The Adventures of Roderick Random
Tobias Smollett and Paul-Gabriel Boucé (ed.)
Roderick Random (1748), Smollett's first novel, is full of the dazzling vitality characteristics of all his work, as well as of his own life. Roderick is the boisterous and unprincipled ...
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Camilla: Picture of Youth
Fanny Burney, Edward A. Bloom (ed.), and Lillian D. Bloom (ed.)
First published in 1796, Camilla deals with the matrimonial concerns of a group of young people-Camilla Tyrold and her sisters, the daughters of a country parson, and their cousin Indiana ...
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The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story (3 ed.)
Horace Walpole and Nick Groom (ed.)
‘Look, my lord! See heaven itself declares against your impious intentions’ The Castle of Otranto (1764) is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most influential works of ...
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Cecilia: or Memoirs of an Heiress
Fanny Burney, Peter Sabor (ed.), Margaret Anne Doody (ed.), and Margaret Anne Doody
abstract
Cecilia is an heiress, but she can only keep her fortune if her husband will consent to take her surname. Fanny Burney’s unusual love story and deft ...
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Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Patrick Coleman (ed.)
In his Discourses (1755), Rousseau argues that inequalities of rank, wealth, and power are the inevitable result of the civilizing process. If inequality is intolerable - and Rousseau shows ...
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An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
David Hume and Peter Millican (ed.)
Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.' Thus ends David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, the definitive statement of the greatest ...
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An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
William Godwin and Mark Philp (ed.)
‘To a rational being there can be but one rule of conduct, justice, and one mode of ascertaining that rule, the exercise of his understanding.’ Godwin’s Political Justice is the founding ...
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The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
Tobias Smollett, Lewis M. Knapp (ed.), and Paul-Gabriel Boucé (ed.)
William Thackeray called it “the most laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing began.” As a group of travellers visit places in England and Scotland, ...
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French Decadent Tales
Stephen Romer (ed.)
‘He had become the dandy of the unpredictable.’ A quest for new sensations, and an avowed desire to shock possessed the Decadent writers of fin-de-siècle Paris. The years 1880–1900 saw an ...
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Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift, Claude Rawson (ed.), and Ian Higgins (ed.)
‘Thus, gentle Reader, I have given thee a faithful History of my Travels for Sixteen Years, and above Seven Months; wherein I have not been so studious of Ornament as of Truth.’ In these ...
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The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
Samuel Johnson and Thomas Keymer (ed.)
Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and persue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the ...
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Joseph Andrews and Shamela
Henry Fielding and Thomas Keymer (ed.)
‘I beg as soon as you get Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, I fear in Ridicule of your Pamela and of Virtue in the Notion of Don Quixote’s Manner, you would send it to me by the very first Coach.’ ...
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A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Jack Lynch (ed.), and Celia Barnes (ed.)
I had desired to visit the Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland, so long, that I scarcely remember how the wish was originally excited;* and was in the Autumn of the year 1773 induced ...
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Life of Johnson
James Boswell and R. W. Chapman (ed.)
To write the Life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the lives of others, and who, whether we consider his extraordinary endowments, or his various works, has been equalled by few ...
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Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
John Cleland and Peter Sabor (ed.)
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (commonly known as Fanny Hill), the most famous erotic novel in English, was denounced by its author as 'a Book I disdain to defend, and wish, from my soul, ...
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Moll Flanders
Daniel Defoe, G. A. Starr (ed.), and Linda Bree (ed.)
‘Twelve Year a Whore, fives times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a ...
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The Mysteries of Udolpho
Ann Radcliffe, Bonamy Dobrée (ed.), and Terry Castle
‘Her present life appeared like the dream of a distempered imagination, or like one of those frightful fictions, in which the wild genius of the poets sometimes delighted. Rreflections ...
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Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded
Samuel Richardson, Thomas Keymer (ed.), and Alice Wakely (ed.)
‘Pamela under the Notion of being a Virtuous Modest Girl will be introduced into all Families, and when she gets there, what Scenes does she represent? Why a fine young Gentleman ...
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A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary
Voltaire, John Fletcher (ed.), and Nicholas Cronk (ed.)
‘What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?’ Voltaire's Pocket ...
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