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The Confessions of Saint Augustine
by Saint AugustineThe world’s most famous spiritual autobiography Written between 397 and 398 CE, The Confessions of Saint Augustine is the story of Augustine of Hippo’s childhood in Numidia, his youth and early adulthood in Carthage, Rome, and Milan, and his conversion to Christianity. As he struggled to liberate himself from his sinful past, Augustine embarked on a quest that would transform him into one of the most influential religious thinkers of all time. A moving testament to the power of faith and an inspirational guide to a fulfilled life, The Confessions of Saint Augustine is a masterwork of Western literature. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Lucia in London
by E. F. BensonThe third volume of E.F. Benson's wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss. The little town of Riseholme is too small to contain the ambitions of determined social climber Lucia, and she sets her sights on her greatest challenge yet - the fashionable world of London. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Lucia's Progress
by E. F. BensonThe fifth volume of E.F. Benson's wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss. Published in America as The Worshipful Lucia. Continuing to live in the village of Tilling, the novel chronicles her continued clashes with Miss Mapp as the two vie for control over the local social scene. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Mapp and Lucia
by E. F. BensonThe fourth volume of E.F. Benson's wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss. Miss Elizabeth Mapp is the undisputed queen of the social scene in the village of Tilling - undisputed, that is, until the arrival of Emmeline "Lucia" Lucas, someone just as clever and determined as she is. The two women, backed by their respective coteries, clash for dominance over the local society scene. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Miss Mapp
by E. F. BensonThe second volume of E.F. Benson's wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss. Miss Elizabeth Mapp is the self-appointed guardian of good manners and propriety for her upper-crust neighbours in the small town of Tilling, but her job isn't easy, as they are beset from all sides by potential scandals and romantic entanglements (but not the ones that Mapp herself engineers - those are, of course, the good kind). Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Queen Lucia
by E. F. BensonThe first volume of E.F. Benson's wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss. Emmeline Lucas - Lucia, to her friends - is a determined social climber, determined to rise to the top of the town of Riseholme, a little one-street village inhabited by a strange group of the idle rich. The result is a mish-mash of petty schemes, gossip, and backstabbing the likes of which Riseholme has never seen. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Trouble for Lucia
by E. F. BensonThe sixth and final volume of E.F. Benson's wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss. In their final showdown, Miss Elizabeth Mapp and Mrs. Emeline "Lucia" Lucas face off in Tilling, vying for the top spot in the village's social scene. When Lucia is elected Mayor, she decides to keep her competition close by naming her Mayoress. Her plan isn't entirely successful, and the two work ceaseless to undercut and one-up each other. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Willows
by Algernon BlackwoodAlgernon Blackwood’s best known novella, “The Willows,” is considered by H.P. Lovecraft to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature and is an example of early modern horror and weird fiction. When two friends take a break from a canoe trip down the River Danube, they discover the corpse of a peasant in the woods. Returning to their canoe, they find their oars missing, and as night sets in, a general sense of creepiness and unease permeates the wild, rural, and ultimately threatening environment. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte BronteA revolutionary novel that helped shaped the course of 20th century literature. Jane Eyre is an orphan, shunned by her extended family and subjected to cruel treatment at school. She weathers this harsh treatment, and eventually finds herself employment as a governess at Thornfield hall, where she meets the surly yet charming Mr. Rochester, the master of the house. The two quickly fall in love, but their future is threatened by a dark secret from Mr. Rochester's past... It has been adapted for the big and small screens numerous times, with actors such as Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Judi Dench, William Hurt, and Anna Paquin in leading roles. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
by Charlotte BronteUtterly compelling in its imaginative power and bold naturalism, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall opens in the autumn of 1827, when a mysterious woman under the assumed name Helen Graham seeks refuge at the moorland mansion of Wildfell Hall. As her neighbour Gilbert Markham comes to realize, Helen has painful secrets from her past that make her the object of gossip and jealousy. Combining the story of a man’s physical and moral decline through alcohol, a study of a broken down marriage, a disquisition on the upbringing of children, and an uncompromising critique of the position of women in Victorian society, this novel of betrayal balances a stern moral framework and an optimistic belief in universal redemption. Scandalizing its readers on publication, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a daring tale and a powerful depiction of a woman’s fight for independence and creative freedom, told with the author’s signature wit and irony. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Villette
by Charlotte BronteCharlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power in Villette, an accomplished and deeply felt final novel. The critical acclaim it received eclipsed that of Jane Eyre, with rave reviews from George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and more.
