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Set in the industrialising England of the Napoleonic wars, a period of bad harvests, Luddite riots, and economic unrest, Shirley is the story of two contrasting heroines and the men they love. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory, whose life represents the plight of single women in the 19th century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

Six years after four family members died of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and 18-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune.

Set in a chaotic time in England, during the height of the Napoleonic Wars, Caroline Helstone's world is turned upside down when she meets the vivacious Shirley Keeldar. Shirley becomes a beacon of light for Caroline as the two become close friends. However, Caroline is soon shocked to discover that Shirley has won the affections of Robert Moore, the impoverished mill owner whom she loves. Fully representative of Yorkshire life at the time, Brontë's second novel is completely gripping, unrelenting and utterly wrenching in its portrayal.

"The Lottery," one of the most terrifying stories of the twentieth century, created a sensation when it was first published in the New Yorker. "Powerful and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery" with 24 equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate her remarkable range - from the hilarious to the truly horrible - and power as a storyteller.

Stories of magic, superstition, and witchcraft were strictly forbidden in the little town of Salem Village. But a group of young girls ignored those rules, spellbound by the tales told by a woman named Tituba. When questioned about their activities, the terrified girls set off a whirlwind of controversy as they accused townsperson after townsperson of being witches.

The novel Shirley by Charlotte Brontë (1849) followed the huge popular success of her debut, Jane Eyre. The setting is an environment which is industrializing at a rapid pace during the Napoleonic Wars. This is the story of two heroines occupying vastly different social positions in life. Caroline Helstone, trapped in a Yorkshire rectory, serves as a symbol of all the single women of the time. On the other hand, there’s Shirley Keeldar, an independent woman whose wealth has liberated her.

Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House.

Good people in good marriages are having affairs. The workplace and the Internet have become fertile breeding grounds for “friendships” that can slowly and insidiously turn into love affairs. Yet you can protect your relationship from emotional or sexual betrayal by recognizing the red flags that mark the stages of slipping into an improper, dangerous intimacy that can threaten your marriage.

Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.

Known to millions mainly as the author of the "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson has been curiously absent from the mainstream American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense and psychological horror, Jackson plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America more deeply than anyone. Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Two imposing literary figures are at the center of this captivating novel: Shirley Jackson, best known for her short story "The Lottery," and her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, a literary critic and professor at Bennington College. When a young graduate student and his pregnant wife, Fred and Rose Nemser, move into Shirley and Stanley's home in the fall of 1964, they are quickly cast under the magnetic spell of their brilliant hosts.

Alone at Christmas, Greg Bennett feels his life has been a waste. Sixty years old and he has no one to spend Christmas with, no one who cares.

Nestled quietly on the Pacific Coast below San Francisco, Molena Point is a quaint hamlet - not the kind of place an escaped convict would choose for a hideout. But it just happens to be the home of a state's witness who put a thief named Cage Jones behind bars - until he broke out, that is. With danger closing in, the feline detective Joe Grey, his girlfriend Dulcie, and their tattercoat friend Kit must put paws and whiskers together to capture a very nasty criminal before he strikes again.

First the large, powerful feline discovers that, through some strange, inexplicable phenomenon, he now has the ability to understand human language. Then he discovers he can speak it as well! It’s a nightmare for a cat who’d prefer to sleep the day away carefree, but Joe can handle it. That is, until he has the misfortune to witness a murder in the alley behind Jolly’s Deli - and worse, to be seen witnessing it. With all of his nine lives suddenly at risk, Joe’s got no choice but to get to the bottom of the heinous crime.

Caro, gallant and adventurous, has been courted long and hopelessly by young scientist, Ted Tice. The milder Grace seeks fulfilment in an apparently happy marriage. But as the decades pass and the characters weave in and out of each other's lives, love, death, and two secrets wait in ambush for them.

This mesmerizing, poetic novel won the 2003 National Book Award for fiction and has earned universal acclaim. Set against the beautiful but tragic landscape of post-World War II Asia, The Great Fire tells a sweeping tale of the search for new beginnings in a world ravaged by tragedy.

The unapologetic intensity with which Emily Brontë wrote this story ensures that it will forever be considered one of the greatest works of English literature. A passionate tale of a chaotic and often violent love, Wuthering Heights transcends your average romance and, with its Gothic undertones, takes the listener on a journey through one man's lustful hunt for revenge.

Struggling manufacturer Robert Moore has introduced labour saving machinery to his Yorkshire mill, arousing a ferment of unemployment and discontent among his workers. Robert considers marriage to the wealthy and independent Shirley Keeldar to solve his financial woes, yet his heart lies with his cousin Caroline, who, bored and desperate, lives as a dependent in her uncle’s home with no prospect of a career. Shirley, meanwhile, is in love with Robert’s brother, an impoverished tutor - a match opposed by her family.

It has been nearly five decades since Shirley MacLaine commenced her brave and public commitment to chronicling her personal quest for spiritual understanding. Now Shirley is back - with her most breathtakingly powerful and unique book yet.

Shirley è un “romanzo sociale” del 1849 pubblicato dopo il primo fortunato romanzo della stessa autrice, Jane Eyre (che peraltro era stato pubblicato, come questo, sotto lo pseudonimo di Currer Bell). Il romanzo è ambientato nello Yorkshire negli anni 1811-1812 e tratta della depressine industriale dovuta alla guerra Napoleonica, con la conseguente reazione operaia sfociante nel luddismo.