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Some of our favorite classic stories
Updated April 19, 2024
RPL Staff
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Watership Down
Adams, Richard
Paper Book
'Watership Down is stunning, compulsive reading ... rich-textured, minutely detailed, inventive, the world seen and known through animal eyes' - Sunday Times 'A gripping story of rebellion in a rabbit warren and the subsequent adventures of the rebels ... Adams has a poetic eye and a gift for...
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Little women
Alcott, Louisa May
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Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane
Paper Book
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A manual for cleaning women : selected stories
Berlin, Lucia.
Paper Book
One ofTheNew York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2015 One ofJezebel's Favorite Books of 2016 A Manual for Cleaning Womencompiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the...
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Fahrenheit 451 : a novel
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
Nearly seventy years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before. Guy Montag is a fireman....
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Wuthering Heights
Bronte, Emily
Paper Book
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The spy who came in from the cold
Le Carrâe, John
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Our Kind of Traitor; and The Night Manager, now a television series starring Tom Hiddleston. The 50th-anniversary edition of the bestselling novel that...
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O pioneers!
Cather, Willa
Paper Book
The novel that first made Willa Cather famous--a powerfully mythic tale of the American frontier told through the life of one extraordinary woman--in a handsome hardcover volume. No other work of fiction so vividly evokes the harsh beauty and epic sweep of the Nebraska prairies...
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Don Quixote
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de
Paper Book
Edith Grossman's definitive English translation of the Spanish masterpiece, in an expanded P.S. edition Widely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his...
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The awakening
Chopin, Kate
Paper Book
Over one long, languid summer Edna Pontellier, fettered by marriage and motherhood, becomes acquainted with Robert Lebrun. As the days shorten and the temperature drops Edna succumbs to Robert's devotion. But as her desire grows so too does her discontentment - with the role society has forced...
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The woman in white
Collins, Wilkie
Paper Book
Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.
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The last of the Mohicans
Mann, Michael
DVD
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Robinson Crusoe
Johnson, Dan.
Paper Book
Robinson Crusoe is not content with his life in England. He is bored and wants to see more of the world. His curiosity convinces him to leave his homeland and travel abroad. Without telling his parents, young Robinson sets off on a voyage of discovery. During the years that follow he...
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Great expectations
Dickens, Charles
CD
Informed as a youth that an unknown benefactor expects to make him his heir, the orphan Pip forsakes his humble friends to realize his "great expectations" as a gentleman in London. But he finds true gentleman stature is a matter of character, not fortune.
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Crime and punishment
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Paper Book
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The sound and the fury : the corrected text
Faulkner, William
Paper Book
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER * One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century is the story of a family of Southern aristocrats on the brink of personal and financial ruin. * The definitive corrected text, including Faulkner's Appendix One of The Atlantic...
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The beautiful and damned
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Paper Book
F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, which brilliantly satirizes a doomed and glamorous marriage, anticipated the master stroke-The Great Gatsby-that would follow, and marks a key moment in the writer's career.Would-be Jazz Age aristocrats Anthony and Gloria Patch embody the corrupt high...
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To kill a mockingbird : a graphic novel
Fordham, Fred
Paper Book
"This gorgeously rendered graphic-novel version provides a new perspective for old fans but also acts as an immersive introduction for youngsters as well as any adult who somehow missed out on the iconic story set in Maycomb, Alabama."--USA Today A beautifully...
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Love in the time of cholera
Garca̕ Mr̀quez, Gabriel
Paper Book
Set in a country on the Caribbean coast of South America, this is a story about a woman and two men and their entwined lives. From the author of the legendary One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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Far from the madding crowd
Hardy, Thomas
Paper Book
'I shall do one thing in this life - one thing for certain - that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die.'Gabriel Oak is only one of three suitors for the hand of the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene. He must compete with the dashing young soldier Sergeant Troy and...
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The scarlet letter : a romance
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Paper Book
Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter Pearl is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl's father. Hester's refusal to name him...
