Ocean State Libraries

Abjuring the city for a pastoral life, a group of utopians set out to reform a dissipated America. But the group is a powerful mix of competing ambitions and its idealism finds little satisfaction in farmwork. Instead, of changing the world, the members of the Blithedale community individually pursue egotistical paths that ultimately lead to tragedy. Hawthorne's tale both mourns and satirizes a rural idyll not unlike that of nineteenth-century America...

A self-made American goes to Europe to enjoy his fortune and becomes engaged to a French widow from a noble family. Depicts the contrast between American and European culture.

The horrifying conditions of the Chicago stockyards are revealed through this narrative of a young immigrant's struggles in America.

Provides a detailed picture of what life in the slums of New York was like, how the slums were created, how and why they remained as they were, who was forced to live there, and offers suggestions for easing the lot of the poor.

The Rise of Silas Lapham is a realist novel by William Dean Howells published in 1885. The story follows the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, and his ensuing moral susceptibility. Silas earns a fortune in the paint business, but he lacks social standards, which he tries to attain through his daughter's marriage into the aristocratic Corey family. Silas' morality does not fail him. He loses his money but makes the right moral...

A couple's life and love are destroyed when they win the lottery in this tragic tale of turn-of-the-century San Francisco. McTeague and Trina are in love, and with the modest income from McTeague's dentistry office, their needs are few. But when Trina wins a small fortune from a lottery ticket, jealousy and distrust begin to unravel their happy home. As tension erupts between McTeague and Trina's cousin Marcus, Trina's impulse to save her winnings...

In early colonial Massachusetts, a young woman endures the consequences of her sin of adultery and spends the rest of her life in atonement.

Presents fifteen essays and addresses by nineteenth-century American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, including such important works as "Self-Reliance," "The Over-Soul," and "Nature."

Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother, refuses to be caged by married and domestic life and claims for herself moral and erotic freedom. Through careful, subtle changes of style, Kate Chopin shows Edna's transformation--and its tragic consequences. This volume also includes some of Chopin's finest stories, among them "At the 'Cadian Ball" and "Desiree's Baby."