Special Collections
Teacher Recommended Reading: Grades 9-12
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Cry, the Beloved Country
by Alan PatonCry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much. " The most famous and important novel in South Africa's history, and an immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948, Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country under white man's law is a work of searing beauty. The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, "We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from poets, almost all thin. In Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country the statesman, the poet and the novelist meet in a unique harmony. " Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.
Cyrano de Bergerac
by Edmond RostandENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATEDBY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIPEdmond Rostand's classic romance tells the unforgettable story of one unique man's bravery, loyalty, and unspoken love.EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: A concise introduction that gives readers important background information A chronology of the author's life and work A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations Detailed explanatory notes Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experienceEnriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens and Clare WestThis award-winning collection of adapted classic literature and original stories develops reading skills.
Death be Not Proud
by John GuntherBook Description Johnny Gunther was only seventeen years old when he died of a brain tumor. During the months of his illness, everyone near him was unforgettably impressed by his level-headed courage, his wit and quiet friendliness, and, above all, his unfaltering patience through times of despair.
The Deerslayer
by James Fenimore CooperBook Description In this final volume in the Leatherstocking saga, the Indian-raised Deerslayer has become a man of courage and moral certainty-and he emerges from tribal warfare with nobility as pure and proud as the wilderness whose fierce beauty and freedom have claimed his heart.
A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen and Thornton Wilder"In [Wilder's] A Doll's House . . . the relationship of dialogue to action is very special, like nothing that had been heard on stage before."--David Hammond, PlayMakers Repertory CompanyNot staged since its Broadway premiere starring Ruth Gordon in 1937, the first-ever publication of this adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's classic drama is revitalized through the shrewd lens of American drama master, Thornton Wilder. With his famous, clarifying dialogue, Wilder uproots this classic from Norway and funnels it through an American lens. The marriage of Ibsen's famed naturalistic style melds with Wilder's knack for emotional nuance to create a rich, demonstrative edition of the revered standard A Doll's House.Henrik Ibsen has often been referred to as the father of realistic drama. The Norwegian playwright is best known for his major works Brand, Peer Gynt, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, and The Master Builder.Thornton Wilder was an accomplished novelist and playwright in the twentieth century. Two of his four major plays garnered Pulitzer Prizes, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). His play The Matchmaker was later adapted into the record-breaking musical Hello, Dolly! The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of his seven novels, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, and his next-to-last novel, The Eighth Day received the National Book Award (1968). Our Town continues to be the most produced American play in the world.
Eight Tales of Terror
by Edgar Allan Poe8 short stories: MS. Found in a Bottle; The Masque of the Red Death; The Cask of Amontillado; Ligeia; The Fall of the House of Usher; William Watson; Hop-Frog; The Imp of the Perverse
The Elements of Style (3rd edition)
by E. B. White and William Strunk Jr.An American classic on pithy writing and perfect grammar.
Ellen Foster
by Kaye GibbonsThe story of a redoubtable 11-year-old orphan who overcomes adversity with humor, spunk and determination.
Fahrenheit 451
by Ray BradburyRay Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of 20th century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future.
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.
Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.
Hugo Award winner.
A Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway and Sean Hemingway and Patrick HemingwayWritten when Ernest Hemingway was thirty years old and lauded as the best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield--weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion--this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right. This edition collects all of the alternative endings together for the first time, along with early drafts of other essential passages, offering new insight into Hemingway's craft and creative process and the evolution of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Featuring Hemingway's own 1948 introduction to an illustrated reissue of the novel, a personal foreword by the author's son Patrick Hemingway, and a new introduction by the author's grandson Seán Hemingway, this edition of A Farewell to Arms is truly a celebration.
Flowers for Algernon
by Daniel KeyesOscar-winning film Charly starring Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom-a mentally challenged man receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
Forbidden City
by William BellHistorical fiction of the great events that swept China in the spring of 1989, after the Tian An Men Square uprising.
The Fountainhead
by Ayn RandWhen The Fountainhead was first published, Ayn Rand's daringly original literary vision and her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivism, won immediate worldwide interest and acclaim. This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. This edition contains a special Afterword by Rand's literary executor, Leonard Peikoff which includes excerpts from Ayn Rand's own notes on the making of The Fountainhead. As fresh today as it was then, here is a novel about a hero--and about those who try to destroy him.
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
by Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyClassic horror story. Victor Frankenstein is obsessed with creating life. His botched creature sets out to destroy Frankenstein, and all he holds dear.
Future Shock
by Alvin TofflerDescription of the world's response to change and how it affects our lives.
Going After Cacciato
by Tim O'Brien"To call Going After Cacciato a novel about war is like calling Moby-Dick a novel about whales."So wrote The New York Times of Tim O'Brien's now classic novel of Vietnam. Winner of the 1979 National Book Award, Going After Cacciato captures the peculiar mixture of horror and hallucination that marked this strangest of wars.In a blend of reality and fantasy, this novel tells the story of a young soldier who one day lays down his rifle and sets off on a quixotic journey from the jungles of Indochina to the streets of Paris. In its memorable evocation of men both fleeing from and meeting the demands of battle, Going After Cacciato stands as much more than just a great war novel. Ultimately it's about the forces of fear and heroism that do battle in the hearts of us all.
Winner of the National Book Award
The Good Earth
by Pearl S. BuckThe Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times–bestselling novel about a peasant farmer and his family in early twentieth-century China.The Good Earth is Buck&’s classic story of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant farmer, and his wife, O-lan, a former slave. With luck and hard work, the couple&’s fortunes improve over the years: They have sons, and save steadily until one day they can afford to buy property in the House of Wang—the very house in which O-lan used to work. But success brings with it a new set of problems. Wang soon finds himself the target of jealousy, and as good harvests come and go, so does the social order. Will Wang&’s family cherish the estate after he&’s gone? And can his material success, the bedrock of his life, guarantee anything about his soul? Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the William Dean Howells Award, The Good Earth was an Oprah&’s Book Club choice in 2004. A readers&’ favorite for generations, this powerful and beautifully written fable resonates with universal themes of hope and family unity. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author&’s estate.
Great Expectations
by Charles DickensPip, a poor orphan being raised by a cruel sister, does not have much in the way of great expectations between his terrifying experience in a graveyard with a convict named Magwitch and his humiliating visits with the eccentric Miss Havisham's beautiful but manipulative niece, Estella, who torments him until he is elevated to wealth by an anonymous benefactor. Full of unforgettable characters, Great Expectations is a tale of intrigue, unattainable love, and all of the happiness money can't buy. Great Expectations has the most wonderful and most perfectly worked-out plot for a novel in the English language, according to John Irving, and J. Hillis Miller declares, Great Expectations is the most unified and concentrated expression of Dickens's abiding sense of the world, and Pip might be called the archetypal Dickens hero.From the Trade Paperback edition.
The Great Gatsby
by F. FitzgeraldThe exemplary novel of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgeralds' third book, The Great Gatsby (1925), stands as the supreme achievement of his career. T. S. Eliot read it three times and saw it as the "first step" American fiction had taken since Henry James; H. L. Mencken praised "the charm and beauty of the writing," as well as Fitzgerald's sharp social sense; and Thomas Wolfe hailed it as Fitzgerald's "best work" thus far.
The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when, The New York Times remarked, "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s that resonates with the power of myth.
A novel of lyrical beauty yet brutal realism, of magic, romance, and mysticism, The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.
[This text is listed as an example that meets Common Core Standards in English language arts in grades 11-12 at http://www.corestandards.org.]
Green Mansions
by W. H. HudsonBook Description Modern classic tells the compelling story of Rima, a strange birdlike girl of the jungle, and Abel, the European who falls in love with her.
Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan SwiftBook Description Shipwrecked castaway Lemuel Gulliver's encounters with the petty, diminutive Lilliputians, the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the abstracted scientists of Laputa, the philosophical Houyhnhnms, and the brutish Yahoos give him new, bitter insights into human behavior.
Hamlet
by William ShakespeareThe letter "u" and the letter "v" are switched in this copy, due to an original printing error. Includes editor's note.