Ocean State Libraries

In this hard-hitting novel, first published in 1924, the murky personal relationship between an Englishwoman and an Indian doctor mirrors the troubled politics of colonialism. Adela Quested and her fellow British travelers, eager to experience the "real" India, develop a friendship with the urbane Dr. Aziz. While on a group outing, Adela and Dr. Aziz visit the Marabar caves together. As they emerge, Adela accuses the doctor of assaulting her. While...

"Sir Percy Blakeney lives a double life in the England of 1792: at home he is an idle fop and a leader of fashion, but abroad he is the Scarlet Pimpernel, a master of disguise who saves aristocrats from the guillotine. When the revolutionary French state seeks to unmask him, Percy's estranged, independent wife, Marguerite, unwittingly sets their agent on her husband's track. Percy's escapades, and Marguerite's daring journey to France to save him...

One of America’s greatest women writers, Willa Cather established her talent and her reputation with this extraordinary novel—the first of her books set on the Nebraska frontier. A tale of the prairie land encountered by America’s Swedish, Czech, Bohemian, and French immigrants, as well as a story of how the land challenged them, changed them, and, in some cases, defeated them, Cather’s novel is a uniquely American epic.
Alexandra...

"Heidi is a work of children's fiction published in 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, originally published in two parts as Heidi's years of learning and travel and Heidi makes use of what she has learned. It is a novel about the events in the life of a young girl in her grandfather's care, in the Swiss Alps. It was written as a book "for children and those who love children". Heidi is one of the best-selling books ever written and is among the best-known...

"To escape from his violent and drunken father, a 13-year-old boy from the wrong side of the tracks, Huckleberry Finn, fakes his own death and floats away on a raft down the Mississippi with Jim, a runaway slave.In a series of unforgettable adventures narrated by Huck, they encounter a cross-section of characters from slave-hunters, and con men to feuding aristocrats.This was the first major American novel to be written in the vernacular, a dark and...

After injuring his hand, a silversmith's apprentice in Boston becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty in the days before the American Revolution.

During one of his several adventurous voyages in the 1600s, an Englishman becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives on a deserted island for more than twenty-eight years.

Fowler, a seasoned foreign correspondent, intervenes as the young Pyle begins to channel economic aid to a 'Third Force, ' "but Fowler's motives for intervening are suspect, both to the police and to himself: for Pyle has robbed him of his Vietnamese mistress."--Penguin pbk. cover.

The House Behind the Cedars (1900) is African-American writer Charles Chesnutt's debut novel. Inspired by his own experience as a Black man capable of passing for white-which Chesnutt consciously chose not to do-as well as by Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, The House Behind the Cedars explores themes of identity, race, and class in the post-Civil War South. Controversial for its portrayal of interracial romance, Chesnutt's novel was critically acclaimed...

Recounts the classic tales of Robin Hood, his merry men, and Maid Marian as they try to outwit the Sheriff of Nottingham and the tyrannical Prince John.