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The rich and flegmatic Kin-Fo loses his fortune and decides to die, but not before experiencing some strong emotions. He asks his friend Wang to kill him before a given date. Everything changes when Kin-Fo discovers he is not poor after all and he sets on a journey around China, trying to find his friend to cancel their deal. (Summary by Nadine)...

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Literature

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Scenes of Clerical Life, which appeared in book form in 1858 (after serial publication in the previous year), was the first published fiction by George Eliot, the pen name for Mary Anne Evans. It consists of three novellas based on the lives of country clergymen and their communities. These characters interest Eliot not for their theology — she had abandoned conventional Christian belief — but for their humanity. In these stories, we find the earliest signs of the narrative voice, the humanism, and the realism that would make George Eliot one of the greatest novelists of the 1800s. (Introduction by Bruce Pirie)...

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Literature

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Schiller (1759 - 1805), einer der Weimarer Klassiker, bekannt als Dichter und Dramatiker. Der Geisterseher (3. verbesserte Auflage 1798), sein einziger Roman, blieb unvollendet. This reading is in German. (Summary by redaer)...

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Literature

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An autobiographical short story written in 1898 and included as the first story in the 1902 volume Youth, a Narrative , and Two Other Stories. This volume also includes Heart of Darkness and The End of the Tether, which are concerned with maturity and old age, respectively. Youth is narrated by Charles Marlow who is also the narrator of Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and Chance. Youth depicts his first journey to the East. (summary from wikipedia)...

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Literature

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Der Stechlin ist Fontanes letzter großer Roman. Die Handlung rankt sich um das uralte märkische Adelsgeschlecht derer von Stechlin, die am gleichnamigen Stechlinsee im Ruppiner Land ihren Sitz haben. Der Autor selbst sagte ironisch, in dem Roman geschehe nicht viel. Tatsächlich liegt das Gewicht des Romans nicht auf der Handlung, sondern auf den vielfältigen Dialogen, welche die gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeit zur Wende vom 19. auf das 20. Jahrhundert offenbaren. (Zusammenfassung nach Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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The Cossacks (1863) is an unfinished novel which describes the Cossack life and people through a story of Dmitri Olenin, a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. This text was acclaimed by Ivan Bunin as one of the finest in the language....

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Literature

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Joseph Andrews ... was the first published full-length novel of the English author and magistrate Henry Fielding, and indeed among the first novels in the English language. Published in 1742 and defined by Fielding as a ‘comic romance,’ it is the story of a good-natured footman's adventures on the road home from London with his friend and mentor, the absent-minded parson Abraham Adams....

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Fiction, Literature

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This is the second in Trollope’s ‘Barsetshire’ series of novels. The later novels in the series move away from Barchester itself but 'Barchester Towers' is very much a sequel to the first book ‘The Warden’, which is also available from . The old bishop dies, the archdeacon, Dr. Grantly fails to succeed him and a new bishop, Dr. Proudie is appointed. Dr. Grantly gains a worthy foe, not the new bishop but his wife, Mrs. Proudie, strict sabatarian and power behind the Episcopal throne together with the bishop’s chaplain, Mr. Slope. John Bold is also dead and Eleanor, now a wealthy young widow sets clerical hearts fluttering. The new bishop must deal with the wardenship of Hiram’s Hospital. Will it go to Mr. Harding? All is to play for. Then the old Dean dies and the stakes are raised. (Summary by Andy)...

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Literature

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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , the second and final novel by Anne Brontë, is concerned with the story of a woman who leaves her abusive, dissolute husband, and who must then support herself and her young son. Originally published in June of 1848, it challenged the prevailing morals of the time; a critic went so far as to pronounce it utterly unfit to be put into the hands of girls. It is considered to be one of the first feminist novels. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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The novel centres, in a very ambiguous way, around the life story of the protagonist Jacob Flanders, and is presented entirely by the impressions other characters have of Jacob [except for those times when we do indeed get Jacob's perspective]. Thus, although it could be said that the book is primarily a character study and has little in the way of plot or background, the narrative is constructed as a void in place of the central character, if indeed the novel can be said to have a 'protagonist' in conventional terms. Motifs of emptiness and absence haunt the novel and establish its elegiac feel....

