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Oxford University Press
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In the mountains of Transylvania there stands a castle. It is the home of Count Dracula — a dark, lonely place, and at night the wolves howl around the walls. In the year 1875 Jonathan Harker comes from England to do business with the Count. But Jonathan does not feel comfortable at Castle Dracula. Strange things happen at night, and very soon, he begins to feel afraid. And he is right to be afraid, because Count Dracula is one of the Un-Dead — a vampire that drinks the blood of living people... |
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Who wants to live in a house, wear clean clothes, be good, and go to school every day? Not young Huckleberry Finn, that's for sure. So Huck runs away, and is soon floating down the great Mississippi River on a raft. With him is Jim, a black slave who is also running away. But life is not always easy for the two friends. And there's 300 dollars waiting for anyone who catches poor Jim... |
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In the jungle of Southern India the Seeonee Wolf-Pack has a new cub. He is not a wolf — he is Mowgli, a human child, but he knows nothing of the world of men. He lives and hunts with his brothers the wolves. Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther are his friends and teachers. And Shere Khan, the man-eating tiger, is his enemy. Kipling's famous story of Mowgli's adventures in the jungle has been loved by young and old for more than a hundred years. |
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One day, a farmer tells a farm boy to take everything out of an old building and throw it away. 'It's all rubbish', he says. In the middle of all the rubbish, the boy finds a beautiful old piano. He has never played before, but now, when his fingers touch the piano, he begins to play. He closes his eyes and the music comes to him — and the music moves his fingers. When he opens his eyes again, he knows that his life is changed for ever... |
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Greg is a teenager with a problem — his father. After the death of Greg's mother in an accident, his father takes no interest in life at all. Greg tries hard to help him. His father is too old to rock and roll, of course... or is he? These short stories by Jan Mark look at life, love, and friendship through teenagers' eyes. |
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Mr James Conway wants to make money. He wants to build new houses and shops — and he wants to build them on an old graveyard, on the island of Haiti. There is only one old man who still visits the graveyard; and Mr Conway is not afraid of one old man. But the old man has friends — friends in the graveyard, friends who lie dead, under the ground. And when Mr Conway starts to build his houses, he makes the terrible mistake of disturbing the sleep of the dead... |
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William Shakespeare. Born April 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Died April 1616. Married Anne Hathaway: two daughters, one son. Actor, poet, famous playwright. Wrote nearly forty plays. But what was he like as a man? What did he think about when he rode into London for the first time... or when he was writing his plays Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet... or when his only son died? We know the facts of his life, but we can only guess at his hopes, his fears, his dreams. |
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Everybody has bad dreams. Horrible things move towards you in the dark, things you can hear but not see. Then you wake up, in your own warm bed, and turn over to go back to sleep. But imagine that you wake up on a hard floor, in a darkness blacker than the blackest night. You listen to the silence, and smell a wet dead smell. Death is all around you, waiting... In these stories by Edgar Allan Poe, death whispers at you from every dark corner, and fear can send you mad... |
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Every town should have a 'card' — someone who gets talked about, someone who does mad and wonderful things, someone who makes you laugh. Bursley in the Five Towns has a 'card': Edward Henry Machin (Denry for short). Denry begins life in a poor little house where the rent is twenty-three pence a week. But before he's thirty, he's made a lot of money, and had more adventures than you and I have had hot dinners. The town of Bursley never stops talking about him. Whatever will young Denry do next? |
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Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new 'man'. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him — even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill... |
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Terrorists blow up the Queen's coach outside Parliament. The Queen escapes, but five people are killed, and forty others badly hurt — ordinary, innocent people, like Alan Cole, the Queen's coachman, who loses his leg in the bombing. And for Alan and his daughter Jane there is more terror to come, in the search for the truth behind the bombing. Will the terrorists be caught and brought to justice? But what kind of justice? What can give Alan Cole his leg back, or give life back to people who have been blown to pieces by a bomb? |
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«'I ran to the side of the ship. «Help, help! Murder!» I screamed, and my uncle slowly turned to look at me. I did not see any more. Already strong hands were pulling me away. Then something hit my head; I saw a great flash of fire, and fell to the ground...' And so begin David Balfour's adventures. He is kidnapped, taken to sea, and meets many dangers. He also meets a friend, Alan Breck. But Alan is in danger himself, on the run from the English army across the wild Highlands of Scotland...» |
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'Moondial!' As Minty spoke the word, a cold wind went past her, and her ears were filled with a thousand frightened voices. She shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears — and the voices and the wind went away. Minty opened her eyes ...and knew that she was in a different morning, not the one she had woken up to. And so Minty's strange adventure begins — a journey through time into the past, where she finds Tom, and Sarah... and the evil Miss Vole. |
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Little Mary Lennox is a bad-tempered, disagreeable child. When her parents die in India, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle in a big, lonely, old house. There is nothing to do all day except walk in the gardens — and watch the robin flying over the high walls of the secret garden... been locked for ten years. And no one has the key. |
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'I wish I could get through into looking-glass house', Alice said. 'Let's pretend that the glass has gone soft and... Why, I do believe it has! It's turning into a kind of cloud!' A moment later Alice is inside the looking-glass world. There she finds herself part of a great game of chess, travelling through forests and jumping across brooks. The chess pieces talk and argue with her, give orders and repeat poems... It is the strangest dream that anyone ever had... |
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Down by the river bank, where the wind whispers through the willow trees, is a very pleasant place to have a lunch party with a few friends. But life is not always so peaceful for the Mole and the Water Rat. There is the time, for example, when Toad gets interested in motor-cars — goes mad about them in fact... The story of the adventures of Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad has been loved by young and old for over a hundred years. |
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Hurricane Mabel is far out in the Atlantic Ocean and moving slowly northwards. Perhaps it will never come near land at all. But if it hits the island of San Fernandez, many thousands of people will die. There could be winds of more than 250 kilometres an hour. There could be a huge tidal wave from the sea, which will drown the capital city of St Pierre. Mabel will destroy houses, farms, roads, bridges... Only one man, David Wyatt, believes that Mabel will hit San Fernandez, but nobody will listen to him ... |
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Life in the small English town of Cranford seems very quiet and peaceful. The ladies of Cranford lead tidy, regular lives. They make their visits between the hours of twelve and three, give little evening parties, and worry about their maid-servants. But life is not always smooth — there are little arguments and jealousies, sudden deaths and unexpected marriages... Mrs Gaskell's timeless picture of small-town life in the first half of the nineteenth century has delighted readers for nearly 150 years. |
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It was a very inconvenient time for murder. Florence was full of Christmas shoppers and half the police force was already on holiday. At first it seemed quite an ordinary murder. Of course, there are always a few mysteries. In this case, the dead man had been in the habit of moving his furniture at three o'clock in the morning. Naturally, the police wanted to know why. The case became more complicated. But all the time, the answer was right under their noses. They just couldn't see it. It was, after all, a very ordinary murder. |
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Three different parts of the world, but all of them dangerous, lonely places. Three different women, but all of them determined to go — and to come back alive! Robyn Davidson walked nearly 3,000 kilometres across the Australian desert — with a dog and four camels. Arlene Blum led a team of ten women to the top of Annapurna — one of the highest mountains in the world. Only eight came down again. Naomi James sailed around the world alone, on a journey lasting more than 250 days. |
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