Best of
Fiction

1871

Demons


Fyodor Dostoevsky - 1871
    (ISBN13: 9780679734512)Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a "novel-pamphlet" in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass


Lewis Carroll - 1871
    This mini book contains the entire topsy-turvy stories of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, accompanied by practical notes and Martina Pelouso's memorable full-colour illustrations.

Middlemarch


George Eliot - 1871
    Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea Brooke, the heroine, idealistic but naive; Rosamond Vincy, beautiful and egoistic: Edward Casaubon, the dry-as-dust scholar: Tertius Lydgate, the brilliant but morally-flawed physician: the passionate artist Will Ladislaw: and Fred Vincey and Mary Garth, childhood sweethearts whose charming courtship is one of the many humorous elements in the novel's rich comic vein.

Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood


George MacDonald - 1871
    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

At the Back of the North Wind


George MacDonald - 1871
    His life is transformed by a brief glimpse of the beautiful country -- at the back of the north wind. This Victorian fairy tale has enchanted readers for more than a hundred years, and combines a Dickensian regard for the working class of mid-19th-century England with the invention of an ethereal landscape.

Three People


Pansy - 1871
    . . not much chance, under ordinary circumstances, that they would ever meet. But God's plans are never ordinary, and the greatest miracles need only the seed of a tiny prayer to bring them to fruition. Thus it was one day in the repulsive rubbish heap of humanity known as “Five Points” that a dying mother showed her ragged, neglected boy the only kindness he would ever know from her when she prayed. "O Lord, don't ever let Tode touch a drop of rum!" And so that one small, desperate prayer went forth, setting in motion the beginnings of hope—and stirring in little Tode a determination so great that it transformed not only his life, but also the lives of the astonishingly different people whom he came to know, protect . . . and love. Heartwarming stories of faith and love by Grace Livingston Hill's aunt—Isabella Alden. Each book is similar in style and tone to Hill's and is set in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The Adventures of Harry Richmond


George Meredith - 1871
    He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. LIFE: Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two years. He read law and was articled as a solicitor, but abandoned that profession for journalism and poetry. He collaborated with Edward Gryffydh Peacock, son of Thomas Love Peacock in publishing a privately circulated literary magazine, the Monthly Observer. He married Edward Peacock's widowed sister Mary Ellen Nicolls in 1849 when he was twenty-one years old and she was twenty-eight. Meredith collected his early writings, first published in periodicals, in an 1851 volume, Poems. In 1856 he posed as the model for The Death of Chatterton, a notable painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis (1830-1916). His wife ran off with Wallis in 1858; she died three years later. The collection of "sonnets" entitled Modern Love (1862) emerged from this experience as did The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, his first "major novel." Meredith married Marie Vulliamy in 1864 and settled in Surrey. He continued writing novels and poetry, often inspired by nature. He had a keen understanding of comedy and his Essay on Comedy (1877) remains a reference work in the history of comic theory. In The Egoist, published in 1879, he applies some of his theories of comedy in one of his most enduring novels. Some of his writings, including The Egoist, also highlight the subjugation of women during the Victorian period. During most of his career, he had difficulty achieving popular success. His first successful novel was Diana of the Crossways published in 1885.Meredith supplemented his often uncertain writer's income with a job as a publisher's reader. His advice to Chapman and Hall made him influential in the world of letters. His friends in the literary world included, at different times, William and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Cotter Morison, Leslie Stephen, Robert Louis Stevenson, George Gissing and J. M. Barrie. His contemporary Sir Arthur Conan Doyle paid him homage in the short-story The Boscombe Valley Mystery, when Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson during the discussion of the case, "And now let us talk about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow." Oscar Wilde, in his dialogue The Decay of Lying, implies that Meredith, along with Balzac, is his favourite novelist, saying "Ah, Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning." In 1868 Meredith was introduced to Thomas Hardy by Frederic Chapman of Chapman & Hall the publishers. Hardy had submitted his first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady. Meredith advised Hardy not to publish his book as it would be attacked by reviewers and destroy his hopes of becoming a novelist. Meredith felt the book was too bitter a satire on the rich and counselled Hardy to put it aside and write another 'with a purely artistic purpose' and more of a plot. Meredith spoke from experience; his first big novel, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, was judged so shocking that Mudie's circulating library had cancelled an order of 300 copies. Hardy continued in his attempts to publish the novel: however it remained unpublished, though he clearly took Meredith's advice seriously. Before his death, Meredith was honoured from many quarters: he succeeded Lord Tennyson as president of the Society of Authors; in 1905 he was appointed to the Order of Merit by King Edward VII. In 1909, he died at his home in Box Hill, Surrey. He is buried in the cemetery at Dorking, Surrey.

Tattered Tom: Or, the Story of a Street Arab


Horatio Alger Jr. - 1871
    In the preface of this book, Alger alerts his readers that Tattered Tom is a girl. She wears a skirt but defends herself admirably against everyone, including her abusive guardian, Margeret.

The Baby's Things: A Story in Verse For Christmas Eve


Edward Abbott - 1871
    A grieving Mother learns the true meaning of Sacrifice, Charity, and Service.

Strangers and Pilgrims


Mary Elizabeth Braddon - 1871
    This experience led to her sensitive and moving portrayal of mental illness in Strangers and Pilgrims (1871-72), whose heroine has a breakdown after the death of her child.

Suburban Sketches


William Dean Howells - 1871
    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.