Modern Literature – The Elephant's Book Shop

A Room With a View

A Room With a View
Unabridged Original Classic Edition
by E. M. Forster

One of Forster’s earlier works, A Room with a View (1908) has demonstrated enduring popularity arising from the vivid cast of characters, humorous dialogue, and comedic commentary on the restrained culture of Edwardian-era England and fixation on “propriety” among the minor gentry. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century.

The novel opens in Florence with Miss Lucy Honeychurch, touring Italy with her spinster cousin and chaperone, Miss Charlotte Bartlett complaining about their rooms at the Pensione Bertolini, where they were promised rooms with a view of the River Arno but are instead given rooms overlooking a drab courtyard. Another guest, Mr. Emerson, offers to swap rooms, as he and his son, George, have rooms with views of the river. Charlotte rejects the offer, offended by Mr. Emerson’s lack of tact and propriety and fearing they would be placed under an “unseemly obligation”. Another guest, Mr. Beebe, an Anglican clergyman, persuades Charlotte to accept the offer. Continue reading “A Room With a View”

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby
Unabridged Original Classic Edition
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This unabridged edition is not an electronic scan or reproduction. The original classic text has been formatted and edited by human editors. We have used a non-serif font, spacing between paragraphs, and no justification on the right margin in keeping with the current guidelines for readability in print books. We have used a 12-point font size to make reading this volume much easier on the eyes than typical “trade” paperback editions. Additionally, we have not inserted blank pages or large whitespaces before chapter headings to reduce the consumption of resources.

Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, “The Great Gatsby” (1925) depicts the interactions of first-person narrator Nick Carraway with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby’s obsessive pursuit of a reunion with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. Continue reading “The Great Gatsby”

The Jungle [Large Print]

The Jungle
Unabridged Large Print Edition
by Upton Sinclair

In 1905, the socialist weekly journal “Appeal to Reason” sent muckraker author Upton Sinclair undercover to investigate conditions in the Chicago stockyards. The result of his seven-week investigation was “The Jungle”, first published in serial form by Appeal to Reason in 1905 and then as a book in 1906.

The story follows the fortunes of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who arrives in Chicago’s stockyards seeking the American Dream, his teenaged wife, and their extended family. He soon discovers a ruthless system that degrades and impoverishes him and ultimately destroys his family. Sinclair portrays their mistreatment by Rudkus’ employers and the wealthier elements of society. The meatpacking industry, where he finds employment, subjects workers to harsh conditions, lack of social support, and hopelessness. Sinclair’s depiction contrasts the working-class poverty with the deeply rooted corruption of those in power. Continue reading “The Jungle [Large Print]”

Main Street [Large Print]

Main Street
Unabridged Large Print Edition
by Sinclair Lewis

Published in 1920, Main Street is perhaps Sinclair Lewis’s most famous book and led in part to his eventual 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Told from the perspective of Carol Kennicott, a young woman married to a Midwestern doctor who settles in the small Minnesota town of Gopher Prairie, the novel satirizes small-town life as she comes into conflict with the small-town mentality of the residents of Gopher Prairie. After reading a book about village improvement in a sociology class while in college, she begins dreaming of redesigning villages and towns. After settling in her husband’s hometown she quickly comes to disdain the town’s physical appearance and conservatism and sets out to remake Gopher Prairie. Continue reading “Main Street [Large Print]”

James Joyce eBook Collection – 3 Major Works

Three major works by modernist literary icon James Joyce:

Dubliners
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Ulysses

This collection includes eBook editions of all three works in PDF format, with the complete and unabridged text as originally published, searchable text, and a “clickable” table of contents. These are “free-flow” or “plain vanilla” eBooks, which means the text will flow from screen to screen depending on the size and settings of your device without being broken up by page headers or page numbers. Continue reading “James Joyce eBook Collection – 3 Major Works”

F. Scott Fitzgerald eBook Collection – Novels

F. Scott Fitzgerald published four completed novels during his lifetime:

The Great Gatsby
This Side Of Paradise
Tender Is The Night
The Beautiful And The Damned

This collection includes eBook editions of all four novels in PDF format, with the complete and unabridged text as originally published, searchable text, and a “clickable” table of contents. These are “free-flow” or “plain vanilla” eBooks, which means the text will flow from screen to screen depending on the size and settings of your device without being broken up by page headers or page numbers. Continue reading “F. Scott Fitzgerald eBook Collection – Novels”

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Complete & Unabridged Original Classic Edition
by James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) is the first novel by Irish writer James Joyce. Written in a modernist style, with unconventional punctuation and stream-of-consciousness narration, it follows the religious, social and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s fictional alter ego. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe. The work uses techniques that Joyce developed more fully in Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939). Continue reading “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”

The Great Gatsby [Large Print]

The Great Gatsby
Unabridged Large Print Edition
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This quality large print edition is not a machine-scanned text or reproduced “blowup” of an old version. It contains the unabridged original classic version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, freshly edited and formatted by human editors and printed on heavyweight 6″x9″ bright white paper, with a fully laminated cover featuring an original design. We have used a non-serif font, spacing between paragraphs, and no justification on the right margin in keeping with the current guidelines for readability in large print books. Additionally, we have not inserted unnecessary blank pages or large whitespaces before chapter headings to reduce the consumption of resources.

Dubliners

Dubliners
The Complete & Unabridged Original Classic Edition
by James Joyce

Dubliners is the first of James Joyce’s major works to be published in book form, preceded by Chamber Music, a volume of poetry which appeared in 1907.

Dubliners is not a novel, but consists of a series of fifteen short stories, which Joyce intended to accurately reflect the life of the contemporary middle class in Ireland. Each story centers around the “epiphany”, that moment of clarity when a character suddenly understands, for the first time, something important or fundamental about themselves, their life or their surroundings. The arrangement of the stories mirrors the progress of human life, as the protagonists of the stories advance as life progresses, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood and old age. Continue reading “Dubliners”

A Room With A View [Large Print]

A Room With A View
Unabridged Large Print Edition
by E. M. Forster

This unabridged large print Edition is not an electronic scan or reproduction. The text has been formatted and edited by human editors, based on the classic original edition, and is printed on heavyweight bright white paper with a fully laminated cover.

One of Forster’s earlier works, A Room with a View (1908) has demonstrated enduring popularity arising from the vivid cast of characters, humorous dialogue, and comedic commentary on the restrained culture of Edwardian-era England. and fixation on “propriety” among the minor gentry. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. Continue reading “A Room With A View [Large Print]”