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Synopsis: A flamboyant and controversial personality of enormous wit and intelligence, Voltaire is one of the most intriguing figures of the eighteenth century Enlightenment. His masterpiece is Candide, a brilliant satire on the theory that ‘the world is the best of all possible worlds.’ The book traces the picaresque adventures of the guileless Candide, who [...]

Synopsis from Librivox: What Katy Did is a children’s book written by Susan Coolidge, the pen name of Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. It follows the adventures of Katy Carr and her family, growing up in America in the 1860s. Katy is a tall, untidy tomboy, forever getting into scrapes but wishing to be beautiful and beloved. [...]

Waterstones Synopsis: When a huge cyclone transports Dorothy and her little dog Toto from Kansas to the Land of Oz, she fears that she will never return home again. She and three friends she meets along the way make their way to the Emerald City where they hope to find the Wizard of Oz and [...]

Waterstones Synopsis: Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a ‘T’. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks – not to mention [...]

Waterstones Synopsis: “Wuthering Heights” is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine’s father. After Mr Earnshaw’s death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine’s brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only [...]

Waterstones Synopsis: Mary Lennox was horrid, selfish and spoilt, and was sent to stay with her uncle in Yorkshire. She hated it. But when she finds the entrance to a secret garden a change overcomes her. With a local boy and her cousin the three children work magic in themselves and those around them. I [...]

Waterstones Synopsis: From the famous episodes of the whitewashed fence and the ordeal in the cave to the trial of Injun Joe, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” is redolent of life in the Mississippi River towns in which Twain spent his own youth. A sombre undercurrent flows through the high humour and unabashed nostalgia of [...]

Waterstones Synopsis: When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes’ enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of [...]

Amazon Description: October 1800: a foreigner, accompanied by his wife and their young daughter, stands before the Tuileries, waiting for an audience with Napoleon – the only man who can understand his wretched plight and the Vendetta that has driven him here. When Ginevra Piombo falls in love, fifteen years later, with a young Corsican [...]

Synopsis from Amazon.com: The second of Dickens’ Christmas Books, The Chimes recounts the tale of a poor day laborer, Toby Veck. Like Scrooge, Toby is guided by a specter through the scenes that refocus his views of Victorian London with all its “stern realities.” This is not as well known as A Christmas Carol, and [...]