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View Poll Results: 1801-1900 Vote • May 2013, Multiple Choice
The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1844 4 30.77%
The American Senator by Anthony Trollope, 1875 8 61.54%
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, 1899 5 38.46%
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett, 1896 6 46.15%
Eline Vere by Louis Couperus, 1889 6 46.15%
Nana by Emile Zola, 1880 7 53.85%
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, 1818 6 46.15%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 13. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 05-05-2013, 12:42 AM   #1
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1801-1900 Vote • May 2013

Help us choose the May 2013 selection to read for the MR Literary Club! The poll will be open for two days.

The vote is multiple choice. You may vote for as many or as few as you like.

A discussion thread will begin shortly after a winner is chosen.

In the event of a tie, there will be a one-day non-multiple-choice run-off poll. In the event that the run-off poll also ends in a tie, the tie will be resolved in favour of the selection that received all of its initial nominations first.


Select from the following works:


The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1844
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:

Set in late 18th century Europe the adventures and mis-adventures of a minor member of the Irish gentry trying to better himself. Redmond Barry of Bally Barry is a clever young man, who learns the manners of a gentleman. This serves him well, for the next few decades he meanders through Europe, as a soldier, mercenary, gambler, and vagabond. He reaches the pinnacle of worldly success by marriage to an English heiress, but disastrously squanders her fortune and good will.


The American Senator by Anthony Trollope, 1875
Spoiler:
From wikipedia:

...it is notable for its depictions of rural English life and for its many detailed fox hunting scenes. In its anti-heroine, Arabella Trefoil, it presents a scathing but ultimately sympathetic portrayal of a woman who has abandoned virtually all scruples in her quest for a husband. Through the eponymous Senator, Trollope offers comments on the irrational aspects of English life..... Through his often-tactless remarks in conversation, through his letters to a friend in America, and through a lecture in London titled "The Irrationality of Englishmen", he comments on British justice and government, the Church of England, the custom of primogeniture, and other aspects of English life.


Public domain. Available here at MR; if people don't want to convert to ePub it's also available at Manybooks. Free audio at LibriVox.


Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, 1899
Spoiler:
It's a short novel but incredibly powerful as a result. Here's an extract from Wikipedia:

Heart of Darkness (1899), by Joseph Conrad, is a short novel, presented as a frame narrative, about Charles Marlow’s job as an ivory transporter down an unnamed river in Africa. ... a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. In the course of his commercial-agent work in Africa, the seaman Marlow becomes obsessed by Mr. Kurtz, an ivory-procurement agent, a man of established notoriety among the natives and the European colonials.

The story is a thematic exploration of the savagery-versus-civilization relationship, and of the colonialism and the racism that make imperialism possible. Originally published as a three-part serial story, in ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’, the novella Heart of Darkness has been variously published and translated into many languages. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Heart of Darkness as the sixty-seventh top-novel of the hundred-best-novels in English of the twentieth century; and is included to the Western canon.


There are moments in this novel--such as the appearance of the African woman--and those final words of Kurtz--which are unforgettable.

In 1979 it was made into a film Apocalypse Now which changes the setting but keeps the basic thematic approach--but loses the intensity of the novel.

It is in the Public domain and easily available from PG and here at

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17486


The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett, 1896
Spoiler:
From Wikipedia:

The Country of the Pointed Firs is an 1896 short story sequence by Sarah Orne Jewett which is considered by some literary critics to be her finest work. Henry James described it as her "beautiful little quantum of achievement." Because it is loosely structured, many critics view the book not as a novel, but a series of sketches; however, its structure is unified through both setting and theme. The novel can be read as a study of the effects of isolation and hardship experienced by the inhabitants of the decaying fishing villages along the Maine coast.

It is available in the MR library.

Also in audio form at LibriVox.


Eline Vere by Louis Couperus, 1889
Spoiler:
Free from Gutenberg.http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19563
Not free from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...s=Eline%20Vere


Louis Couperus (1863-1923) is arguably the greatest Dutch novelist. He made his name at home and in the English speaking countries with psychological novels such as The books of the small souls, The hidden force and Old people and the things that pass.

(This novel is situated in The Hague. It was a great hit in these days. At the time of the installments in the daily newspaper, people asked each other: 'did you hear what happened to Eline Vere?)


From Wikipedia:

The naturalistic novel, first published in a daily newspaper (1888-1889), instantly established Couperus as a household name in the Netherlands. It has been in print ever since. In Dutch, there have been about thirty editions until 2010, two adaptations for the theatre and one for film. Composer Alexander Voormolen dedicated his Nocturne for Eline (1957) to the protagonist of the novel. It has been translated into English (twice), into Norwegian and into Urdu.

