Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte

Synopsis: Having lost the family savings on risky investments, Richard Grey removes himself from family life and suffers a bout of depression. Feeling helpless and frustrated, his youngest daughter, Agnes, applies for a job as a governess to the children of a wealthy, upper-class, English family. Ecstatic at the thought that she has finally gained control and freedom over her own life, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose. The cruelty with which the family treat her however, slowly but surely strips the heroine of all dignity and belief in humanity. A tale of female bravery in the face of isolation and subjugation, Agnes Grey is a masterpiece claimed by Irish writer, George Moore, to be possessed of all the qualities and style of a Jane Austen title. Its simple prosaic style propels the narrative forward in a gentle yet rhythmic manner which continuously leaves the listener wanting to know more.

Black Beauty – Anna Sewel

Synopsis: Black Beauty spends his youth in a loving home, surrounded by friends and cared for by his owners. But when circumstances change, he learns that not all humans are so kind. Passed from hand to hand, Black Beauty witnesses love and cruelty, wealth and poverty, friendship and hardship . . . Will the handsome horse ever find a happy and lasting home? Carefully retold in clear contemporary language, and presented with delightful illustrations, these favourite classic stories capture the heart and imagination of young readers. By retelling the story in a shorter, simpler form, these books become highly engaging for children, and the colour illustrations help with both comprehension and interest level.

Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

Synopsis: Some Pig. Humble. Radiant. These are the words in Charlotte’s Web, high up in Zuckerman’s barn. Charlotte’s spiderweb tells of her feelings for a little pig named Wilbur, who simply wants a friend. They also express the love of a girl named Fern, who saved Wilbur’s life when he was born the runt of his litter.

Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes

Synopsis: Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote’s fancy often leads him astray—he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants—Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world together, and together they have haunted readers’ imaginations for nearly four hundred years.

Eight Cousins – Louisa May Alcott

Synopsis: When Rose Campbell, a shy orphan, arrives at “The Aunt Hill” to live with her six aunts and seven boisterous male cousins, she is quite overwhelmed. How could such a delicate young lady, used to the quiet hallways of a girls’ boarding school, exist in such a spirited home? It is the arrival of Uncle Alec that changes everything. Much to the horror of her aunts, Rose’s forward-thinking uncle insists that the child get out of the parlor and into the sunshine. And with a little courage and lots of adventures with her mischievous but loving cousins, Rose begins to bloom.

First and Last Things – H.G. Wells

Synopsis: States the author: I am an ingenuous enquirer with, I think, some capacity for religious feeling, but neither a prophet nor a saint.

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

Synopsis: The orphan Pip’s terrifying encounter with an escaped convict on the Kent marshes, and his mysterious summons to the house of Miss Havisham and her cold, beautiful ward Estella, form the prelude to his “great expectations.” How Pip comes into a fortune, what he does with it, and what he discovers through his secret benefactor are the ingredients of his struggle for moral redemption.

Hamlet – William Shakespeare

Synopsis: Hamlet is the story of the Prince of Denmark who learns of the death of his father at the hands of his uncle, Claudius. Claudius murders Hamlet’s father, his own brother, to take the throne of Denmark and to marry Hamlet’s widowed mother. Hamlet is sunk into a state of great despair as a result of discovering the murder of his father and the infidelity of his mother. Hamlet is torn between his great sadness and his desire for the revenge of his father’s murder.

Israel Potter – Herman Melville

Synopsis: The fictionalised tale of a man who really did fight in the American Revolution — a man who lived a life of very real adventure. After fighting in the revolution, he went on to be a part of the newly-established United States Navy, ended up serving as a secret courier for Benjamin Franklin.

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

Synopsis: Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard. But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?

King Lear – William Shakespeare

Synopsis: Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the suffering of others. Lear himself rages until his sanity cracks. What, then, keeps bringing us back to King Lear? For all the force of its language, King Lear is almost equally powerful when translated, suggesting that it is the story, in large part, that draws us to the play. The play tells us about families struggling between greed and cruelty, on the one hand, and support and consolation, on the other. Emotions are extreme, magnified to gigantic proportions. We also see old age portrayed in all its vulnerability, pride, and, perhaps, wisdom—one reason this most devastating of Shakespeare’s tragedies is also perhaps his most moving.

Little Wars – H.G. Wells

Synopsis: Little Wars is the game of kings – for players in an inferior social position. It can be played by boys of every age from twelve to one hundred and fifty – and even later if the limbs remain sufficiently supple – by girls of the better sort, and by a few rare and gifted women. This is to be a full History of Little Wars from its recorded and authenticated beginning until the present time, an account of how to make little warfare, and hints of the most priceless sort for the recumbent strategist.

Mansfield Park – Jane Austen

Synopsis: Adopted into the household of her uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, Fanny Price grows up a meek outsider among her cousins in the unaccustomed elegance of Mansfield Park. Soon after Sir Thomas absents himself on estate business in Antigua (the family’s investment in slavery and sugar is considered in the Introduction in a new, post-colonial light), Mary Crawford and her brother Henry arrive at Mansfield, bringing with them London glamour, and the seductive taste for flirtation and theatre that precipitates a crisis.

