Cyril Taylor-Carr

A collection of some of Hawthorne's best short stories. The talew all incorporate scenes and themes from New England history and it demonstrates young Hawthorne's mastery of the genre.

In first century Judaea, Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur is betrayed by his childhood friend Messala and sentenced to life as a Roman slave. When, during a pirate attack in the aegean, Ben-Hur saves the life of a galley commander, his fortunes improve and he returns to Galilee a free man. There, his quest for vengeance turns into insurrection, but his life is transformed when he witnesses Christ's baptism by John the Baptist. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ,...

Featuring five works of short fiction from the critically acclaimed author, Joseph Conrad, Tales of Unrest is a fascinating exploration of human struggle and philosophy. Karain: A Memory adopts elements of a traditional ghost story, setting an eerie mood as it explores the duality common among colonial and post-colonial people. The Idiots depict a family driven to murder after a couple stains to raise their intellectually disabled children. With the...

The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain Charles Dickens - The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time (better known as The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain or simply as The Haunted Man) is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens's Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of Christmas than about the holiday itself, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas...

Charles Dickens' work The Battle of Life: A Love Story has an English village on the site of a historic battle as the setting. Some characters allude to the war as a metaphor for the struggle for life, hence the title. Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA is an English writer and social commentator. He produced some of the world's most renowned fictional characters and is often regarded as the best author of the Victorian era. His writings achieved unparalleled...

In dark days, men need a clear faith and a well-grounded hope; and as the outcome of these, the calm courage which takes no account of hardships by the way. The times through which we are passing have afforded to many of us a confirmation of our faith. We see that the things we had thought evil are really evil, and we know more definitely than we ever did before the directions in which men must move if a better world is to arise on the ruins of the...

The Children's Book of Christmas Stories brings together some of the most beloved stories of all time. With 35 wonderful stories from greats like Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson, Elizabeth Harrison and Theodore Goodridge Roberts this book will be cherished by the whole family for years to come. A Christmas Star by Katherine Pyle The First Christmas Tree by Lucy Wheelock The First New England Christmas by G.L. Stone and M.G. Fickett Why the Chimes...

In early twentieth-century Vermont, orphaned, eleven-year-old Pollyanna comes to live with her austere and wealthy Aunt Polly, and uses her philosophy of gladness to bring happiness to her aunt and other unhappy members of the community.

Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, school headmaster in Cokestown, a northern English village beset by industrialism, runs his family and his school with a rigid adherence to facts, but his daughter's loveless marriage, his son's involvement with gambling and robbery, and his encounters with a variety of characters, force him to recognize the value of the human heart.

Drawing on Charles Dickens's own, often difficult childhood, to create a compelling story of personal success, David Copperfield is edited with an introduction and notes by Jeremy Tambling in Penguin Classics. David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are...