After the publication of the translation by Ina Rilke, the book was reviewed in The Scotsman in 2010: "Couperus is a fine, driving storyteller even when he's off telling fairy stories in some symbolist landscape as in the rather mimsy Psyche. He wrote Eline Vere for serialisation, so it has the energy of the great Victorian novels without the melodrama, something astounding spread over 600 careful pages. ... Rediscovered novels usually make you realise why they were lost in the first place, but Eline Vere is an exception: a pleasure we've missed for far too long."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eline_Vere




Nana by Emile Zola, 1880
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:

One of the founders of literary naturalism, Émile Zola thought of his novels as a form of scientific research into the effects of heredity and environment. He created characters, gave them richly detailed histories, and placed them in carefully observed, precisely described environments, and his readers watch as they wriggle and thrash toward their inevitable destinies.

In Nana, the characters are a prostitute, who rises from the streets to become what Zola calls a “high-class cocotte,” and the men—and women—whom she loves, betrays, and destroys. Among the novel’s many ironies is the mutual envy felt by Nana and those around her. She yearns for their material possessions, while they admire her apparent independence and sexual self-confidence. And despite the chaos Nana causes, Zola imagines her as being essentially “good-natured,” a stupid, vain, but beautiful creature who can’t help drawing people into her web.

Not surprisingly, Nana’s portrait of a decadent world in which a prostitute amasses great wealth and power provoked protests from “polite society,” and it became one of Zola’s most controversial works. Today it is regarded as his masterpiece.


Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, 1818
Spoiler:
.
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Old 05-05-2013, 01:20 AM   #2
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I see Captains Courageous didn't make it. Why just a period in spoiler for Frankenstein?
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Old 05-05-2013, 01:43 AM   #3
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I see Captains Courageous didn't make it. Why just a period in spoiler for Frankenstein?
Because there wasn't any info given with the nomination - which is fine, but I like to keep a spoiler anyway for a consistent look with all the titles.
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Old 05-05-2013, 01:54 AM   #4
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Because there wasn't any info given with the nomination - which is fine, but I like to keep a spoiler anyway for a consistent look with all the titles.
Ah ok. Makes sense I guess.
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Old 05-05-2013, 07:29 AM   #5
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Nice selection of books on offer. I vote for all that I have never read.
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Old 05-05-2013, 08:13 AM   #6
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Nice selection of books on offer. I vote for all that I have never read.
Do you mean just those on the poll above or in general?
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Old 05-05-2013, 08:35 AM   #7
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I remember getting very anxious when I was about 10 or 11 because I realised that people were keeping on writing new books and I didn't know how I was going to catch up and read everything. I thought there should be a year or two when no-one wrote any books, to give me a chance to get everything read!
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Old 05-05-2013, 09:10 AM   #8
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Nice selection of books on offer. I vote for all that I have never read.
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Originally Posted by Bookpossum View Post
I remember getting very anxious when I was about 10 or 11 because I realised that people were keeping on writing new books and I didn't know how I was going to catch up and read everything. I thought there should be a year or two when no-one wrote any books, to give me a chance to get everything read!
These two posts have convinced me. So be it!
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Old 05-05-2013, 10:49 AM   #9
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I remember getting very anxious when I was about 10 or 11 because I realised that people were keeping on writing new books and I didn't know how I was going to catch up and read everything. I thought there should be a year or two when no-one wrote any books, to give me a chance to get everything read!
That's so cute. I simply changed my religion to one that believed in reincarnation.
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Old 05-05-2013, 10:52 AM   #10
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I vote for all that I have never read.
Judging by your votes then, we've read the same two.
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Old 05-05-2013, 12:15 PM   #11
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Do you mean just those on the poll above or in general?
Voted! Early morning typing.

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Judging by your votes then, we've read the same two.
Yes, and I am actually embarrassed to admit that I have read only two out of that list. Not that I would mind in Heart of Darkness or Frankenstein wins, both are also worthy choices and would make for good discussions.
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Old 05-06-2013, 09:11 AM   #12
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This is a closely-fought contest - quite exciting!
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Old 05-06-2013, 05:43 PM   #13
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This is a closely-fought contest - quite exciting!
somebody tipped the balance - but there are still some hours to go.
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Old 05-07-2013, 04:44 AM   #14
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Well, The American Senator has won! I personally voted for it as I've read little of Trollope outside of The Palliser sequence.

I noticed that it is available free from the Amazon Kindle Store--both in the UK and .com I've glanced through it and it divides the book into its component volumes and seems reasonably well formatted with a good TOC for navigation.

BTW Delphi have done a complete Trollope collection at a very reasonable price.
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Old 05-07-2013, 05:06 AM   #15
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Yes, I'll be happy to read Trollope as well. It is a long time ago that I read his Pallisers series and the Barsetshire chronicles.
Let's see if my perception and appreciation of this writer has changed much over the years.....reading will be a personal experience....
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