unresolved, and to lay bare
  the disorders of passion.

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  Aloysha the Pot - From their...

  Leo Tolstoy

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  Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Russian province of Tula to a wealthy noble family. As a child, he had private tutors but he showed little interest in any formal education. When he went to the University of Kazan in 1843 to study oriental languages and law, he left without completing his courses.  Life now was relaxed and idle but with some writing also taking place.  Gambling debts forced an abrupt change of path and he joined the army to fight in the Crimean War.  He was commended for his bravery and promoted but was appalled at the brutality and loss of life.  He recorded these and other earlier experiences in his diaries which formed the basis of several of his works. 
  In 1852 ‘Childhood’ was published to immediate success and was followed by ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’. 
  His experience in the army and the horrors he witnessed resulted in ‘The Cossacks’ in 1862 and the trilogy ‘Sevastopol Tales’. After the war he travelled around Europe, visiting London and Paris and meeting such luminaries as Victor Hugo and Charles Darwin.  
  It was now that Tolstoy began his masterpiece, ‘War and Peace’. Published in 1869 it was an epic work that changed literature. He quickly followed this with ‘Anna Karenina’.  
  These successes made Tolstoy rich and helped him accomplish many of his dreams but also brought problems as he grappled with his faith and the lot of the oppressed poor. These revolutionary views became so popular that the authorities now kept him under surveillance.  
  He led a life of asceticism and vegetarianism and put his socialist ideals into practice by establishing numerous schools for the poor and food programmes. He also believed in giving away his wealth, which caused much discord with his wife.  
  His writing continued to bring forth classics such as ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ and many brilliant and incisive short stories such as ‘How Much Land Does A Man Need’.  
  In 1901 Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Church and controversially deselected for the Nobel Prize for Literature. 
  Whilst undertaking a pilgrimage by train in October 1910 with his daughter Aleksandra he caught pneumonia in the nearby town of Astapovo.  Leo Tolstoy died on November 9th, 1910, he was 82.

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