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The hero, Etienne Gerard, is a Hussar in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Gerard's most notable attribute is his vanity - he is utterly convinced that he is the bravest soldier, greatest swordsman, accomplished horseman and gallant lover in all France. Gerard is not entirely wrong since he displays notable bravery on many occasions, but his self-satisfaction undercuts this quite often. Obsessed with honour and glory, he is always ready with a stirring speech or a gallant remark to a lady....

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Quote: Ostensibly a love story, the novel really revolves around a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War in 1890's Wyoming ... The novel takes the side of the large ranchers, and depicts the lynchings as frontier justice, meted out by the protagonist, who is a member of a natural aristocracy among men. (from Wikipedia)...

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Louisa May Alcott's beloved 1868 novel is about the four March girls - Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy - who are growing up in Massachusetts during the Civil War. As the novel opens, their father is away at war, and the girls are struggling to be good and to reconcile themselves to their relative poverty. Each has her trials to deal with, and they are encouraged by their loving mother, and by their friendship with their neighbor, Theodore Laurie Laurence....

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Fiction

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This novel, first published in 1890, follows the life of Dick Heldar, a painter. Most of the novel is set in London, but many important events throughout the story occur in Sudan or India. It was made into a 1916 film with Jose Collins and a 1939 film by Paramount starring Ronald Colman. It is a tale of of a man who loves his work, friends and boats and starts in Dick’s childhood, then takes you through his life – the war in Sudan, friends abroad, life in England, his love for Maisie, the obstacles those closest to him meet when a very independent man fights becoming dependant and finally the life changes Dick faces as his eyes fail him.(summary by Magdalene)...

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Fiction

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In the afterlife grizzled sea captain Eli Stormfield finds himself piloting a ship to heaven. Despite a detour and some navigation errors he arrives but finds the transition to heavenly bliss a little disconcerting. – Although first drafted in the late 1870’s this story did not see print until the December 1907 and January 1908 issues of “Harper’s Magazine”. The next year it was made available as a Christmas gift book and represents the last volume Mark Twain published in his lifetime. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Fiction

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A disabled veteran succeeds as a civilian with persistence and military focus. (Summary by Scott Dahlem)

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Fiction

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Es ist die Nacht vom 26. auf den 27. November des Jahres 1703. Eine muntere Gesellschaft feiert auf dem Eddystone die Fertigstellung des neuen Leuchtturms. Doch eine uralte Sage umrankt diesen Felsen vor der Küste von Cornwall und bestimmt das Schicksal der auf dem Leuchtturm versammelten Personen. (Zusammenfassung von Rainer)...

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Fiction, Horror/Ghost stories, Mystery, Myths/Legends, Romance, Sea stories

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This is the tale of a perilous voyage aboard a clipper ship told by the second mate. He looks up to Trunnell, the first mate, who somehow manages to hold things together between a murdering former captain, a captain who may not actually be a captain, and a crew inclined to mutiny. This all leads to a surprising and satisfying ending. The author, Hains, wrote frequently of the sea. He is the author who (under a pen name) had a story on the newsstands about a liner hitting an iceberg and sinking, while Titanic was doing precisely that!...

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Fiction, Sea stories

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For Treasure Bound is one of the earlier novels by Harry Collingwood (William Joseph Cosens Lancaster), published in 1897. We follow the hero, whose name is incidentally also Harry Collingwood, on a quest to the pacific islands for treasure and his marooned father, through all the perils he encounters on his journey, such as pirates, sea monsters, and beautiful young ladies. (Summary by Carolin)...

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Adventure, Fiction, Sea stories

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Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is a sequence of stories by Stephen Leacock, first published in 1912. It is generally considered to be one of the most enduring classics of Canadian humorous literature. The fictional setting for these stories is Mariposa, a small town on the shore of Lake Wissanotti. Although drawn from his experiences in Orillia, Ontario, Leacock writes in the introduction: Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of them. You may find them all the way from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square streets and the same maple trees and the same churches and hotels. This work has remained popular for its universal appeal. Many of the characters, though modelled on townspeople of Orillia, are small town archetypes. Their shortcomings and weaknesses are presented in a humorous but affectionate way. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Fiction, Humor

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The Frozen Deep is a story of a love triangle between Clara, Frank and Richard, spiced up with dangerous expeditions, mysterious visions and life-threatening circumstances. The end is as surprising and unexpected as we are (or are not) accustomed to in Collins' books. (Summary by Diana Majlinger)...

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Adventure, Fiction, Sea stories

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Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas is Herman Melville's sequel to Typee , and, as such, was also autobiographical. After leaving Nuku Hiva, the main character ships aboard a whaling vessel which makes its way to Tahiti, after which there is a mutiny and the majority of the crew are imprisoned on Tahiti. The book follows the actions of the narrator as he explores Tahiti and remarks on their customs and way of life. Many sources incorrectly assert that Omoo is based on Melville's stay in the Marquesas. The novel is, in fact, exclusively based on his experiences in the Society Islands....

