| LIST B (continued) The hounds of the Baskervilles Dartmoor. A wild, wet place in the south-west of England. A place where it is easy to get lost, and to fall into the soft green earth which can pull the strongest man down to his death. A man is running for his life. Behind him comes an enormous dog – a dog from hell. Between him and a terrible death stands only one person – the greatest detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes. Mr Midshipman Hornblower ‘Hornblower fired. There was a small cloud of smoke, but no bang. This is death, he thought. My pistol was the unloaded one.’ But Horatio Hornblower does not die. He survives the duel with Simpson, learns to overcome his seasickness, and goes on to risk his life many times over. It is 1793, Britain is at war with France, and life on a sailing ship of war is hard and dangerous. But the hardest battles are fought by Hornblower within himself. Little women When Christmas comes for the four March girls, there is no money for expensive presents and they give away their Christmas breakfast to a poor family. But there are no happier girls in America than Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. They miss their father, of course, who is away at the Civil War, but they try hard to be good so he will be proud of his ‘little women’ when he comes home. This heart-warming story of family life has been popular for more than a hundred years. |
| Washington Square When a handsome young man begins to court Catherine Sloper, she feels she is very lucky. She is a quiet, gentle girl, but neither beautiful nor clever ; no one had ever admired her before, or come to the front parlour of her home in Washington Square to whisper soft words of love to her. But in New York in the 1840s young ladies are not free to marry where they please. Catherine must have her father’s permission, and Dr Sloper is a rich man. One day Catherine will have a fortune of 30,000 dollars a year … Black Beauty When Black Beauty is trained to carry a rider on his back, or to pull a carriage behind him, he finds it hard at first. But he is lucky – his first home is a good one, where his owners are kind people, who would never be cruel to a horse. But in the nineteenth century many people were cruel to their horses, whipping them and beating them, and using them like machines until they dropped dead. Black Beauty soon finds this out, and as he describes his life, he has many terrible stories to tell. Cold comfort farm The farm lies in the shadow of a hill, and the farmyard rarely sees the sun, even in summer, when the flowering sukebind hangs heavy in the branches. Here live the Starkadders – Aunt Ada Doom, Judith, Amos, Seth, Reuben, Elfine … They lead messy, untidy lives, full of dark thoughts, moody silences and sudden noisy quarrels. That is, until their attractive young cousin arrives from London. Neat, sensible, efficient, Flora Poste cannot bear messes (they are so uncivilized). She begins to tidy up the Starkadders’ lives at once … |
| Deadheads An English rose garden on a summer’s day. A small boy watches with interest as his great-aunt cuts the deadheads off the rosebushes with a sharp knife. What could be more peaceful, more harmless ? Young Patrick grows up to be a calm, pleasant man, with a good job, a wife and two children, and the best rose garden for miles around. When somebody tells the police that Patrick Aldermann is killing people, Chief Superintendent Dalziel thinks it’s probably all nonsense. But Inspector Pascoe is not so sure … Decline and fall After a wild, drunken party Paul Pennyfeather is forced to leave Oxford and begin a new life out in the wide world. His experiences take him from a boys’ private school in Wales, where he meets some rather strange people, to a life of luxury in a grand country house and the Ritz Hotel, and then to seven years’ hard labour in prison. Where will it all end ? The black humour of this story about English society in the 1920s is as fresh today as it was when the novel was first written. |