Best of
Novels

1880

Stepping Heavenward


Elizabeth Payson Prentiss - 1880
    The story follows her life from when she is sixteen, though courtship, engagement, marriage, having children, and the many challenges that she confronts in her adult life. This classic Christian story is told through a series of journal entries by Katherine and is an inspirational tale for young girls who themselves are facing the very same challenges of growing up.

Palliser Novels


Anthony Trollope - 1880
    "Who will even know that they should be so read?" he complained. Solving this problem in particularly splendid fashion, Oxford is now reissuing the Palliser Novels in an elegantly crafted hard-bound set--with acid-free papers and durable binding--that include the wealth of illustrations that first appeared in the Oxford Illustrated Trollope years ago. Now, a whole new generation of readers can enjoy one of nineteenth-century literature's greatest achievements. While the novels center around the stately politician Plantagenet Palliser, the interest is less in politics than in the lively social scene Trollope creates against a Parliamentary backdrop. His keen eye for the subtleties of character and "great apprehension of the real" impressed contemporary writers from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Henry James, and in the Palliser Novels we find him at his very best. Between the covers of these books we meet a wonderfully rich variety of men and women, among them Alice Vavasor, whose waverings between suitors--and the resulting mess--prompted Trollope to ask Can Your Forgive Her?; the handsome Irish MP Phineas Finn, who grows to maturity as the novels progress; the beautiful enchantress Lizzie Eustace, whose scandalous diamonds are the talk of London high society; Ferdinand Lopez, the unctuous social climber; the elegant and witty Lady Glencora, Plantagenet's wife; and Palliser himself--first as a cabinet aspirant, later as Prime Minister--who is the connecting thread that holds the series together. Along the way we are also introduced to a host of amusing and sharply-drawn characters of less social status who, much like the bumpkins of Shakespeare, offer a distorting yet insightful fun-house mirror to the main action. Nowhere else did Trollope bring to life in such compelling fashion the teeming world of Victorian society and politics, and nowhere else did he create more memorable and living characters than those who populate these six volumes. As a group the Palliser Novels provide us with the most extensive and telling expose of British life during the period of its greatest prestige.

The Golovlyov Family


Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin - 1880
    There Anna Petrovna rules with an iron hand over her servants and family-until she loses power to the relentless scheming of her hypocritical son Porphyry. One of the great classic novels of Russian literature, The Golovlyov Family is a vivid picture of a condemned and isolated outpost of civilization that, for contemporary readers, will recall the otherwordly reality of Macondo in Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.

The Fool


Րաֆֆի - 1880
    A young man escapes a crumbling fortress during a military siege. Disguising himself as a jester, he entertains the enemy camp before disappearing into the night. He sets out on a passionate and daring mission that involves a wealthy family, secret contrabandists, corrupt government officials, self-absorbed clerics, and a young propagandist from Constantinople. All are in pursuit of their own secret motives, while their nation lies on the brink of doom…First published in 1880, The Fool is Raffi’s most renowned work and saw him hailed as a prophet after the Ottoman Empire’s 30-year genocide (1894-1924) of its Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek populations came to pass.

The Chronicles of Barsetshire & The Palliser Novels (Unabridged): The Warden + The Barchester Towers + Doctor Thorne + Framley Parsonage ... + The Prime Minister + Eustace Diamonds...


Anthony Trollope - 1880
    The novels concern the dealings of the clergy and the gentry, and the political, amatory, and social manœuvrings that go on among and between them. Together, the series is regarded by many as Trollope's finest work.The Palliser novels are six novels, also known as the "Parliamentary Novels", by Anthony Trollope. The common thread is the wealthy aristocrat and politician Plantagenet Palliser and his wife Lady Glencora. The plots involve British and Irish politics in varying degrees, specifically in and around Parliament.Table of Contents:Anthony Trollope: An AutobiographyThe Chronicles of Barsetshire:The WardenThe Barchester TowersDoctor Thorne Framley ParsonageThe Small House at AllingtonThe Last Chronicle of BarsetThe Palliser Novels:Can You Forgive Her?Phineas FinnThe Eustace DiamondsPhineas Redux The Prime MinisterThe Duke’s ChildrenAnthony Trollope (1815–1882) was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire. He also wrote perceptive novels on political, social, and gender issues, and on other topical matters. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century.

The Young Buglers


G.A. Henty - 1880
    The Young Buglers traces the fortunes of two brothers, Tom and Peter Scudamore, who join the British army in Portugal and serve with distinction during the hard-fought battles of the Peninsula War.