The Original Classic – serie

“It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason.” The Mysterious Island, a classic of world literature by French writer Jules Verne, is based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk was trapped for about five years on a remote island off the coast of Chile and found innovative ways to survive the ordeal and stay alive. The Mysterious Island is an absorbing saga of adventure as well as a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit. Verne, a master storyteller, tells the tale in a breezy and easily readable style. The island has a secret that is not easy to pry open.

I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship. American writer Louisa May Alcott gave the world one of the most beloved classics on the joys and sorrows and the journey of growing up, on sisterhood, family, love and life. A novel in two volumes, Little Women & Good Wives traces the life of the four March sisters, of vastly contrasting characters, being raised by their loving mother, Marmee, in a small New England town while their father serves in the American Civil War. The eldest, Meg, is beautiful and aspires to be a lady; Jo, is fifteen, stubborn, willful and wants to write books; the thirteen-year-old Beth is kind, shy and enjoys music; and Amy, the youngest, is a romantic and a little spoiled.

All set to begin his new employment, K., a land surveyor, arrives at a rural inn in search of rest and shelter from the snow outside. When he claims to have been summoned by the Castle, the governing authority for this particular village, he is directed to contact its officials.

Published posthumously in 1925 despite his request to the contrary, German-language novelist Franz Kafka’s The Trial explores the absurdities and anxieties that gradually came to define the twentieth century, including relentless bureaucracy, alienation, authoritarianism and meaninglessness. The text opens with the arrest of a young bank official, Joseph K., on the morning of his 30th birthday for an unspecified crime by unidentified men working for an unnamed agency. Upon his release begins a nightmarish trial with endless court sessions and no resolution in sight, threatening his personal life and relationships.

Explore the lesser-known classics works of Jane Austen in Sanditon and Other Tales, which sheds new light on her unpublished stories and later fragments, where Austen’s brilliant wit and mastery of storytelling shines through. From the unfinished seaside tale, Sanditon, to the cunning exploits of Lady Susan in the epistolary novella.

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.Jane Austen's first work to be completed in full, Northanger Abbey is a coming-of-age story that satirises gothic romances and high society. It was published posthumously in the December of 1817.Catherine Morland, a young woman captivated by Bath's fashionable society, finds herself navigating the intrigues of friendship, love, and social expectations. On an adventure for self-discovery among new acquaintances such as Isabella and John Thorpe and Henry Tilney, Catherine's path is riddled with many humorous misunderstandings as she slowly learns that reality often defies the thrilling fantasies found in her beloved gothic novels.