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No. |
Book Title |
Author |
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21 |
MacBeth
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Shakespeare, William
Macbeth is among the most well known of William Shakespeare's plays, as well as his shortest surviving tragedy. It is frequently performed at professional and community theatres around the world. The play, loosely based upon the historical account of King Macbeth of Scotland by Raphael Holinshed and the Scottish philosopher Hector
Boece, is often seen as an archetypal tale of the dangers of the lust for power and betrayal of friends
(Source: wikipedia.org) |
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22 |
Man In The Iron Mask
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Dumas, Alexandre
The Man in the Iron Mask was a prisoner held in a number of prisons, including the Bastille, during the reign of Louis XIV of France. The identity of this man has been thoroughly discussed, mainly because no one ever saw his face as it was hidden by a mask of black velvet cloth, which later re-tellings of the story have said to have been an iron mask.
What facts are known about this prisoner are based mainly on correspondence between his jailer and his superiors in Paris.
(Source: wikipedia.org) |
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23 |
Moby Dick
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Melville, Herman
Moby-Dick is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville. The novel describes the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab, who leads his crew on a hunt for the great whale Moby Dick. The book's language is highly symbolic, and many themes run throughout the work. The narrator's reflections, along with complex descriptions of the grueling work of whaling and the personalities of his shipmates, are woven into a profound meditation on society, nature, and the human struggle for meaning, happiness, and salvation. Moby-Dick is often considered the epitome of American Romanticism. The novel frequently employs Shakespearean devices, including formal stage directions and extended soliloquies and asides.
(Source: wikipedia.org)
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24 |
Oliver Twist
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Dickens, Charles
Oliver Twist (1838) is Charles Dickens' second novel. The book was originally published in Bentley's Miscellany as a serial, in monthly installments that began appearing in the month of February 1837 and continued through April 1839. George Cruikshank provided one steel etching per month to illustrate each installment.
...
An early example of the social novel, the book calls the public's attention to various contemporary social evils, including the workhouse, child labour and the recruitment of children as criminals. Dickens mocks the hypocrisies of the time by surrounding the novel's serious themes with sarcasm and dark humour. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of his hardships as a child laborer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s.
(Source: wikipedia.org)
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25 |
The Origin Of Species
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Darwin, Charles
It's hard to talk
about The Origin of Species without making statements that seem
overwrought and fulsome. But it's true: this is indeed one of the
most important and influential books ever written, and it is one
of the very few groundbreaking works of science that is truly
readable.
To a certain extent it suffers from the Hamlet problem--it's full of clichés! Or what are now clichés, but which Darwin was the first to pen. Natural selection, variation, the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest: it's all in here.
Darwin's friend
and "bulldog" T.H. Huxley said upon reading the Origin,
"How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of
that." Alfred Russel Wallace had thought of the same theory
of evolution Darwin did, but it was Darwin who gathered the mass
of supporting evidence--on domestic animals and plants, on
variability, on sexual selection, on dispersal--that swept most
scientists before it. It's hardly necessary to mention that the
book is still controversial: Darwin's remark in his conclusion
that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his
history" is surely the pinnacle of British understatement.
--Mary Ellen Curtin --This text refers to the Mass Market
Paperback edition.
(Source: amazon.com)
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26 |
Paradise Lost
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Milton, John
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books; a second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (mimicking the division of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. The poem concerns the Judeo-Christian story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is "to justify the ways of God to men" (l. 26) and elucidate the conflict between His eternal foresight and free will.
(Source: wikipedia.org)
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27 |
Penguin Island
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France, Anatole
Penguin Island
(L'Île des Pingouins) is a atirical novel by Anatole France first published in 1908.
The book details the history of the penguins and is written as a critique of human nature, and is also a satire on France's political history, including the Dreyfus affair.
Morals, customs and laws are satirised within the context of the fictional land of Penguinia, where the animals were baptised erroneously by the myopic Abbot Maël. The book is ultimately concerned with the perfectibility of mankind.
As soon as the Penguins are transformed into humans, they begin robbing and murdering each other. By the end of the book, a thriving civilization is destroyed by terrorist bombs.
(Source: wikipedia.org)
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28 |
Poems of William Blake
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Blake, William
William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English poet, visionary, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake's work is today considered seminal and significant in the history of both poetry and the visual arts. He was voted 38th in a poll of the 100 Greatest Britons organized by the BBC in 2002.
(Source: wikipedia.org)
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29 |
Robinson Crusoe
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Defoe, Daniel
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the first novel in English. The book is a fictional autobiography of the title character, an English castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island, encountering natives, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. This device, presenting an account of supposedly factual events, is known as a "false document", and gives a realistic frame story.
The story was probably influenced by the real-life events of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived more than four years on the Pacific island that was called Más a Tierra (in 1966 its name became Robinson Crusoe Island), Chile.
(Source: wikipedia.org)
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30 |
Sense and Sensibility
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Austen, Jane
Sense and Sensibility is a novel by the English novelist Jane Austen, that was first published in 1811. It was the first of Austen's novels to be published, under the pseudonym "A Lady". The novel has been adapted for film and television a number of times, most notably in Ang Lee's 1995 version.
Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are sisters with opposite temperaments. Traditionally, it has been viewed that 19 year old Elinor, the elder daughter, represents "sense" (reason) of the title, and Marianne , who is 17, represents "sensibility" (emotion). However this view is a very restricting one. On close inspection of the novel it can be seen that each sister represents different aspects of each characteristic.
(Source: wikipedia.org)
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