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'The dead rise out of their graves!' These words, though one has heard them before, took possession of my imagination. I saw the rude fellow go along the street as I went on, tossing the coin in his hand. One time it fell to the ground and rang upon the pavement, and he laughed more loudly as he picked it up. He was walking towards the sunset, and I too, at a distance after. The sky was full of rose-tinted clouds floating across the blue, floating...
2) Hester
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Hester (1883) is a dramatic story of female power and family tensions within Victorian society. Using her own money, Catherine Vernon manages to save the family bank from collapse after her cousin John absconds with some of its money. As the matriarch of Redborough, Catherine is used to commanding authority, but this is challenged with the arrival of John's strong and capable teenage daughter, Hester. Ignorant of her father's conduct, Hester takes...
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Colonel and Mrs. Kingsward have been travelling in Germany with their three eldest children, for the health of Mrs. Kingsward. Just after the Colonel returns to London, their daughter Bee becomes engaged to Aubrey Leigh, a young man of independent means. But a vindictive "lady" writes to Colonel Kingsward, enclosing a note on which she has forged a date, claiming Aubrey is under a moral obligation to marry her. Thus Colonel Kingsward forbids Bee's...
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The three stories in the Little Pilgrim series all take place in the Afterlife. The series is based on the Christian religion, but has a universal appeal in its view of heaven and the lower worlds of the Afterlife. The first story was inspired by the death of Margaret Oliphant's close friend and neighbour Eleanor Clifford, known to Mrs. Oliphant's children as Aunt Nelly. In several stories the little Pilgrim (Nelly) sees or encounters people she knew...
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This early novel tells the story of Hester Southcote, a girl who has been raised by a bitter father to require "justice" of others, rather than sympathy or pity or even love. Her father is squire of Cottiswoode in Cambridgeshire; but their way of life is overturned when an unknown, but rightful, heir comes forward. Hester takes on her father's bitterness as they start a new life in Cambridge. Later she marries and believes she has found happiness;...
8) Madonna Mary
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Mary loves her husband Major Ochterlony, and their marriage is happy - except when the fidgety Major periodically becomes obsessed with some unwelcome idea which he insists on seeing through, no matter how foolish or hurtful to Mary. They are in India, far from home, when he has his worst idea yet - that they must remarry, as he fears that their earlier "Scotch marriage" could be difficult to prove. This action brings gossip and shame on Mary, and...
9) Ombra
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Kate Courtney, fifteen, is an heiress with a house in the country - and a rather inflated idea of what her position entails. But she has no one who cares anything about her. She believes she has found happiness when she goes to live with her aunt Mrs. Anderson and her cousin Ombra (whose name means Shadow) in a cottage on the Isle of Wight. But Ombra does not feel the same fondness - she had been the center of attention in her little world before...
10) The Two Marys
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15-year-old Mary Peveril and her widowed clergyman father seem to be everything to each other - until he rather suddenly decides to marry a young woman in her twenties. Mary is all at once pushed into the shade, and jealously watches the other Mary take her place in her father's heart. Even Mary's first experience in love is complicated by the nearness of the other Mary. As originally serialised in four parts, the first two parts deal with the relationship...
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The Reverend Mr. Buchanan holds an important position in the university town of St Rule's, but his means are small. As he and his wife struggle to do the required entertaining, and to make many necessary expenditures for his family, he turns to his rich old friend Mr. Anderson, who lends him three hundred pounds. When Mr. Anderson dies suddenly, Mr. Buchanan knows that he should notify the executor of the estate about this loan; but he postpones this...
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This early novel centres on the Atheling family, especially on the three young people Agnes, Marion, and Charlie. Each has a special gift: Agnes has genius as a writer, Marion has beauty, and Charlie will find his gift in the course of the story. The novel is told mostly from Agnes' point of view. She has written a novel and found a publisher; and on the heels of her book's modest success, she and Marion are invited into society, which leads to some...
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When the aged Curate in Charge of Brentburn parish church loses his position of 20 years, he is too overwhelmed to act for himself - it will be up to his two daughters to determine how to support the family of five (which includes two little boys from a second marriage). The eldest sister Cecily is the practical one, who must determine how to plan and work for the family's future, even if it means being reduced to a lower social status. Cecily feels...
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When Mrs. Blencarrow's husband died a few years ago, his will left the management of the estate and the trusteeship of the children in her hands, adding as well her brothers' names as trustees, though this was more for form's sake than anything else. And since then (her eldest son still not of age), she has managed everything well with only a young man, Mr. Brown the steward, to assist - a young man who belongs to a lower class and stays well in the...
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For reasons never explained to him, Edgar Arden was raised and educated on the Continent, away from his father and sister Clare. Now after the death of his father Edgar returns as squire of Arden Hall. The only shadows in his path are the enmity of the next heir, his cousin Arthur Arden, and vague rumours that Edgar is not the legitimate heir. But meanwhile he settles into his new role, and finds himself attracted to a neighbourhood family of lively...
16) Madam A Novel
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Old Mr Trevanion, the squire of Highcourt, is a combative man who enjoys tyrannizing over his wife Grace. Ill with heart disease, as his health deteriorates his behaviour does too; and even in front of others he makes vague threats of exposing some shameful secret from Grace's past. Grace has four children by Mr Trevanion, and an older stepdaughter Rosalind with whom she is very close.
Soon people become aware that Grace is leaving the house each...
17) Joyce
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Captain Bellendean of Bellendean has returned to Scotland to begin life on his estate. He has brought several people with him including the older Colonel Hayward. Helping with the festivities is Joyce, the village schoolteacher - an outgoing, popular girl of high intelligence. She is engaged to Andrew Halliday, the pedantic schoolmaster from the next village. Colonel Hayward is shocked when he sees Joyce - who looks like his first wife, disappeared...
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There stands in one of the northern counties of Scotland, in the midst of a wild and wooded landscape, with the background of a fine range of hills, and in the vicinity of a noble trout-stream, a great palace, uninhabited and unfinished. It is of the French-Scottish style of architecture, but more French than Scotch - a little Louvre planted in the midst of a great park and fine woods, by which, could a traveller pass, as in the days of Mr. G.P.R....
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She was very old, and therefore it was very hard for her to make up her mind to die. I am aware that this is not at all the general view, but that it is believed, as old age must be near death, that it prepares the soul for that inevitable event. It is not so, however, in many cases. In youth we are still so near the unseen out of which we came, that death is rather pathetic than tragic,-a thing that touches all hearts, but to which, in many cases,...
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17-year-old Susan and her brother 22-year-old Horace live a lonely life on Lanmoth Moor in Cumbria. Their mother died long ago, and their father Mr. Scarsdale is a bitter, controlling recluse who shows them no love. Susan retains her sweet nature, but Horace bears bitterness and hatred towards everyone - though he hides it to some extent in order to manipulate others. Mr. Scarsdale is bitter about a will, but the details are not disclosed until later...
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