Paper Books

The Pickwick Papers is a sequence of loosely related adventures written for serialization in a periodical. The action is given as occurring 1827–28, though critics have noted some seeming anachronisms. For example, Dickens satirized the case of George Norton suing Lord Melbourne in 1836.The novel's ..

The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans, and released 20 December 1845 with illustrations by Daniel Maclise, John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield and Edwin Henry Landseer. Dickens began writing the book around 17 Octob..

The Old Curiosity Shop is one of two novels (the other being Barnaby Rudge) which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock, from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York readers stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final instalment a..

The first of three Holly Trees opened in Chicago in June 1872, and Gollin says that “over the next few years dozens of other Holly Trees opened in other cities, many of them after consultation with Annie.” An 1874 New York Times article refers to a “Holly-Tree Coffee-house Movement.” The name was a ..

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in 1870.Though the novel is named after the character Edwin Drood, it focuses more on Drood’s uncle, John Jasper, a precentor, choirmaster and opium addict, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud, Edwin..

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is a novel by Charles Dickens originally published as a serial from 1838 to 1839. It was Dickens' third novel. The story centres on the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a young man who must support his mother and sister after his father dies.Nich..

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels. It was originally serialised between 1842 and 1844. While he was writing it Dickens told a friend that he thought it was his best work, but it was one of his least popular novel..

Gordon Comstock has ‘declared war’ on what he sees as an ‘overarching dependence’ on money by leaving a promising job as a copywriter for an advertising company called ‘New Albion’—at which he shows great dexterity—and taking a low-paying job instead, ostensibly so he can write poetry. Coming from a..

Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. Its target audience was the middle- and upper-class members of society—those who were more likely to be well e..

The themes of the book are nostalgia, the folly of trying to go back and recapture past glories and the easy way the dreams and aspirations of one’s youth can be smothered by the humdrum routine of work, marriage and getting old. It is written in the first person, with George Bowling, the forty-five..

Burmese Days is the first novel by English writer George Orwell, published in 1934. Set in British Burma during the waning days of empire, when Burma was ruled from Delhi as part of British India, the novel serves as “a portrait of the dark side of the British Raj.” At the centre of the novel is Joh..

Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage. The mismatched jumble of passengers provides Woolf with an opportunity to satirise Edwardian life. The novel introduces Clarissa Dalloway, the central char..

Orlando A Biography is a novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 11 October 1928. Inspired by the tumultuous family history of the aristocratic poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's lover and close friend, it is arguably one of her most popular novels; Orlando is a history of English li..

To the Lighthouse is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of To the Lighthouse is seconda..

The Years is a 1937 novel by Virginia Woolf, the last she published in her lifetime. It traces the history of the Pargiter family from the 1880s to the “present day” of the mid-1930s.Although spanning fifty years, the novel is not epic in scope, focusing instead on the small private details of the c..

Virginia Woolf is well known as one of the most prominent fiction writers of the twentieth century, what may be less well known is her astounding collection of letters and essays. Here is the collection first published in 1925, aimed at 'the Common reader', Woolf produced an eccentric and personal l..

Virginia Woolf is well known as one of the most prominent fiction writers of the twentieth century, what may be less well known is her astounding collection of letters and essays. Here is the collection first published in 1925, aimed at 'the Common reader', Woolf produced an eccentric and personal l..

Night and Day is a novel by Virginia Woolf first published on 20 October 1919. Set in Edwardian London, Night and Day contrasts the daily lives and romantic attachments of two acquaintances, Katharine Hilbery and Mary Datchet. The novel examines the relationships between love, marriage, happiness, a..

Jacob's Room is the third novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 26 October 1922.The novel centres, in a very ambiguous way, around the life story of the protagonist Jacob Flanders and is presented almost entirely through the impressions other characters have of Jacob. Thus, although it could b..

A Room of One’s Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf, first published in September 1929. The work is based on two lectures Woolf delivered in October 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, women’s constituent colleges at the University of Cambridge.In her essay, Woolf uses metaphors to ex..

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the Late Spring and Autumn Period (roughly 5th century BC). The work, which is attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu (“Master Sun”, also spelled Sunzi), is composed of 13 chapters. Each one is devoted to a dif..

Between the Acts is the final novel by Virginia Woolf. It was published shortly after her death in 1941. Although the manuscript had been completed, Woolf had yet to make final revisions.The book describes the mounting, performance, and audience of a play at a festival in a small English village, ju..

Percival William Williams, who is affectionately called ‘Wee Willie Winkie’ because of the nursery rhyme, is the only son of the Colonel of the 195th. The six-year-old is well-liked by everyone in the regiment, but becomes especially good friends with a subaltern he nicknames ‘Coppy’. One day, Winki..

The Little Black Fish was widely considered to be a political allegory, and was banned in pre-revolutionary Iran (prior to the 1979 revolution). The story is told through the voice of an old fish speaking to her 12,000 children and grandchildren. She describes the journey of a small black fish who l..

One Peach, A Thousand Peaches is a story of a friendship between two poor boys and a peach tree. Sahip Ali and Polat find a peach in the landlord of the village's garden which is protected by a greedy gardener, and they decide to plant its seed. However, one day life separates them and the peach tre..

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, commonly referred to as The Chimes, is a novella written by Charles Dickens and first published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of "Christmas books," five novellas with str..

The Road to Wigan Pier is a book by the English writer George Orwell, first published in 1937. The first half of this work documents his sociological investigations of the bleak living conditions among the working class in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the industrial north of England before World War ..