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The Dain Curse
by Dashiell HammettThe nameless detective known only as the Continental Op is tasked with investigating the theft of diamonds from the Leggets, who have ties to the Dain family - a family that is said to be plagued by a terrible curse that leads those near them to
gruesome deaths. The Op will have to solve the mysteries behind lies, murders, and even a cult if he's going to get to the heart of the matter. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Well of Loneliness
by Radclyffe HallThe Well of Loneliness is the fifth and best-known novel by English author and poet Radclyffe Hall. Becoming a runaway bestseller in its notoriety, it was originally banned by the British after a legal trial and all copies were ordered to be destroyed due to its lesbian plot and characters. After years and appeals, the novel’s ban was overturned, and today it remains one of the most formative and influential lesbian works of the twentieth century. The novel tells the story of a tomboyish and aristocratic Stephen, who hunts, wears pants, and cuts her hair short—and comes to realize she’s attracted to women. She grows to be a war hero, a bestselling writer, and a loyal lover. But while Stephen’s ambitious drive her, society confines her, and she’s forced into desperate actions. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Riders of the Purple Sage
by Zane GreyThe novel that shaped the Western. Jane Withersteen is a wealthy landowner and rancher living in Utah. The Mormon church is the dominant power in the area, and at the novel's outset Jane is being courted by one of their Elders, who seeks to possess her. Jane, ever the optimist, believes in a fundamental decency in all people, but is increasingly forced to confront the darkness in the church as is threatens to consume her, her friends, and her family. Riders of the Purple Sage stands as one of the earliest, most influential Western novels, and has been filmed several times. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Truth About the Titanic
by Archibald GracieOne of the last people to escape the sinking Titanic, Archibald Gracie gives a true and personal account not just of his experience escaping the doomed ship, but of the events that transpired in each lifeboat and the inquiry that followed one of the greatest maritime tragedies in history.Be it mystery, romance, drama, comedy, politics, or history, great literature stands the test of time. ClassicJoe proudly brings literary classics to today's digital readers, connecting those who love to read with authors whose work continues to get people talking. Look for other fiction and non-fiction classics from ClassicJoe.
Parade's End
by Ford Madox FordA stark, modernist look at the realities of contemporary war. The four novels that makes up Parade's End (Some Do Not..., No More Parades, A Man Who Could Stand Up--, and Last Post) tell the story of Christopher Tietjens, a British government statistician who joins the army during the first world war. He suffers severe shell-shock, and must live through an unhappy marriage while suspicions run rampant that he has been having an affair. The novels have been referred to as classics of 20th century modernist literature, and Ford has been praised for his unwillingness to ascribe some sort of purpose or order to the violence of war. HBO, VRT, and BBC collaborated on a miniseries adaptation of the novels starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall, and written by Tom Stoppard.
Madame Bovary
by Gustave FlaubertOne of the greatest novels ever written, in a classic translation from Karl Marx's daughter. Emma, a farmer's daughter, marries Chris Bovary, an earnest young doctor, hoping that he will be the gateway to the world of passion and wealth that she has read about in her novels, but when the married provincial life proves bland compared to her fantasies, Madame Bovary turns to adultery and excess indulgence. Will her new life fulfill her, or will it destroy her first? The novel has been filmed numerous times, with the most recent adaptation starring Mia Wasikowska and Paul Giammati. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Save Me the Waltz
by Zelda FitzgeraldZelda Fitzgerald’s semi-autobiographical account of her life and her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Save Me the Waltz is the story of Alabama Beggs and her husband, the artist David Knight. Alabama’s determination to not live in her husband’s shadow leads her to devote herself to ballet. But will success on the stage make up for the unhappiness in her marriage? When the novel was published, it was largely ignored or derided as an inferior reflection of her husband's work, but recent readers have rediscovered it as a wonderfully unique perspective on the same subjects.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you high quality, classic works of literature in e-book form. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Sanctuary
by William FaulknerA powerful novel examining the nature of evil, informed by the works of T. S. Eliot and Freud, mythology, local lore, and hardboiled detective fiction, Sanctuary is the dark, at times brutal, story of the kidnapping of Mississippi debutante Temple Drake, who introduces her own form of venality into the Memphis underworld where she is being held.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Pylon
by William FaulknerOne of the few of William Faulkner’s works to be set outside his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Pylon, first published in 1935, takes place at an air show in a thinly disguised New Orleans named New Valois. An unnamed reporter for a local newspaper tries to understand a very modern ménage a trois of flyers on the brainstorming circuit. These characters, Faulkner said, “were a fantastic and bizarre phenomenon on the face of the contemporary scene. . . . That is, there was really no place for them in the culture, in the economy, yet they were there, at that time, and everyone knew that they wouldn’t last very long, which they didn’t. . . . That they were outside the range of God, not only of respectability, of love, but of God too.” In Pylon Faulkner set out to test their rootless modernity to see if there is any place in it for the old values of the human heart that are the central concerns of his best fiction.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Light in August
by William FaulknerLight in August, a novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, features some of Faulkner’s most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Hamlet
by William FaulknerThe first novel of Faulkner's Snopes trilogy, The Hamlet is both an ironic take on classical tragedy and a mordant commentary on the grand pretensions of the antebellum South and the depths of its decay in the aftermath of war and Reconstruction. It tells of the advent and the rise of the Snopes family in Frenchman's Bend, a small town built on the ruins of a once-stately plantation. Flem Snopes -- wily, energetic, a man of shady origins -- quickly comes to dominate the town and its people with his cunning and guile.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Absalom, Absalom!
by William FaulknerAbsalom, Absalom! tells the story of Thomas Sutpen, the enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson township in the early 1830s. With a French architect and a band of wild Haitians, he wrung a fabulous plantation out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness.Sutpen was a man, Faulker said, "who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him." His tragedy left its impress not only on his contemporaries but also on men who came after, men like Quentin Compson, haunted even into the 20th century by Sutpen's legacy of ruthlessness and singleminded disregard for the human community.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Communist Manifesto
by Friedrich Engels and Karl MarxThe Communist Manifesto presents the argument that capitalism is by its very nature exploitative and hence is antithetical to freedom.
Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London (in German as Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) just as the revolutions of 1848 began to erupt, the Manifesto was later recognised as one of the world's most influential political documents. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and then-present) and the problems of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.
The Communist Manifesto summarises Marx and Engels' theories about the nature of society and politics, that in their own words, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism.
In 2013 The Communist Manifesto was registered to UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme with the Capital, Volume I.
The Waste Land
by T. S. EliotOne of the greatest poems in the English language. The Waste Land is T.S. Eliot's masterpiece, a beautiful examination of themes of decay and despair. Like many of his works, it alludes frequently to famous pieces of literature and legend, in this case most prominently to the legends of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King. Several images and lines from The Waste Land have become lodged in the popular consciousness, including "April is the cruellest month" and "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
by T. S. EliotA lighter side of the great poet. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats will be a delightful surprise for any readers familiar with poem's like The Waste Land and Prufrock. Eliot playfully weaves his way through 13 vignettes about cats, starting with some observations on the importance of cats' names, before diving into the lives of individual felines. Cat burglars, magicians, thieves, and troublemakers populate the colourful cast of this wonderful book. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Murder in the Cathedral
by T. S. EliotA vivid exploration of the fundamental contradiction of martyrdom. Though best known for his poetry, T.S. Eliot was also an accomplished playwright. Murder in the Cathedral is a beautiful, haunting poetic take on the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170. Becket sees his death coming, but embraces it. This strange duality - a martyr's death as both tragic and glorious - serves as the basis for the action. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T. S. EliotOne of T.S. Eliot's earliest, and most significant works. A great achievement of modernist literature, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock takes the form of the complex musings of the titular Prufrock as he considers life and his role in it. The poem draws heavily on allusion to classical works, including Dante's Divine Comedy and Shakespeare's Hamlet. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Three Musketeers
by Alexandre DumasA much-loved swashbuckling tale. Cardinal Richileu's machinations are no match for the Musketeer's determination to act "one for all and all for one"! The young D'Artagnan travels to Paris determined to join King Louis XIII's elite guards. Hot-headed and raring to prove himself, D'Artagnan challenges three strangers to a duel. These strangers are none other than the daring band of Musketeers -- Porthos, Athos and Aramis. D'Artagnan's fearless spirit impresses them and the Musketeers take him under their wing. Soon, the wicked plots of Cardinal Richelieu and Milady de Winter propel the four musketeers to adventures on horseback, across seas and over rooftops to defend the honour of the Queen and protect the life of the King. This is a rousing tale of thrilling swordplay and royal intrigue, brave friends and the basest treachery.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Man in the Iron Mask
by Alexandre DumasThe Musketeers are back in another exciting adventure! This time a terrible secret threatens to bring down the throne of France. Aramis, Athos, Porthos, and d'Artagnan must rally once again to serve their king and save the country! Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre DumasImprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, Edmond Dantès spends fourteen bitter years in a dungeon. When his daring escape plan works he uses all he has learnt during his incarceration to mastermind an elaborate plan of revenge that will bring punishment to those responsible for his fate. No longer the naïve sailor who disappeared into the dark fortress all those years ago, he reinvents himself as the powerful Count of Monte Cristo.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
My Bondage and My Freedom
by Frederick DouglassA deep meditation on the implications of slavery, race, and freedom, as well as a study of one man's perspective and how he intersects with the nation in which he lives, My Bondage and My Freedom is a powerful look at pre-Civil Wars America. Frederick Douglass—abolitionist, journalist, orator, and one of the most powerful voices to emerge from the American civil rights movement—transforms himself from slave to fugitive to reformer, leaving behind a legacy of social, intellectual, and political thought. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Out of Africa
by Isak DinesenAn enthralling depiction of the waning years of British colonial power. Out of Africa recounts the experiences of Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke in what was then British East Africa, now called Kenya. Blixen and her husband build a coffee plantation and staff it with local workers. At first things seems idyllic, but as the memoir progresses it traces the descent and ultimate failure of both the marriage and the plantation. It was adapted into a film in 1985, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . . .” Lucie Manette had been separated from her father for eighteen years while he languished in Paris’s most feared prison, the Bastille. Finally reunited, the Manettes’s fortunes become inextricably intertwined with those of two men, the heroic aristocrat Darnay, and the dissolute lawyer, Carton. Their story, which encompasses violence, revenge, love and redemption, is grippingly played out against the backdrop of the terrifying brutality of the French Revolution.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Oliver Twist
by Charles DickensOliver is an orphan living on the dangerous London streets with no one but himself to rely on. Fleeing from poverty and hardship, he falls in with a criminal street gang who will not let him go, however hard he tries to escape. In Oliver Twist, Dickens graphically conjures up the capital's underworld, full of prostitutes, thieves and lost and homeless children, and gives a voice to the disadvantaged and abused.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.