The autobiographical narrator, Lucy Snowe, flees England and her tragic past to become a governess in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There, her struggle for independence is challenged by both her friendship with a worldly and handsome English doctor and her feelings for an autocratic schoolmaster, and Brontë’s modern heroine must decide if there is any man in her society with whom she can live and still feel free.
Yet in spite of the adversity, Lucy recounts her turbulent life’s journey—one that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of 19th century woman’s consciousness in literature. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Letters of William Cullen Bryant
by William Cullen BryantDuring the years covered in this volume, Bryant traveled more often and widely than at any comparable period during his life. The visits to Great Britain and Europe, a tour of the Near East and the Holy Land, and excursions in Cuba, Spain, and North Africa, as well as two trips to Illinois, he described in frequent letters to the Evening Post. Reprinted widely, and later published in two volumes, these met much critical acclaim, one notice praising the "quiet charm of these letters, written mostly from out-of-the-way places, giving charming pictures of nature and people, with the most delicate choice of words, and yet in the perfect simplicity of the true epistolary style."His absence during nearly one-fifth of this nine-year period reflected the growing prosperity of Bryant's newspaper, and his confidence in his editorial partner John Bigelow and correspondents such as William S. Thayer, as well as in the financial acumen of his business partner Isaac Henderson. These were crucial years in domestic politics, however, and Bryant's guidance of Evening Post policies was evident in editorials treating major issues such as the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the rise of the Republican Party, and the Dred Scott Decision, as well as in his correspondence with such statesmen as Salmon P. Chase, Hamilton Fish, William L. Marcy, Edwin D. Morgan, and Charles Sumner. His travel letters and journalistic writings reflected as well his acute interest in a Europe in turmoil. In France and Germany he saw the struggles between revolution and repression; in Spain he talked with journalists, parliamentary leaders, and the future president of the first Spanish republic; in New York he greeted Louis Kossuth and Giuseppe Garibaldi.Bryant's close association with the arts continued. He sat for portraits to a dozen painters, among them Henry P. Gray, Daniel Huntington, Asher Durand, Charles L. Elliott, and Samuel Laurence. The landscapists continued to be inspired by his poetic themes. Sculptor Horatio Greenough asked of Bryant a critical reading of his pioneering essays on functionalism. His old friend, the tragedian Edwin Forrest, sought his mediation in what would become the most sensational divorce case of the century, with Bryant and his family as witnesses. His long advocacy of a great central park in New York was consummated by the legislature. And in 1852, his eulogy on the life of James Fenimore Cooper became the first of several such orations which would establish him as the memorialist of his literary contemporaries in New York.
Bulfinch's Mythology
by Thomas BulfinchBulfinch's Mythology is a thorough overview of three major groups of mythology, and has long been cited as one of its definitive reference texts. It is broken up into three sections, covering classical mythology (primarily Greek and Roman, though Bulfinch also touches on eastern, Norse, and druidic myth), the legends of King Arthur, and the romances of the middle ages. It is both thorough and detailed, but is presented in a way that makes it accessible to all readers. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Art of Public Speaking
by Dale CarnegieA pioneer in the field of self-help, Dale Carnegie distilled his experiences as a salesman and lecturer in this first guide to successful speech-making. The Art of Public Speaking is direct, practical advice for emphasizing ideas for easy comprehension and high impact ranges from finding an appropriate rhythm to conquering stage fright.Avoiding the use of tricks and shortcuts, the author suggests methods for developing one's thoughts in order to form an original, authentic manner of speaking. He advises speakers to practice their presentation skills, offering useful tips for speech-making in both personal and professional situations. First published in 1915, this classic continues to encourage people from all walks of life to overcome their self-consciousness and increase their effectiveness and comfort as public speakers.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
My Antonia
by Willa CatherOriginally published in 1918, My Ántonia is considered one of Willa Cather’s best works and was praised as a masterpiece. It is the final book of her “prairie trilogy” novels, preceded by O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. After the death of his parents, ten-year-old Jim Burden arrives in Nebraska to live with his grandparents and makes fast friends with the Shimerda children, particularly Ántonia, who live on a neighbouring farm. When tragedy strikes Ántonia’s family, she and Jim drift apart, seeing each other only infrequently over the next two decades and building their own lives. But after twenty years, Jim visits Ántonia and they reconnect, reflecting on the ways in which they’d been tied together all those years. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
O Pioneers!
