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Teen Classics
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The novel begins with a young orphan Philip Pirrip (Pip) who comes across an escaped convict one day. This terrifying personage forces Pip to steal food and a file for him. The boy does as he's asked, but the convict is captured anyway, and transported to the penal colonies in Australia.
Later Pip is sent to live with Miss Havisham, a wealthy woman driven half-mad years earlier by her lover's departure on their wedding day and has never recovered. Pip is brought there to play with her ward (受监护人), Estella, whom she is teaching to torment men with her beauty. Pip falls in love with Estella though she delights in tormenting Pip about his rough hands and future as a blacksmith's apprentice.
As Pip spends more time with Miss Havisham and Estella, he becomes more and more discontented with his guardian, the kind-hearted blacksmith, Joe, and his childhood friend Biddy.
After several years, Pip becomes the heir of an unknown benefactor. He leaps at the chance to leave his home and friends behind to go to London and become a gentleman. He begins to look down on his humble roots, but Estella spurns (拒绝) him again and marries the ill-tempered Bentley Drummle.
Pip's benefactor turns out to have been Abel Magwitch, the convict he once aided, who dies awaiting trial after Pip is unable to help him a second time. Having expectations, as Pip soon learns, is a two-edged sword, and nothing is as he thought it would be.
It is Joe who rescues Pip from despair and nurses him back to health.
The novel is one of Charles Dickens' greatest critical and popular successes. It is a superbly constructed novel of compelling mastery and a profound examination of moral values of the Victorian middle class.
About the author
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is the author of many well-loved classics, including: Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations.
Emma
by Jane Austen
Price: US $ 4.95
"I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like," Jane Austen wrote of Emma. She was wrong. It is easy to love Emma Woodhouse. She is a snob (自以为是的人), a meddler (爱多管闲事的人) and a spoiled child - but she is also smart, funny, generous and compassionate. In fact, the heroine has been much loved by generations of readers.
As daughter of the richest, most important man in the small provincial village of Highbury, Emma Woodhouse is firmly convinced that it is her rights -- perhaps even her "duty" -- to arrange the lives of others. She takes on the self-appointed role of matchmaker (媒人) in a world that grants little public power to women. She is determined not to marry, but ends up embracing love and growing in maturity.
The book sparkles with ironic (讽刺的) insights into self-deception, self-discovery and the interplay (相互作用) of love and power.
First published in 1816 when Jane Austen was at the height of her powers, Emma is generally regarded as Jane Austen's most technically brilliant book.
About the author
Jane Austen is a great English novelist. Her classics include Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion and Lady Susan.
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