Alice's Adventures in Wonderland provides an inexhaustible source of literary, philosophical, and scientific themes. Lewis Carroll's Adventures in Wonderland provides a physical removal from reality by creating a fantastical world and adventure in the mind of a young girl. In this separation, Carroll is able to bend the rules of the temporal world. Although this is self-evident in Alice's physical transfigurations, language and conventions provide additional means to test if a world can defy the rules whic

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein all the ingredients of the gothic tale are there – the castle, the stormy weather, a monster, violent death, gory effects and passionate love. It can be read at many levels; today most people will associate it with a classic horror story. However, considering its full title, "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus", one understands that there is more to it than just a horror story and morbid entertainment. The story of Frankenstein can be read as an allegory, that is, a narra

Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He died at the young age of 52 leaving many to wonder what other masterpieces he might have written had he lived longer. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets in his lifetime. He is seen as one of the world's greatest dramatists. Shakespeare's plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. In this volume included: Oth

Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He died at the young age of 52 leaving many to wonder what other masterpieces he might have written had he lived longer. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets in his lifetime. He is seen as one of the world's greatest dramatists. Shakespeare's plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the In this volume included: Romeo & Ju

Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He died at the young age of 52 leaving many to wonder what other masterpieces he might have written had he lived longer. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets in his lifetime. He is seen as one of the world's greatest dramatists. Shakespeare's plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. In this volume included: A M

With her 1847 novel, Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte created one of the most unforgettable heroines of all time. Jane Eyre is a young orphan being raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt. A servant named Bessie provides Jane with some of the few kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing songs to her. One day, as punishment for fighting with her bullying cousin John Reed, Jane's aunt imprisons Jane in the red-room, the room in which Jane's Uncle Reed died. While locked in, Jane, believing tha

Wuthering Heights is a tale of two families, the Earnshaws and the Lintons. The story is set in an extreme landscape on the wild moors, weather-beaten by icy winds, storms and rain. Characters are imprisoned or confined in Wuthering Heights. The ghost of Catherine Linton appears in the opening chapters and we are witness to dreams, visions and supernatural incidents. The story of the Earnshaws and Lintons spans three generations and is full of torture, tyranny and intolerable cruelty. It hinges on the soul

Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, Bram Stoker's book tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread the undead curse, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing. The novel has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel, and invasion literature. The novel touches on themes such as the role of women

As a variation on the Faust legend, with echoes of the fall of man and the Adonis myth, and as an examination of the relationship between art and life, The Picture of Dorian Gray still fascinates readers and gaves rise to many different interpretations. The novel centers on Dorian Gray, a young man of great beauty. When he meets Lord Henry Wotton, Lord Henry inspires him with a vision of life in which the pursuit of beauty through sensual pleasure is valued above ethical or moral concerns. Another friend o

Considered Lawrence's first masterpiece, most critics of the day praised Sons and Lovers for its authentic treatment of industrial life and sexuality. There is evidence that Lawrence was aware of Sigmund Freud's early theories on sexuality, and Sons and Lovers deeply explores and revises of one of Freud's major theories, the Oedipus complex. Still, the book received some criticism from those who felt the author had gone too far in his description of Paul's confused sexuality. The roots of Sons and Lovers a

Widely acknowledged as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe's adventure story of a shipwrecked sailor became an instant classic upon its publication in 1719 and the yardstick for countless castaway narratives to follow. Robinson Crusoe is more than a great yarn, it is an allegory rife with moral and religious symbolism and significance, seen through the eyes of an ordinary man struggling to survive in extraordinary circumstances The book is a kind of epic of human endeavour ceaselessly striving after some

Comparing to Woolf's earlier works, To the lighthouse is a greater and more complex book as it intertwines the thoughts and reflections of numerous different people and their relationships with each other over a period of ten years.The story takes place on the Isle of skye just before the first world war. The ramsay family have a holiday home overlooking the sea and the distant lighthouse. During the summer the family, which consists of Mr and Mrs Ramsay and their eight children, invite numerous friends and

The shortest of Dickens' novels, Hard Times, was also, until quite recently, the least regarded of them. The comedy is savagely and scornfully sardonic, to the virtual exclusion of the humour - that delighted apprehension of and rejoicing in idiosyncrasy and absurdity for their own sakes, which often cuts right across moral considerations and which we normally take for granted in Dickens. Then, too, the novel is curiously skeletal. There are four separate plots, or at least four separate centres of interest

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's the first of his great and successful novels, which won him great renown. A pastoral novel belonging to the category of tragi-comedy is set against the rural background of Wessex, and depicts the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, the comedy and the tragedy of the life of the rustic people of this region. The story of the novel centres round Bathsheba Everdene who rejects Gabriel Oak's proposal of marriage with her, because she is bored with the prospec

Great Expectations has always been rated among the very greatest of Dickens' achievements. Great Expectations isn't complicated or arcane: it speaks to the reader frankly and forcefully. But it doesn't have a ‘theme' which can be glibly summarized: it's simply the story of a middle-aged man attempting an honest examination of his life and coming to terms with his past, his morality, his actions. Pip shouldn't be equated dickens and dickens isn't Pip, but they are intimately related and one can think of both

Gulliver's Travels, most famous work of Jonathan Swift is a misanthropic anatomy of human nature. Each of the four books has a different theme, but all are attempts to deflate human pride. It may be a politico-sociological treatise in the form of a satire; a protest against Imperialism and Colonialism; an attack on the corrupt Whig oligarchy which had displaced the Swift's Tories in London a defence of Tory policies, an attack on the Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, and on the expensive and bloody trade wars

Published in serial form in 1914–1915, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is celebrated as one of the great literary pioneers of the twentieth century. Joyce was one of the first writers to make extensive and convincing use of stream of consciousness, a stylistic form in which written prose seeks to represent the characters' stream of inner thoughts and perceptions rather than render these characters from an objective, external perspective. Another stylistic technique for which Joyce is noted is the ep

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was first published in 1813 and the book has since it appeared been extremely popular, and it is still sold and read by a huge audience. It seems that Austen's themes of love, class and money in the late 18th century continue to appeal to many new readers. Set in the country village of Longbourn in Hertfordshire, the story revolves around the Bennet family and their five unmarried daughters. They are the first family of consequence in the village, unfortunately the Longbou

Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, published in 1925, was a bestseller both in Britain and the United States despite its departure from typical novelistic style.The method she used, the representation of the stream of consciousness, reflected her need to go beyond the clumsiness of the factual realism in the novels of her Edwardian precursors, and find a more sensitive, artistic and profound way to represent character, an effort shared with her contemporaries D. H. Lawrence, Dorothy Richardson, Katherine Mansf

Widely acknowledged as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe's adventure story of a shipwrecked sailor became an instant classic upon its publication in 1719 and the yardstick for countless castaway narratives to follow. Robinson Crusoe is more than a great yarn, it is an allegory rife with moral and religious symbolism and significance, seen through the eyes of an ordinary man struggling to survive in extraordinary circumstances The book is a kind of epic of human endeavour ceaselessly striving after some