Notre-Dame de Paris – Victor Hugo

Synopsis: In the vaulted Gothic towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral lives Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer. Mocked and shunned for his appearance, he is pitied only by Esmerelda, a beautiful gypsy dancer to whom he becomes completely devoted. Esmerelda, however, has also attracted the attention of the sinister archdeacon Claude Frollo, and when she rejects his lecherous approaches, Frollo hatches a plot to destroy her, that only Quasimodo can prevent. Victor Hugo’s sensational, evocative novel brings life to the medieval Paris he loved, and mourns its passing in one of the greatest historical romances of the nineteenth century.

Oldtown Fireside Stories – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Synopsis: These are 15 charming short stories told by ole’ Sam Lawson to entertain Horace and Bill, two impressionable, curious and clever young boys of Oldtown (a fictional 1850’s New England village).

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Synopsis: Jane Austen called this brilliant work “her own darling child” and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilised sparring. And Jane Austen’s radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

Queen Summer – Walter Crane

Synopsis: ‘Queen Summer – Or the Tourney of the Lily and the Rose’ was originally published in 1891. It is an epic poem about the allegorical figure of ‘Queen Summer’, decorated throughout in stunning neoclassical style. It is both written and illustrated by Walter Crane – a true master of the Golden Age of illustration. The text and the artwork are presented as one, with Crane’s full-colour pages further enhancing the beautiful poetry. When Summer on the earth was queen She held her court in gardens green Fair hung with tapestry of leaves, Where threads of gold the sun enweaves.

Rainbow Valley – L.M. Montgomery

Synopsis: Anne Shirley is grown up, has married her beloved Gilbert, and is the mother of six mischievous children. These boys and girls discover a special place all their own, but they never dream of what will happen when a strange family moves into an old mansion nearby. The Meredith clan is two boys and two girls—and a runaway named Mary Vance. Soon the Merediths join Anne’s children in their private hideout, intent on carrying out their plans to save Mary from the orphanage, to help the lonely minister find happiness, and to keep a pet rooster from the soup pot. There’s always an adventure brewing in the sun-dappled world of Rainbow Valley.

Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

Synopsis: Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor’s warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

Twelfth Night – William Shakespeare

Synopsis: The Countess Olivia, a woman with her own household, attracts Duke (or Count) Orsino. Two other would-be suitors are her pretentious steward, Malvolio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Onto this scene arrive the twins Viola and Sebastian; caught in a shipwreck, each thinks the other has drowned. Viola disguises herself as a male page and enters Orsino’s service. Orsino sends her as his envoy to Olivia—only to have Olivia fall in love with the messenger. The play complicates, then wonderfully untangles, these relationships.

Under the Lilacs – Louisa May Alcott

Synopsis: Ben and his trained dog, Sancho, run away from the circus and soon find a warm welcome in a kind community where spirited games are played. Theatricals and imaginative pageantry are all part of the fun.

Villette – Charlotte Bronte

Synopsis: Lucy Snowe flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life’s journey – a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman’s consciousness in English literature.

Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum

Synopsis: When Dorothy and her little dog Toto are caught in a tornado, they and their Kansas farmhouse are suddenly transported to Oz, where Munchkins live, monkeys fly and Wicked Witches rule. Desperate to return home, and with the Wicked Witch of the West on their trail, Dorothy and Toto – together with new friends the Tin Woodsman, Scarecrow and cowardly Lion – embark on a fantastic quest along the Yellow Brick Road in search of the Emerald City. There they hope to meet the legendary, all-powerful Wizard of Oz, who alone may hold the power to grant their every wish.

Xantippe (and other verse) – Amy Levy

Synopsis: Amy Levy (1861-1889) was a British poet and novelist. Levy was born in Clapham, London into a Jewish family that was mildly observant, but as an adult she no longer practised Judaism although she continued to identify with the Jews as a people. Levy wrote stories, essays and poems for periodicals, some popular and others literary. The stories Cohen of Trinity and Wise in Their Generation, both published in Oscar Wilde’s magazine Women’s World, are among her best. Her final book of poems, A London Plane-Tree and Other Verse (1889), contains lyrics that are among the first to show the influence of French symbolism. Her other works include Xantippe and Other Verse (1881), The Romance of a Shop (1888), Reuben Sachs (1888) and Miss Meredith (1889).

Youth – Leo Tolstoy

Synopsis: In Youth, Leo Tolstoy’s protagonist—now a fervent sixteen-year-old—eagerly prepares to strike out on his own. And as he does so, he begins to savour life in all its glory, both grand and miniscule. From his interactions with friends, old and new, to his perceptions of the beauty of nature, the young man has an entirely new world to look forward to. But harsh lessons are waiting to teach him that far-flung expectations are rarely fulfilled to the dreamer’s specifications, and that disappointment, anger, and grief are constant foes that must be contended with if one is to truly live.