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Catch-22
Heller, Joseph
Paper Book
Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary. At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save...
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The sun also rises
Hemingway, Ernest
Paper Book
The only authorized edition of Ernest Hemingway's first novel. "The ideal companion for troubled times: equal parts Continental escape and serious grappling with the question of what it means to be, and feel, lost." --The Wall Street Journal ...
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Ayesha at last : a novel
Jalaluddin, Uzma.
Paper Book
Pride and Prejudice with a modern twist AYESHA SHAMSI has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is...
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Demon Copperhead : a novel
Kingsolver, Barbara
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION New York Times Readers' Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century * An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post...
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Northanger Abbey
McDermid, Val.
Paper Book
Northanger Abbey as envisaged by Val McDermid is a mouth-watering prospect. The queen of modern crime fiction and no. 1 bestselling author will give us a very modern twist on Jane Austen's wonderfully funny and romantic novel. Austen satirized the gothic novel, which was all the rage in her day,...
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Moby-Dick, or, The whale
Melville, Herman
Paper Book
Introduction by Elizabeth Hardwick Illustrations by Rockwell Kent Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS'sThe Great American Read First published in 1851, Herman Melville's masterpiece is, in Elizabeth Hardwick's words, "the...
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Circe : a novel
Miller, Madeline
Paper Book
This #1 New York Times bestseller is a "bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story" that brilliantly reimagines the life of Circe, formidable sorceress of The Odyssey (Alexandra Alter, TheNew York Times). In the house of Helios,...
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Lolita
Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich
Paper Book
The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. "The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in]...
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Slaughterhouse-five : or the children's crusade : a duty-dance with death
North, Ryan
Paper Book
An American classic and one of the world's seminal antiwar books, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five is faithfully presented in graphic novel form for the first time from Eisner Award-winning writer Ryan North (How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler) and Eisner...
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The things they carried : a work of fiction
O'Brien, Tim
Paper Book
"O'Brien has written a vital, important book--a book that matters not only to the reader interested in Vietnam, but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing...
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The bell jar
Plath, Sylvia
Paper Book
One of a series of titles first published by Faber between 1930 and 1990, and in a style and format planned with a view to the appearance of the volumes on the bookshelf. Sylvia Plath's only novel is an account of a young woman's breakdown - her attempted suicide, hospitalization and recovery.
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All quiet on the Western front
Remarque, Erich Maria
Paper Book
The masterpiece of the German experience during World War I, considered by many the greatest war novel of all time--with an Oscar-winning film adaptation now streaming on Netflix. "[Erich Maria Remarque] is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank."--...
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Home fire
Shamsie, Kamila
Paper Book
"Ingenious... Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I've read in a novel this century." --The New York Times WINNER OF THE 2018 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION FINALIST FOR THE 2019 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD LONGLISTED FOR...
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Frankenstein or The modern Prometheus
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by award-winning director Guillermo del Toro. The epic battle between man and monster reaches its greatest pitch in the famous story of Frankenstein. In trying to create life, the young student...
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Of mice and men
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the...
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Dracula
Stoker, Bram
Paper Book
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Uncle Tom's Cabin
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paper Book
Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva- their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its...
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20,000 leagues under the sea
Verne, Jules
Paper Book
Hold on tight as Captain Nemo takes you on a perilous journey deep beneath the ocean waves, into the incredible underwater world where lives the crew of the mighty submarine the Nautilus. When Nemo captures Professor Arronax; his servant, Conseil; and the harpoonist Ned Land, the prisoners join...
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Ethan Frome
Wharton, Edith
Paper Book
`It was not so much his great height that marked him ... it was the careless powerful look that he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain.' Set against the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome tells the story of a poor farmer, lonely and downtrodden,...
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The story of Edgar Sawtelle
Wroblewski, David .
Paper Book
A riveting family saga, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle explores the deep and ancient alliance between humans and dogs, and the power of fate through one boy's epic journey into the wild. Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote...
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