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In a letter to her sister Cassandra, dated Jan. 29, 1813, Miss Austen tells how “her own darling child” arrived, and was read aloud to a friend without its authorship being disclosed. “She was amused, poor soul. That she could not help, you know, with two such people to lead the way; but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print; and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least I do not know.” On Feb. 4, 1813, after noticing a misprint, she says: “There might as well be no suppers at Longbourn; but I suppose it was the remains of Mrs. Bennet’s old Meryton habits.”
She often recurs to her pleasure in her friends’ affection for Elizabeth and Darcy. The following passage also illustrates the way in which she regarded her own characters. It occurs as usual in a letter to her sister. “My brother and I went to the exhibition in Spring Gardens. It is not thought a good collection, but I was very well pleased, particularly with a small portrait of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like her. I went in hopes of seeing one of her sister, but there was no Mrs. Darcy. Perhaps, however, I may find her in the great exhibition.”
“Mrs. Bingley is exactly herself size, shape, face, features, and sweetness! There never was a greater likeness. She is dressed in a white gown with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I had always supposed that green was a favourite colour with her. I daresay Mrs. D. will be in yellow.”
Of the minor characters she told her family that “Kitty Bennet was satisfactorily married to a clergyman near Pemberley, while Mary obtained nothing higher than one of her Uncle Philips’s clerks, and was content to be considered a star in the society of Meryton.”

Written by James Joyce

In his first and still most widely read novel, James Joyce makes a strange peace with the traditional narrative of a young man’s self-discovery by respecting its substance while exploding its form, thereby inaugurating a literary revolution.

Published in 1916 when Joyce was al?ready at work on Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is exactly what its title says and much more. In an exuberantly in?ventive masterpiece of subjectivity, Joyce portrays his alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, growing up in Dublin and struggling through religious and sexual guilt toward an aesthetic awak?ening. In part a vivid picture of Joyce’s own youthful evolution into one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers, it is also a moment in the intellectual history of an age.

 by Jennifer L. Armstrong

Thomas Lawrence has been sent to Damascus to meet his grandfather and learn about his heritage. He's not sure that he wants to listen to an old man drone on about family history but this trip is going to unfold in unexpected ways. It will leave him hot, thirsty, tired ... and in the desert. He's going to meet a family he never knew he had and find out that he has a name to be proud of.

 Written by J.R.R. Tolkien

Frodo Baggins knew the Ringwraiths were searching for him--and the Ring of Power he bore that would enable Sauran to destroy all that was good in Middle-earth. Now it was up to Frodo and his faithful servant Sam to carry the Ring to where it could be detroyed--in the very center of Sauron's dark kingdom.

 

The Treasure of Tadmor

by Jennifer L. Armstrong

The Kent family visits Syria to excavate at Tadmor, only to find out there are some people who are determined that they won't stay. Is there really a treasure of Tadmor?