The Bleak House |
Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) |
The Bleak House is Dickens' satire of a decaying society. Its story draws together a group of disparate people through the interminable suit of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce at the Court of Chancery. Often described as a savage, though also comic, critique of Victorian society. |
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The Count of Monte Cristo |
Alexandre Dumas (1802 - 1870) |
A classic adventure story often considered, along with The Three Musketeers, as Dumas' best work and one of the best novels of all time. Amazingly the plot is based on a true story. |
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The Decameron, Volume 1 |
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 1375) |
The Decameron is a collection of 100 very readable novellas finished in 1353. It is known for its bawdy tales that span the spectrum from erotic to tragic. The tales are told by a party of ten fleeing the black plague, on each of 10 days they each tell a tale on a particular theme. The stories remain compelling for the modern reader while providing a unique window into medieval life. |
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The Golden Ass |
Lucius Apuleius (123BC - 180BC) |
The Golden Ass relates the ludicrous adventures of Lucius, a virile young man obsessed with magic. In his enthusiasm to see the use of magic he is accidentally transformed into an ass and thus forced to witness and experience the lives of slaves and the destitute. This is the only surviving work of Greco-Roman literature to give a first person perspective of the abhorrent condition of the lower classes. T. E. Lawrence carried a small copy of the book in his saddlebags throughout the Arab Revolt. |
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The Journals of Lewis and Clark |
Meriwether Lewis (1774 - 1809) |
In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase sparked interest in expansion to the west coast. The USA purchased 2,100,000 square km of largely unknown territory from France for 3 cents per acre. This huge swath of land stretching from New Orleans to Canada now about forms about 23% of the USA. President Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to study the Indian tribes, botany, geology, Western terrain and wildlife. The journal details their trek from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. |
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The Lives of the Twelve Caesars |
C.Suetonius Tranquilius (72 - 130) |
The Twelve Caesars is a set of twelve biographies: Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire (Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, titus, and Domitian). The Twelve Caesars was very important after it was written in 121 CE and remains an important historical source. It was one of the major sources for Robert Graves' I Claudius and Claudius the God later adapted and dramatised by the BBC. |
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The Praise of Folly |
Desiderius Erasmus (1466 - 1536) |
The Praise of Folly is considered one of the most influential works of literature in Western civilization and one of the catalysts of the Protestant Reformation. It starts as a piece of virtuoso foolery but then moves into some darker orations praising self-deception and madness. Published in 1511, Folly's influence echoed down the subsequent centuries and in part spawned the art of adoxography, the praise of worthless subjects. |
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