Zofloya – Charlotte Dacre

Synopsis: ‘Few venture as thou hast in the alarming paths of sin.’ This is the final judgement of Satan on Victoria di Loredani, the heroine of Zofloya, or The Moor (1806), a tale of lust, betrayal, and multiple murder set in Venice in the last days of the fifteenth century. The novel follows Victoria’s progress from spoilt daughter of indulgent aristocrats, through a period of abuse and captivity, to a career of deepening criminality conducted under Satan’s watchful eye. Charlotte Dacre’s narrative deftly displays her heroine’s movement from the vitalised position of Ann Radcliffe’s heroines to a fully conscious commitment to vice that goes beyond that of ‘Monk’ Lewis’s deluded Ambrosio. The novel’s most daring aspect is its anatomy of Victoria’s intense sexual attraction to her Moorish servant Zofloya that transgresses taboos both of class and race. A minor scandal on its first publication, and a significant influence on Byron and Shelley, Zofloya has been unduly neglected. Contradicting idealised stereotypes of women’s writing, the novel’s portrait of indulged desire, gratuitous cruelty, and monumental self-absorption retains considerable power to disturb.

Hopefully this inspires you to read a classic or three (or even more)!

Which ones have you read? Tell us in the comments below!

The post The A to Z of Classic Books appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

So, yes, we know. This kind of article has been written time and time again. But please, bear with us. We can assure you that this one will be different. No, we will not recommend you your typical classic books—don’t expect to read about Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brönte, Jane Austen, or William Shakespeare. Even if we do enjoy these beloved authors, it is time we broaden our horizons. Without further ado, here are five classic not-so-common recommendations based on some of your contemporary favourites!

The Silent Companions (2017) by Laura Purcell > The Turn of The Screw (1898) by Henry James

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell proved to be one of the spookiest releases of the last few years. Driving both the main character and the readers themselves through the most paranoid parts of the mind, the book plays numerous mind games that do not give you (or the poor protagonist) a single second to rest. Similarly, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James relies heavily on its “unreliable narrator”, keeping you at the edge of your seat and not allowing you to put the book down until you uncover what is real and what is not. Dive head first on the gothic atmosphere of Henry James’ masterpiece and unravel the mystery of this delightful piece of gothic fiction.

Scythe (2016) by Neal Shusterman > Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley

Have you ever wondered about the future? Do you think it is possible for humanity to reach a perfect society? And what if that idyllic society is not as perfect as it appears to be at first glance? If you enjoyed the paradoxical dystopian utopia of Neal Shusterman’s Scythe, get ready for Aldous Huxley’s masterpiece. Polarising to George Orwell’s 1984, where humankind deeply resents their futuristic situation, Huxley offers the reader a future where people are happy with their situation, or so it seems. Dealing with similar topics, both Shusterman’s and Huxley’s works offers a glimpse of the possible outcome of our world, where humanity has surrendered to abusing our power as a species for the sake of greater good. Deliciously dark food for thought.

Tess of the Road (2018) by Rachel Hartman > Don Quixote (1615) by Miguel de Cervantes

This one may seem like a bit of a stretch, but hear us out. The hero’s quest trope is not uncommon in epic novels of self-discovery, and it is the main link between these two books. Even if Tess lacks Don Quixote’s madness, and the latter is missing a dragon companion, both characters share that certain feeling of adventurous picaresque. Furthermore, Rachel Hartman wrote her undergraduate thesis about Cervantes’ masterpiece, so it is not that crazy to find some reminiscence of it on her novel. If you enjoyed the lazy, episodic rhythm of Tess’ journey, don’t hesitate to immerse yourself in the world of Don Quixote —one of the central pieces of Spanish literature.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) by Hank Green > Slaughterhouse V (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut

Surrealism at its finest. For fans of Hank Green’s imaginatively weird debut novel, Slaughterhouse V by Kurt Vonnegut should definitely be your next read. If you enjoy the literary production of Hank’s brother, John, you will have definitely heard about Slaughterhouse V, as it is quoted several times throughout The Fault in Our Stars, which is written by his brother, John Green. Painstakingly odd yet utterly gripping, Vonnegut’s novel will give you that same sense of uneasiness characteristic of what almost appears to be an alternative reality, where everything is not quite right. In both cases, you will not be able to stop yourself from quoting that meme with the crazy-haired guy saying aliens.

All The Crooked Saints (2017) by Maggie Stiefvater > Love Medicine (1984) by Louise Erdrich

Were the miracles that happened in Bicho Raro not enough for you? Then, you have a few more waiting for you thanks to Louise Erdrich collection of short stories. Even if this book is the closest to our days, it is widely considered a classic now, even if it is not as popular as it should. For lovers of Stiefvater’s masterful use of magic realism and folklore, Love Medicine will hook you in with the mysterious and enchanting stories of three Native American families whose lives are irrevocably intertwined. Like All the Crooked Saints, the collection also explores the depths of family bonds, love in all of its forms, and self-discovery.

Have you ever heard about any of these classics? Do you have any other recommendations? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Classic Recommendations Based On Contemporary Books appeared first on The Nerd Daily.