by Willa CatherWidely known as Willa Cather’s first great novel and the first of the “prairie trilogy,” O Pioneers! is a work of fiction that conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic transformation of the American frontier and those who settled in it. Alexandra Bergson, the heroine of the novel, arrives in Nebraska with her family and grows up to make a prosperous farm despite the losses she experiences—but her love of the land comes at a cost. Filled with clear prose and a characterized landscape, this novel is about personal sacrifice, family loyalty, emotional and romantic ties, and belonging. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The High Window
by Raymond ChandlerIn his third novel appearance, private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired to retrieve a rare coin that has gone missing, but as the bodies start piling up around him he realizes that he has become enmeshed in a web of lies and blackmail. It has been filmed twice, first as Time to Kill, and then as The Brasher Doubloon.
The Lady in the Lake
by Raymond ChandlerIn his fourth novel appearance, private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired to find a businessman’s estranged wife, but instead finds a series of dead bodies and crooked cops. Although Chandler himself adapted the novel into a screenplay, it has never been used. The novel was filmed by Robert Montgomery, using a different, shorter script.
The Long Goodbye
by Raymond ChandlerOne of the best and most personal novel’s by one of the greatest mystery writers of all time. When a friend of private investigator Philip Marlowe’s shows up at his house begging the detective to drive him to Tijuana airport, he agrees. Both his friend and his friend’s wife turn up dead, and when another case of Marlowe’s turns out to have connections to his friend’s death, he is determined to uncover what actually happened. Robert Gould played Marlowe in the 1973 film adaptation.
Playback
by Raymond ChandlerThe last Philip Marlowe novel finished in Chandler’s lifetime.
Playback begins with private investigator Philip Marlowe being hired to investigate a woman, but soon discovers that she is the victim of blackmail, and that Marlowe has been suckered into being a pawn in a much bigger game.
He turns his attention to the young woman, hoping to free her from the nefarious characters hounding her. Despite being adapted from a screenplay, it is the only Marlowe novel to never be filmed. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey ChaucerWhile Geoffrey Chaucer composed several magnificent works of poetry, his reputation as “the father of English literature” rests mainly on The Canterbury Tales, a group of stories told by assorted pilgrims en route to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
From the mirthful and bawdy to the profoundly moral, the tales, taken in their entirety, reflect not only the manners and mores of medieval England, but indeed, the full comic and tragic dimensions of the human condition.
Considered the greatest collection of narrative poems in English literature, The Canterbury Tales was composed in the Middle English of Chaucer’s day, possibly to be read aloud at the court of Richard II.
However, their grandeur, humor, and relevance are timeless, as readers of this authoritative edition will discover.
Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Awakening
by Kate ChopinThe Pontellier family are spending a hot, lazy holiday on the Gulf of Mexico. No-one expects that Edna Pontellier should be preoccupied with anything more than her husband and children. When an illicit summer romance awakens new ideas and longings in Edna, she can barely understand herself, and cannot hope for aid or acceptance in the stifling attitudes of Louisiana society. Kate Chopin's compelling, candid portrait of a woman attempting to break free caused an outcry when first published in 1899.
The Murder on the Links
by Agatha ChristieBeloved detective Hercule Poirot made his second appearance in this tale of murder, blackmail, and forbidden love.Hercule Poirot rushes to France in response to an urgent and cryptic plea from a client. But the Belgian detective arrives just too late: the man who had summoned him is found dead on a golf course, stabbed in the back with a letter opener and wearing an ill-fitting coat with a mysterious love letter in its pocket. Strange circumstances multiply, culminating in the discovery of a second body stabbed with the same murder weapon. While the local authorities pursue the false leads suggested by the evidence, Poirot relies instead upon his famous "little grey cells" to cut through the confusion and untangle a story of blackmail, forbidden love, and a long-buried secret.