Practice Reading!
Practica Leyendo
The Lady of the Camellias is Alexandre Dumas Fils‘s most famous work and it has been adapted for the stage in various forms. As the illegitimate child of Alexandre Dumas Sr. and Catherine Labay, a dressmaker, Dumas Fils grew up away from his mother and went through bullying in school. He translated the suffering from these experiences and the observations on people he had encountered along the way into his novels. In Camellias, Dumas was inspired by Marie Duplessis (a young courtesan with whom he had fallen in love and who died at age 23) to create the main character Marguerite Gautier. The novel was first published in 1848 and was later adapted into a successful play, Camille(1852). Soon thereafter, Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi used Dumas’s material as a basis for the libretto of La Traviata (1853), where Marguerite Gautier was renamed Violetta Valery. The story has also been adapted for the cinema a number of times, most notably in a 1937 movie with Greta Garbo.
Enjoy the story of Tom Sawyer as a mischevious young boy carries on under the watchful eye of his Aunt Polly. Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer is one part trickster, one escape artist and one part very lucky fellow! The Adventures of Tom Sawyer takes the reader along on a series of entertaining adventures and pranks while Tom's youthful romance with his sweetheart Becky Thatcher blooms in the background. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is one of Mark Twain's most beloved works.
The Notebook is a contemporary love story set in the pre- and post-World War II era. Noah and Allie spend a wonderful summer together, but her family and the socio-economic realities of the time prevent them from being together. Although Noah attempts to keep in contact with Allie after they are forced to separate, his letters go unanswered. Eventually, Noah professes his undying and eternal love in one final letter. Noah travels north to find gainful employment and to escape the ghost of Allie, and eventually he goes off to war. After serving his country, he returns home to restore an old farmhouse. A newspaper article about his endeavor catches Allie's eye, and 14 years after she last saw Noah, Allie returns to him. The only problem is she is engaged to another man. After spending two wonderful reunion days together, Allie must decide between the two men that she loves.
This story is framed by a contemporary man who is reading to a woman who suffers from Alzheimer's. The woman is understood to be Allie . . . but which of her two loves is the man reading to her?
Dracula was Bram Stoker's fifth and by far his most famous novel. It was first published in the UK in May 1897 by Archibald Constable and Company, Westminster. The book itself is a 390 page hardcover with a yellow cloth cover stamped on the spine and front panel in red. About two months later Dracula was published by Hutchinson & Co., London, as a part of their Hutchinson's Colonial Library series for circulation in India and the British Colonies. This edition is a 390 page hardcover with a red cloth cover stamped on the spine and front panel in gold. Dracula was first published in the US in 1899 by Doubleday & McClure Co., New York. This edition is a 378 page hardcover with a beige cloth cover stamped on the spine and front panel in black, tan and gold.