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Literature

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Die Judenbuche – Ein Sittengemälde aus dem gebirgichten Westfalen ist eine Novelle von Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, die erstmals 1842 im Cotta'schen Morgenblatt für gebildete Leser erschien. Sie behandelt ein Verbrechen und vor allem dessen Vor- und Nachgeschichte und spielt in dem entlegenen westfälischen Dorf B. in einem deutschen Kleinstaat des 18. Jahrhunderts, vor den Umwälzungen, die die Französische Revolution für Europa mit sich brachte. Das Stück wird außerdem als Milieustudie und Kriminalgeschichte verstanden. (Zusammenfassung von Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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Hedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In it, Hedda Gabler, daughter of an aristocratic General, has just returned from her honeymoon with George Tesman, an aspiring young academic, reliable but not brilliant, who has combined research with their honeymoon. The reappearance of Tesman's academic rival, Eilert Lovborg, throws their lives into disarray. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by wildemoose)...

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Literature, Play, Humor

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The story is one of only two novels by Wharton to be set in New England. The novel details the sexual awakening of its protagonist, Charity Royall, and shares many plot similarities with Wharton's better known novel, Ethan Frome. Only moderately well-received when originally published, Summer has had a resurgence in critical popularity since the 1960's....

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Literature

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O Pioneers! tells the story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish immigrants in the farm country near Hanover, Nebraska, (a fictional town near Glenvil) around the turn of the 20th century. The main character, Alexandra Bergson, inherits the family farmland when her father dies, and she devotes her life to making the farm a viable enterprise at a time when other immigrant families are giving up and leaving the prairie. The novel also concerns two romantic relationships - one between Alexandra and family friend Carl Lindstrom, and another between Alexandra's brother Emil and the married Marie Shabata. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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Soldier Boy is the top steed at Fort Paxton. He is Buffalo Bill’s favorite horse and has led a life of glory and honor. One day General Alison’s orphaned niece arrives and proceeds to charm every man, woman, and beast for miles around including Soldier Boy. Buffalo Bill takes her under his wing and ultimately “lends” her Soldier Boy so that they may seek adventure together. And so they do. – “A Horse’s Tale” was first published in the August and September, 1906 issues of Harper’s Monthly magazine. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Literature

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Persuasion is a regency Cinderella-esque tale of a young woman, the beautiful Anne Elliot, who is persuaded from marrying the Naval officer of her heart. It is now almost nine years since she rejected him. Bonaparte has abdicated and England's sailors return home covered in glory. Fredrick Wentworth is now a rich and highly eligible sea captain and the two are curiously thrown together. Will their forgotten affection blossom anew? Or has the captain found another? (Summary by rlowalrus)...

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Literature

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Daisy Miller is an 1878 novella by Henry James. It portrays the confused courtship of the eponymous American girl by Winterbourne, a compatriot of hers with much more sophistication. His pursuit of her is hampered by her own flirtatiousness, which is frowned upon by the other expatriates they meet in Switzerland and Italy. Her lack of understanding of the social mores of the society she so desperately wishes to enter ultimately leads to tragedy. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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Lucy and Ayala Dormer are left penniless by the death of their parents. Ayala is taken in by their rich aunt Lady Tringle and Lucy by their poor uncle Mr Dosett. The girls find it hard to get used to their new surroundings. Lucy becomes engaged to one of her father's artist friends but they are too poor to marry. Three different men fall in love with Ayala but none live up to her ideal of the perfect man. Will Lucy be able to marry her sweetheart and will Ayala find her 'Angel of Light'? For the answers to these and many other questions, read this book. (Summary by Stav Nisser)...

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Literature

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The Rainbow is a 1915 novel by British author D.H. Lawrence. It follows three generations of the Brangwen family, particularly focusing on the sexual dynamics of, and relations between, the characters. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature