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While leading three novices through the wilderness, ex-lawman Phil Broker runs into a freak snowstorm that leaves one of the party seriously ill. Arriving at a hospital, the victim slips into a coma, and then the fun really starts. The man's wife stands to inherit a fortune if he dies, and Broker begins to suspect that something nefarious may be afoot....
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
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Dickens's heavily autobiographical novel describing a young man's rise in the world is a classic coming-of-age story. David Copperfield, the narrator, is orphaned at a tender age and raised first by his brutal stepfather (who halts his schooling and sends him to work in a factory--as did Dickens's own father), then by a kindly aunt. He trains for a career in law, but eventually becomes a writer. An ill-advised marriage brings him considerable unhappiness, but not long after his wife's death he is reunited with his childhood sweetheart. A sprawling portrait of life in Victorian England, DAVID COPPERFIELD is perhaps Dickens's most popular work, and it contains many of the characters--Mr. Micawber, Uriah Heep, Betsey Trotwood, Steerforth, and Little Emily--who gave Dickens his reputation as the finest literary portraitist of his age.
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
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Shakespeare probably wrote KING LEAR in 1605, but the action of the play takes place in the eighth century B.C. Lear, the elderly king of Britain, is ready to cease his rule and divide his kingdom among his three daughters. But his heart hardens against his youngest daughter, Cordelia, who refuses to give him the glib flattery he seeks, and he capriciously disowns her. Cordelia marries the king of France, leaving the kingdom to her two unsavory sisters, Goneril and Regan, who promptly begin scheming to strip Lear of not only his authority but his dignity. The old king, devastated by their insulting treatment of him, begins to lose his reason. Forced to flee, he wanders into the wilderness, accompanied by his devoted Fool and by Kent, a nobleman in disguise who stays true to him. As Lear faces a devastating storm and encounters a variety of men, both noble and depraved, his daughters take revenge on anyone who tries to help him, including his old friend Gloucester, who is cruelly blinded before he too is turned out into the wild. Eventually, all these characters make their way to Dover, where Cordelia has landed with the French army under the command of her husband in an attempt to save her father's kingdom. As more blood is shed and the two evil sisters are finally vanquished, one of Shakespeare's saddest endings closes the play, as Lear gives into his grief after Cordelia's death, realizing that it was she who, after all, loved him the best. In KING LEAR, with its bleak vision of the human life, Shakespeare deals with questions of justice and injustice, and whether the world is indifferent to the fate of mankind. The play is interesting for its depictions of madness in several characters, from the professionally nonsensical Fool to Lear's own ravings in the depths of his confusion. KING LEAR is also a probing examination of family and its implications, and of a proud man who is brought low before he is able to understand, too late, what constitutes true goodness...

Colleen McCullough's wildly popular epic blockbuster, first published in 1977, follows the fortunes of the Cleary family over three generations, but concentrates mainly on Meggie and her passionate, obsessive love for a Catholic priest, Father Ralph. The complex, passionate plot, along with McCullough's vivid descriptions of the Australian outback, made the book a best-seller--and the movie made from it in 1983 a huge success.
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
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