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Fiction, Adventure, Sea stories

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Willie Spence may have been a bit eccentric by most standards, but he had a knack for creating gadgets in his small workshop at his home on Cape Cod. Whenever he was 'ketched' by an 'idee' he had to see it to completion, and always did. His small cottage on the Cape had become a labyrinth of string and wires tacked here and there so as to make life a bit challenging for his housekeeper Celestina. But she and most everyone else among the coastal towns and villages loved the old man for all his eccentricities as Willie spent his waning years just waiting for his ship to come in. (Summary by Roger Melin)...

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Fiction, Humor, Sea stories

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The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton is a bipartite adventure story whose first half covers a traversal of Africa, and whose second half taps into the contemporary fascination with piracy. It has been commended for its depiction of the homosexual relationship between the eponymous hero and his religious mentor, the Quaker, William Walters. ....

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Adventure, Fiction, Sea stories

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The Cruise of the Snark (1913) is a memoir of Jack and Charmian London's 1907-1909 voyage across the Pacific. His descriptions of surf-riding, which he dubbed a royal sport, helped introduce it to and popularize it with the mainland. London writes: Through the white crest of a breaker suddenly appears a dark figure, erect, a man-fish or a sea-god, on the very forward face of the crest where the top falls over and down, driving in toward shore, buried to his loins in smoking spray, caught up by the sea and flung landward, bodily, a quarter of a mile. It is a Kanaka on a surf-board. And I know that when I have finished these lines I shall be out in that riot of colour and pounding surf, trying to bit those breakers even as he, and failing as he never failed, but living life as the best of us may live it. Excerpted from Wikipedia....

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Memoirs

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8 great spoofs of 'types' of fiction by the premier Canadian humorist Leacock, taken from his book Nonsense Novels. The title of each parody gives away it's genre: Soaked in Seaweed or, Upset in the Ocean; Maddened by Mystery: or, The Defective Detective; Q. A Psychic Pstory of the Psupernatural; Guido the Gimlet of Ghent: A Romance of Chivalry; The Man in Asbestos: an Allegory of the Future; Sorrows of a Super Soul: or, The Memoirs of Marie Mushenough; A Hero in Homespun: or, The Life Struggle of Hezekiah Hayloft and Caroline's Christmas: or, The Inexplicable Infant. If you enjoy take offs and parodies, the stories in this collection are for you. See how many types you recognize as you listen and laugh. (Summary by phil chenevert)...

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Humor

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Dick Sands, a youth of fifteen, must assume command of a ship after the disappearance of its captain. Nature’s forces combined with evil doings of men lead him and his companions to many dangerous adventures on sea and in Central Africa....

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Adventure

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Der Chancellor ist eines von Jules Vernes ungewöhnlichsten Werken. Es erzählt vom Untergang eines Schiffes in Form eines Tagebuches, das der Passagier J.-R. Kazallon führt, wird die letzte Fahrt des Dreimasters Chancellor geschildert, der irgendwo im Atlantik zwischen Charleston (South Carolina) und Liverpool untergeht, nachdem an Bord Feuer ausgebrochen ist, weil die Ladung (Baumwolle) Feuer gefangen hat. Die Situation wird noch dadurch erschwert, dass ein Passagier, der Kaufmann John Ruby, eigenmächtig hochexplosiven Sprengstoff mit an Bord gebracht hat. Der Autor schildert die Umstände, die zur Katastrophe führen, die Versuche der Mannschaft, das Schiff noch zu retten und die Leiden der Überlebenden, die nach dem Untergang der Chancellor auf einem Floß über den Atlantik treiben. Die Überlebenden leiden Hunger, sie haben Halluzinationen. Einige Matrosen begehen Selbstmord, indem sie sich erhängen oder von Bord springen und sich den Haien, die das Floß umkreisen, zum Fraß vorwerfen. Allmählich blättert das Zivilisierte von den Schiffbrüchigen ab, Gier und Missgunst kommen zum Vorschein. Die Mannschaft lehnt sich gegen die Passagier...

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Adventure, Fiction, Literature, Sea stories, Travel

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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe’s only complete novel, published in 1838.The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away aboard a whaling ship called Grampus. Various adventures and mis-adventures befall Pym including shipwreck, mutiny and cannibalism. The story starts out as a fairly conventional adventure at sea, but it becomes increasingly strange and hard to classify in later chapters, involving religious symbolism and the Hollow Earth. Summary from Wikipedia...

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Adventure

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Persuasion is a regency Cinderella-esque tale of a young woman, the beautiful Anne Elliot, who is persuaded from marrying the Naval officer of her heart. It is now almost nine years since she rejected him. Bonaparte has abdicated and England's sailors return home covered in glory. Fredrick Wentworth is now a rich and highly eligible sea captain and the two are curiously thrown together. Will their forgotten affection blossom anew? Or has the captain found another? (Summary by rlowalrus)...

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Literature