Great Expectations

Charles Dickens

Pip, an orphan, is brought up by his abusive sister and her husband, Joe Gargery, the kindly village blacksmith. Magwitch, an escaped convict, confronts Pip in the churchyard on the Kent marshes and demands food and a file to break his chains. Out of fear Pip complies and Magwitch escapes. He is later recaptured and transported to Australia where he prospers. morehide

Nun's Priest's Tale

Chaucer

The Nun's Priest's Tale is one of The Canterbury Tales by the 14th century Middle English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. The 625-line tale of Chanticleer and the Fox is a beast fable and a mock epic, which may have existed before Chaucer, but was at the very least popularized by him. The tale follows the monk's depressing accounts of despots and fallen heroes and, as well as sharing these themes, the tale also parodies them. It also has ideas in common with earlier tales with the marriage between Chanticleer and Pertelote echoing the domestic lives depicted in tales like Franklin's and The Tale of Melibee. These different themes help to unify several tales. The "Nun's Priest's Tale" offers a lively story from a previously almost invisible character. morehide

The Thorn Birds

Colleen McCullogh

In the rugged Australian Outback, three extraordinary generations of Cleary's live through joy and sadness, bitter defeat and magnificent triumph - driven by their dreams, sustained by remarkable strength of character...and torn by dark passions, vio lence and a scandalous family legacy of forbidden love. morehide

Lady Chatterley's Lover

D.H. Lawrence

Lawrence's frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of the central characters caused this controversial book, now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as pornography until 1960.

The Plumed Serpent

D.H. Lawrence

The Plumed Serpent is set in Mexico in the 1920s, an era of political turmoil, and centres on a revolutionary movement to revive the religion of the ancient Aztecs. The brilliant vision of place, the violent action and the rituals and myth for the ne w religion all combine to make it one of Lawrence's most vivid novels. The Cambridge edition establishes for the first time a meticulously edited text based on the manuscript, typescript and proof material, nearly all of which survives. Several lengthy passages rejected in the course of composition and here included in the textual apparatus offer a close look at the intricacies of Lawrence's progress toward a final conception of the novel. Full annotation and appendixes on Mexican politics and Aztec religion are also provided to assist in comprehending the often arcane concepts to which Lawrence applied his imaginative power. morehide