Best of
Classic-Literature

1975

Jules Verne: Seven Novels (Extraordinary Voyages, #1 & 3 & 4 & 6 & 7 & 11 & 12)


Jules Verne - 1975
    Collecting:Five Weeks in a Balloon,Around the World in Eighty Days,A Journey to the Center of the Earth,From the Earth to the Moon,Round the Moon,Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,The Mysterious Island.This omnibus offers a unique compilation of seven of Vernes Voyages, stories in which he extrapolated developing technology and invention into marvellous fiction.This volume offers readers a generous introduction to Jules Verne, whose books are as alive today as they were for readers new to the ideas expressed in them during his time.This edition of the text is exquisitely bound in bonded-leather, with distinctive gilt edging and an attractive silk-ribbon bookmark. Decorative, durable, and collectable, these books offer hours of pleasure to readers young and old and are an indispensable cornerstone for any home library.

Omer Pasha Latas: Marshal to the Sultan


Ivo Andrić - 1975
    Omer is the seraskier, commander in chief of the Sultan’s armies, and as the book begins he arrives from Istanbul, dispatched to bring Sarajevo’s landowners to heel, a task that he accomplishes with his usual ferocity and efficiency. And yet the seraskier’s expedition to Bosnia is a time of reckoning for him as well: he was born in the Balkans, a Serb and a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a bright boy who escaped his father’s financial disgrace by running away and converting to Islam. Now, at the height of his power, he heads an army of misfits, adventurers, and outcasts from across Europe and Asia, and yet wherever he goes he remains a stranger.Ivo Andrić, who won the Nobel Prize in 1961, is a spellbinding storyteller and a magnificent stylist, and here, in his final novel, he surrounds his enigmatic central figure with many vivid and fascinating minor characters, lost souls and hopeless dreamers all, in a world that is slowly sliding towards disaster. Omer Pasha Latas combines the leisurely melancholy of Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March with the stark fatalism of an old ballad.

The Green Fool


Patrick Kavanagh - 1975
    Full of wry humour, Kavanagh's unsentimental and evocative account of his Irish rural upbringing describes a patriarchal society surviving on the edge of poverty, sustained by the land and an insatiable love of gossip. There are tales of schoolboy skirmishes, blackberrying and night-time salmon-poaching; of country-weddings and fairs, of political banditry and religious pilgrimages; and of farm-work in the fields and kicking mares.

Winged Life


Hannah Hurnard - 1975
    We can find freedom to enjoy the Christian life by allowing God to transform our thoughts, specifically through an attitude of praise, selflessness, and pure thinking.

The Brontes


Brian Wilks - 1975
     In Brian Wilks’ book the sisters, their brother Branwell and their father Patrick are seen with remarkable clarity. The author paints a vivid picture from when Patrick meets his short-lived wife, Maria. Their courtship and love for each other is detailed along with their move to the village of Haworth., where Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were born. Unbeknown to them, the village of Haworth was a densely populated and highly unsanitary. The combination of this, along with living amongst the dead, was to bring the family more troubles. The author gives a vivid picture of the times, and of the Brontës’ surroundings — the reeking, unhealthy village, the bleak parsonage, and the wild and lonely moors. Shortly after Anne’s birth, Maria fell ill and died — leaving six young children in the care of their grieving father. With the help of Maria’s sister, Elizabeth Branwell, the family got through this difficult period. Elizabeth was to stay on with the Brontës for the rest of her life and support the children’s various endeavours. Patrick took it upon himself to ensure his children would be able to survive on their own in the event of his death. Following the death of the older girls, Maria and Elizabeth, he withdrew, leaving the four remaining siblings to form their own imaginations — weaving the foundations for the stories that that were to come. Governessing was a decent form of living then and the girls took it up. Branwell was moved towards becoming an artist. However, none of the siblings could stay away from home, Haworth, for too long and they missed the close companionship of their siblings. Inevitably, they returned time and time again, unable to follow their career paths. With illness surrounding Haworth, the girls, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, took to seeking comfort in their writing. Their greatest novels were written during some of the most harrowing times of their lives. When Charlotte, the last remaining Brontë child, died, Patrick was left with the greatest of grief, and alone. Yet the compassion he was well known to possess continued well up to his death at the age of eighty-five. Brian Wilks is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Leeds in Yorkshire. He is also the author of a biography of Jane Austen. “All scholars will cherish this book which is recommended for college and public libraries.” — Library Journal