Reading and re-reading the English classics is unfailingly a joyous experience, as a ten-year-old I always stuck my head behind these books, as they took me from one era to another, from surviving shipwrecks to winning battles. Allow me to introduce you to some of the greatest literary creations of all time which will touch your heart and soul.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS - Charles Dickens
Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens written in 1860 .
This novel depicts the personal growth and development of an orphan nicknamed Pip.
The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens's most memorable scenes.
Great expectations has a simple plot that excels in beauty, blended with rich entertainment, sprinkled with a very realistic backdrop of crime and sleaze.
Orphaned Pip is brought up by his ill-tempered sister. Her husband Joe somehow makes his life a little bearable. By accidental fortune Pip meets rich and gorgeous Estella and falls in futile love with her. Sharp realization about the evil influences of money and worldly incompatibilities influences pip's life when Magwitch the convict who taught him to steal makes a re-appearance.
Eventually after he knows the fateful drift of the woman he so dearly loved, pushes pip to go with the tide of destiny,in contrast to the life he dreamt of.
This book is a treasure to the readers, and one of the most read classics of all time.
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2. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960.
The plot and characters are based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was 10 years.
The novel is loved for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality.
The story is narrated by a six-year-old Jean Louise Finch, which takes place during three years (1933–35) of the Great Depression in the fictional "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama.
Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout, lives with her older brother Jeremy, nicknamed Jem, and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt each summer. The three children are terrified, yet fascinated by their neighbor, the reclusive Arthur "Boo" Radley. The children feed one another's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. After two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, he never appears in person.
Judge Taylor appoints Atticus to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. One night, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This situation changes in an unexpected manner. Scout, Jem, and Dill show up, and Scout inadvertently breaks the mob mentality by recognizing and talking to a classmate's father, and the would-be lynchers disperse.
In the trial, Atticus establishes that the accusers—Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, the drunkard are lying. It also becomes clear that the friendless Mayella made sexual advances toward Tom, and that her father caught her and beat her. Everyone knows that the Ewells are not to be trusted, but the jury convicts Tom anyway. Jem's faith in justice is badly shaken. Atticus is hopeful that he can get the verdict overturned, but Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.
Ewells seeks revenge, he attacks Jem and Scout while they are walking home on a dark night after the school Halloween pageant. Jem suffers a broken arm in the struggle, mysterious man comes to rescue and carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley.
Sheriff Tate arrives and discovers Ewell dead from a knife wound. Atticus believes that Jem was responsible, but Tate is certain it was Boo. After she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears again, never to be seen again by Scout. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective.
One of the most loved and thought provoking classics of all time.
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3. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott wrote an enchanting family story which was published in two volumes in the years 1868 and 1869.
The March family consisting of Mrs.March and her daughters - Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy anxiously await the return of their beloved father for Christmas.
Meg is sensible and pretty, Jo is a tomboy filled with joy and naughtiness, Beth is a lover of music and Amy is artistic.
This beautiful tale describes their countless attempts to contribute to their family income and their rookie attempts to find true love.
This tale is a journey of hardships, heartbreaks, sickness, and death endured by a simple but loving family.
This book attracts both the young and old into the wonderful realms of Springtime.
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4. The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
The diary of a young girl was published (14 June 1942 – 1 August 1944 ) by Contact Publishing in Amsterdam in 1947.
At the young age of 13, Anne Frank, her parents, and her elder sister Margot went into hiding in an Amsterdam warehouse, to escape the forceful deportation by the Nazis.
For the next two years, the Franks along with another family go into hiding. The inmates were betrayed in August 1944, arrested, and cruelly torn apart by the circumstances that followed.
On her 13th birthday, Anne is gifted a diary, that becomes her best friend in which she vents all her feelings while in hiding.
Otto Frank, Anne's Father the lone survivor of the wars and the Holocaust, publishes her diary to fulfill his daughter's wish.
The diary records all the thoughts and feelings of a growing girl under unfortunate experiences.
The last entry is made on the 1st of August 1944, a few months away from Anne turning sixteen.
A heartbreaking story that will keep you reaching for the tissues.
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5. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 romantic novel by Jane Austen. It charts the emotional development of the protagonist Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential.
Pride and Prejudice has long fascinated readers, consistently topping lists of "most-loved books".
Five daughters of a country gentleman who married for beauty and lived to regret it, are enticed by their foolish mother's announcement of two eligible bachelors in the neighborhood who moved from London.
The meetings between the five daughters and these two, as well as other eligible bachelors, at balls, result in hoped-for love for one sister, disdain and infatuation and irritation from three separate bachelors for another sister, a dangerous elopement for a third sister, and nothing much more than scoldings for the other two sisters.
Jane hopes for marriage with Mr. Bingley but her evenly bestowed smiles lead Darcy to convince Bingley that his love is not returned, while Darcy finds greater and greater attraction in Elizabeth whom he thought too unexceptional to dance with at the Meryton ball. Darcy's old enemy, Wickham, accidentally arrives on the scene and turns Elizabeth's head--and heart--with gossip about Darcy that steels Elizabeth's negative opinion against Darcy. When a visit to Rosings Park to visit Charlotte--Elizabeth's best friend who shocked her by marrying the cousin whom Elizabeth had strongly rejected--exposes Elizabeth to a proposal of marriage from Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth begins a journey of self-discovery.
In all, the tale is about how Jane and Elizabeth find true love and marry for love and not for any financial gain, in contradiction to the mindset and attitude of Mrs.Bennet and her husband against the typical country upbringing.
This book will keep you humored by the characters and also give you a strong message.
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Happy reading Folks!