Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights
by : Emily Bronte
English Version

This review is from: Wuthering Heights (Barnes & Noble Classics) (Paperback)

This classic of English literature has certainly stood the test of time. From the commencement of the novel with moody images to its likewise saturnine conclusion, Bronte's work with tone and characterization sets the bar high for authors of all kinds. The raging zealousness of love that so possess Heathcliff and Catherine melts off the pages in molten waves - truly, has a romance so deluded and inherently doomed ever been described so well? The passions of Romeo and Juliet seem lame in comparison. But never have protagonists been so unlikable. It is hard to sympathize with either one of them, which is the major disappointment of the novel. It is with relief, then, that the romance between young Catherine and Hareton is established. Innocent and true without the sadness that is a trademark of Heathcliff's obsession, the reader begins to glimpse the true meaning of love. The book is intensely readable and page-turning, accessible and unique. The bulk of Wuthering Heights is a psychological exploration of what the past does to a person - it does not so much examine a passionate affair than it does the consequences of actions undertaken by the abused and misguided. Surely Bronte's masterpiece of the human soul will linger as long as Heathcliff's intensity for his lost idol.

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Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dracula
by : Bram Stoker
English Version
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This review is from: Dracula (Enriched Classics Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

Written in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula is a classic of fiction, fascinating for its subject matter and still the subject of films a hundred years later. Count Dracula, the epitome of evil, is exotic enough to keep even the most jaded reader of his exploits interested in their outcome, and grounded enough in the reality of evil to make even doubters wonder whether evil can be transmitted from one person to another against one's will.

The novel begins with the arrival of Jonathan Harker, a lawyer representing a London real estate agency, at the Transylvanian castle of Count Dracula to clinch the deal by which the count will move to a British estate. Details about Harker's arrival by coach, his greeting at the castle, which has no doors except the front door, his reception by the count (who has hair on the palms of his hands), and his instructions regarding where he may go or not go within the castle set the tone and establish the mysterious background of the count and a sense of dread regarding the outcome for Harker.

By the time that Harker recovers from a long and mysterious illness and returns home, the count, already in London, has turned Lucy, a lovely ingenue, into a vampire. Dr. Van Helsing, a German expert on vampires hired by her family, saves her several times from what appears to be severe anemia and recommends ringing her room with garlic and making sure that she has crucifixes around her. When Dracula then turns his blood-thirsty attention to Mina, fiancée of Jonathan Harker and friend of the unfortunate Lucy, the scene is set for a showdown regarding Dracula's power vs. the power of goodness and traditional religion.

Stoker takes his story beyond sheer melodrama, eliciting sympathy for the afflicted victims of Dracula while also recreating the religious atmosphere of the period and the beliefs and doubts of average citizens. The novel is far more compelling than I expected, creating suspense at the same time that it develops the character of the count with his supernatural powers. The climax in which the forces of good are ranged against the forces of evil in the shape of the count, whose long history is detailed in the novel, is truly a conflict between traditional religion and evil in the form of Satan personified. Fun to read and surprisingly affecting. n Mary Whipple


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Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility
by : Jane Austen
English Version

This review is from: Sense and Sensibility (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

One of the Dashwood daughters is smart, down-to-earth and sensible. The other is wildly romantic and sensitive.

And in a Jane Austen novel, you can guess that there are going to be romantic problems aplenty for both of them -- along with the usual entailment issues, love triangles, sexy bad boys and societal scandals. "Sense and Sensibility" is a quietly clever, romantic little novel that builds up to a dramatic peak on Marianne's romantic troubles, while also quietly exploring Elinor's struggles.

When Mr. Dashwood dies, his entire estate is entailed to his weak son John and snotty daughter-in-law Fanny. His widow and her three daughters are left with little money and no home.

Over the next few weeks, the eldest daughter Elinor begins to fall for Fanny's studious, quiet brother Edward... but being the down-to-earth one, she knows she hasn't got a chance. Her impoverished family soon relocates to Devonshire, where a tiny cottage is being rented to them by one of Mrs. Dashwood's relatives -- and Marianne soon attracts the attention of two men. One is the quiet, much older Colonel Brandon, and the other is the dashing and romantic Willoughby.

But things begin to spiral out of control when Willoughby seems about to propose to Marianne... only to abruptly break off his relationship with her. And during a trip to London, both Elinor and Marianne discover devastating facts about the men they are in love with -- both of them are engaged to other women. And after disaster strikes the Dashwood family, both the sisters will discover what real love is about..

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Persuasion by Jane Austen

Persuasion
by : Jane Austen
English Version
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This review is from: Persuasion (Barnes & Noble Classics) (Paperback)

Persusion is the story of Anne Elliot, a girl trapped in a classic example of listening to bad advice.Anne falls for the charming Captain Wentworth, and after many sunny days spent toghether, the couple decides to marry.When Anne tells this to her dear and only friend, Lady Russell, she is informed that he is too poor and far below her status as a daughter of a baronet. After succumbing to Lady Russell's persuasion, a broken-hearted Anne ends the engagement. The miserable pair then goes their separate ways.Eight years later, the Elliots are struggling for money and decide to lease their house and move to Bath,leaving Anne with her sister Mary. Who should be their new tenant, but Cpt. Wentworth's brother. Anne and Wenworth are soon thrown together again. This begins a journey of reconciliation, leaving the reader with the constant question,"Will they forgive their past and rekindle their love?"
I thought this was an excellent literary classic that truly captures the point and makes a great romance without being sappy or the characters being shallow. I would recommend this book for middle school on up, and primarily for girls. I can't picture many males sitting still for this one. The characters are perfectly molded, and some, like Sir Walter are humorous and very entertaining.I would give Persusion 5 stars and 2 thumbs for an excellent novel!

