D. H. Lawrence

The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all timeD.H. Lawrence's magnificent exploration of human sexuality in the days surrounding World War I. 'Let us hesitate no longer to announce that the sensual passions and mysteries are equally sacred with the spiritual mysteries and passions,' wrote D.H. Lawrence in Women In Love, a masterpiece that heralded the erotic consciousness of the twentieth century. Echoing elements of Lawrence's own life, Women In Love delves into the mysteries between men and women as two couples strive for love against a haunting backdrop of coalmines, factories, and a beleaguered working class.New introduction by Louis Menand.

Written in the years following World War I and set in postwar England and Italy, Aaron's Rod questions many of the accepted social and political institutions of Lawrence's generation, and raises issues as valid for our own time as they were for his. The novel's hero is an Everyman who flees the destruction in England and his failing marriage and who, like Lawrence himself, becomes absorbed in discovering and understanding the nature of the political and religious ideologies that shaped western civilization. Aaron's Rod was completed in 1921 and was censored by both Lawrence's American and English publishers. The Cambridge Edition, based on the only authoritative, surviving typescript, restores these cut passages and eliminates the errors and house-styling of previous editions.The volume contains an introduction that describes the novel's genesis, its transmission, publication history, and reception. Extensive explanatory notes and textual apparatus are also included.

I ASK good things that I detest, With speeches fair; Heed not, I pray Thee, Lord, my breast, But hear my prayer.

There was a large, brilliant evening star in the early twilight, and underfoot the earth was half frozen. It was Christmas Eve. Also the War was over, and there was a sense of relief that was almost a new menace. A man felt the violence of the nightmare released now into the general air. Also there had been another wrangle among the men on the pit-bank that evening. Aaron Sisson was the last man on the little black railway-line climbing the hill home from work. He was late because he had attended a meeting of the men on the bank. He was secretary to the Miners Union for his colliery, and had heard a good deal of silly wrangling that left him nettled.

Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are sisters living in The Midlands in England in the 1910s. Ursula is a teacher, Gudrun an artist. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal-mine heir Gerald Crich, and the four become friends. Ursula and Birkin become involved, and Gudrun and Gerald eventually begin a love affair. All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a party at Gerald's estate, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of Gerald's youngest sister. Soon Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald goes to Gudrun's house and spends the night with her while her parents sleep in another room. Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy.

Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence, first published in 1928. The first edition was printed in Florence, Italy; it could not be published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960. (A private edition was issued by Inky Stephensen's Mandrake Press in 1929).[1] The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical relationship between a working-class man and an aristocratic woman, its explicit descriptions of sex, and its use of (at the time) unprintable words. The story is said to have originated from events in Lawrence's own unhappy domestic life, and he took inspiration for the settings of the book from Eastwood in Nottinghamshire where he grew up. According to some critics, the fling of Lady Ottoline Morrell with "Tiger", a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her garden statues, also influenced the story.[2] Lawrence at one time considered calling the novel Tenderness and made significant alterations to the text and story in the process of its composition. It has been published in three different versions.

With an Introduction and Notes by Keith Wren, University of Kent at Canterbury The story of Edmund Dantes, self-styled Count of Monte Cristo, is told with consummate skill. The victim of a miscarriage of justice, Dantes is fired by a desire for retribution and empowered by a stroke of providence. In his campaign of vengeance, he becomes an anonymous agent of fate. The sensational narrative of intrigue, betrayal, escape, and triumphant revenge moves at a cracking pace. Dumas' novel presents a powerful conflict between good and evil embodied in an epic saga of rich diversity that is complicated by the hero's ultimate discomfort with the hubristic implication of his own actions.

One of the most universally loved and admired English novels, Pride and Prejudice was penned as a popular entertainment. But the consummate artistry of Jane Austen (1775–1817) transformed this effervescent tale of rural romance into a witty, shrewdly observed satire of English country life that is now regarded as one of the principal treasures of English language. In a remote Hertfordshire village, far off the good coach roads of George III's England, a country squire of no great means must marry off his five vivacious daughters. At the heart of this all-consuming enterprise are his headstrong second daughter Elizabeth Bennet and her aristocratic suitor Fitzwilliam Darcy — two lovers whose pride must be humbled and prejudices dissolved before the novel can come to its splendid conclusion.

Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first person perspective, tells the fictional story of a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before and after World War II.

The Pastor's Son by William W. Walter

"Study hard and get good grades and you will find a high-paying job with great benefits," my parents used to say. Their goal in life was to provide a college education for my older sister and me, so that we would have the greatest chance for success in life. When T finally earned my diploma in 1976-graduating with honors, and near the top of my class, in accounting from Florida State University-my parents had realized their goal. It was the crowning achievement of their lives. In accordance with the "Master Plan," I was hired by a "Big 8" accounting firm, and I looked forward to a long career and retirement at an early age.

War and Peace , a Russian novel by Leo Tolstoy, is considered one of the most celebrated works of fiction.It is regarded, along with Anna Karenina (1873–1877), as Tolstoy's finest literary achievement. Epic in scale, War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events leading up to Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families.

This book was originally published in \"penny dreadful\" form. This edition does not include the entire 109 episodes, which were published in three lengthy volumes, but this slightly condensed form conveys the full story and complete reading experience. Note that authorship has also been ascribed to James Malcolm Rymer. [812 pages]

If Only etc. by Augustus Harris

Orphaned as a young woman, Miss Billy has had to struggle to make her way in the world. After finding a place in the family of her late father's dear friend, William Henshaw, she falls in love with his brother Bertram and helps bring him out of his shell. The two become engaged to be married, and though they are compatible in many ways, Billy begins to fear that she is making a grave error. Will the pair find happiness after all?

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century, is a Chinese historical novel based upon events in the turbulent years near the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of China, starting in 169 and ending with the reunification of the land in 280. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is acclaimed as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature; it has a total of 800,000 words and nearly a thousand dramatic characters (mostly historical)in 120 chapters. It is arguably the most widely read historical novel in late imperial and modern China.