The Mayor of Casterbridge

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Publius Ovidius Naso

Ovid’s sensuous and witty poem. In Metamophoses, Ovid brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation—often as a result of love or lust—where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best-known myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome, including Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Pygmalion, Perseus and Andromeda, and the fall of Troy.

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Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens. It was originally published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. The story follows the titular orphan, who, after being raised in a workhouse, escapes to London, where he meets a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin, discovers the secrets of his parentage, and reconnects with his remaining family. Oliver Twist unromantically portrays the sordid lives of criminals, and exposes the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century.[2] The alternative title, The Parish Boy's Progress, alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, as well as the 18th-century caricature series by painter William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress. In an early example of the social novel, Dickens satirises child labour, domestic violence, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens's own experiences as a youth contributed as well, considering he spent two years of his life in the workhouse at the age of 12 and subsequently, missed out on some of his education.

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Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll. A young girl named Alice falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. One of the best-known works of Victorian literature, its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have had huge influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre.

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Rosamunde Pilcher

Elfrida Phipps, once on the London stage and retired at 62, never anticipates going off with a man. But after a devastating tragedy, church organist Oscar Blundell asks for her companionship. So with her brown-and-white dog in tow, Elfrida begins her journey, not knowing that joining her and Oscar at a rundown Victorian house in Scotland will be a young woman nursing a broken heart, a teenager escaping an unhappy home, and a stranger arriving during a snowstorm. Now these five very different people form an unexpected circle of friends that will forever change their lives...