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Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey
by : Jane Austen
English Version
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The story’s unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry’s mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.

Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen’s novels, yet at its core this delightful novel is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.

Alfred Mac Adam teaches literature at Barnard College–Columbia University. He is a translator and art critic.

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Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Mansfield Park
by : Jane Austen
English Version

From its sharply satiric opening sentence, Mansfield Park dealas with money and marriage, and how strongly they affect each other. Shy, fragile Fanny Price is the consummate "poor relation." Sent to live with her wealthy uncle Thomas, she clashes with his spoiled, selfish daughters and falls in love with his son. Their lives are further complicated by the arrival of a pair of witty, sophisticated Londoners, whose flair for flirtation collides with the quiet, conservative country ways of Mansfield Park.

Written several years after the early manuscripts that eventually became Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park retains Austen’s familiar compassion and humor but offers a far more complex exploration of moral choices and their emotional consequences.

review by Amanda Claybaugh is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She also wrote the Introduction and Notes for the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

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Emma by Jane Austen

Emma
by : Jane Austen
English Version

Emma Woodhouse, "handsome, clever, and rich," is the 21-year-old daughter of the elderly owner of Hartfield, the largest estate in Highbury. Though only a couple of hours away from London by carriage, Highbury regards itself as an isolated and virtually self-contained community, with the Woodhouse family the center of social life and at the top of its social ladder.

Emma, doting on her hypochondriac father, whom she represents to the outside world, has grown up without a mother's softening influence, and at twenty-one, she is bright, willful, and not a little spoiled. Having too little to do to keep out of trouble, Emma's hobby is matchmaking, "the greatest amusement in the world." Unfortunately, her sophistication in the social graces does not extend to much insight into human beings.

Taking Harriet Smith, a young woman of "questionable birth" under her wing, Emma makes Harriet her "project," educating her in the social graces, convincing Harriet not to marry farmer Robert Martin, who has courted her, and ultimately persuading Harriet, wrongly, that the vicar, Mr. Elton, is falling in love with her.

Bored and without a large circle of "suitable" friends, Emma is an incorrigible meddler, playing with the lives of those around her, snubbing those she considers inferior, gossiping about others in an attempt to divert attention to herself, and misreading intentions. Only Mr. Knightly, sixteen years older than Emma and a friend of her father, stands up to Emma and tells her what he thinks of her behavior, and it is through him that she eventually begins to grow.

Love and the formal protocol or marriage are a major focus here, with marriage more often a merger of "appropriate" families than the result of romance or passion. Class distinctions, acknowledged by all levels of society, limit both personal friendships and romantic possibilities, and as Emma's matchmaking fails again and again, causing grief to many of her victims, Emma begins to recognize that her pride, willfulness, and love of power over others have made her oblivious to her own faults.

Austen shines in her depiction of Emma and her upperclass friends, gently satirizing their weaknesses but leaving room for them to learn from their mistakes-if only they can learn to recognize the ironies in their lives. Though Emma may be, in some ways, Austen's least charming heroine, she is certainly vibrant and, with her annoying faults, a most realistic one.
(Mary Whipple )

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Novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice
by : Jane Austen
English Version

This review is from: Pride and Prejudice (Bantam Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Jane Austen is one of the great masters of the English language, and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is her great masterpiece, a sharp and witty comedy of manners played out in early 19th Century English society, a world in which men held virtually all the power and women were required to negotiate mine-fields of social status, respectability, wealth, love, and sex in order to marry both to their own liking and to the advantage of their family. And such is particularly the case of the Bennetts, a family of daughters whose father's estate is entailed to a distant relative, for upon Mr. Bennett's death they will loose home, land, income, everything. But are the Bennett daughters up to playing a winning hand in this high-stakes matrimonial game without forfeiting their own personal integrity?

This battle of the sexes is largely seen through the eyes of second daughter Elizabeth, who possesses a razor-sharp wit and rich sense of humor--and who finds herself hindered by her own addlepated mother, her sister Jane's hopeless love for the wealthy Mr. Bingley, and her sister Lydia's penchant for scandal... not to mention the high-born, formidable, and outrageously proud Mr. Darcy, who seems determined to trump her every card. But the game of love proves more surprising than either Elizabeth or Mr. Darcy can imagine, and sometimes a seemingly weak hand proves a winning one when all cards are on the table.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is simply one of the funniest novels ever written, peopled with memorable characters brought vividly to life as they both succeed and fail at the game of life according to the manners of their era. It is a novel to which I return again and again, enjoying Austen's brillant talent. I have little respect for people who describe it as dull, slow, out of date, for as long as men and women live and fall in love it will never be out of style, always be meaningful, and always be funny. A masterpiece of wit and style; a timeless novel for the ages.

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