ApeBook Classics Series

Emma is one of the famous novels by Jane Austen and was first published in 1816. Unlike most of the other female protagonists in Austen´s novels the heroine Emma Woodhouse shows no real romantic interest in men. Instead of getting involved into a relationship herself she prefers meddling in other people´s lives. She is absolutely self-satisfied, although the conclusions of her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray. But finally, it comes to her self-revelation concerning her own true affections. “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” (Jane Austen) Emma is one of the best-loved and essential classics in English literature. Like Austen´s other novels it retains a fascination for modern readers, and has been adapted for several films as well as for a long list of dramatic plays. Some critics place this novel even higher than Austen´s masterpiece Pride and Prejudice.  

Persuasion is the last completed novel by Jane Austen and was published posthumously in 1818 – curiously together with her first novel Northanger Abbey. The link to Northanger Abbey is due to the fact that the stories of both novels are set partly in Bath and deal with the superficial life of this fashionable city. The protagonist of the novel is Anne Elliot, intelligent, accomplished and attractive, but unmarried at the age of 27. When she was seven years younger she fell in love with Frederick Wentworth, a honorable but poor naval officer. Because of his poverty, her mentor, Lady Russell, persuaded her to reject his proposal of marriage. After all, Wentworth reenters Anne´s life, and Anne realizes that women never give up their feelings of love even when all hope is lost. The novel deals with persuasion as a fundamental process in human communication and shows at the same time that there might be something like ´just´ and ´unjust´ persuasion. For the contemporary (female) reader Anne´s behavior might reflect on the possibility of a more courageous, outgoing and fulfilling life. Like the other major novels by Jane Austen, Persuasion has been the subject of several dramatic adaptations for stage, television and cinema.  

Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer, regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian time. Some of the world´s best-known fictional characters were created by him, and his short stories and novels are still very popular. “A Christmas Carol” tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a stingy, greedy and hard-hearted man, and his transformation after visitations by the ghost of his former business partner and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and yet to come. It´s an all-time classic.  

An older Mowgli roams the jungle with his old animal friends and explores the ways of his people, a prime minister becomes a wandering holy man, scavengers tell their story and we leave India for the high, high north of Canada. “The Second Jungle Book” is a continuation of Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book”. First published in 1895, it contains five stories about Mowgli and three independent stories, all except one in India, most of which were written by Kipling during his stay in Vermont. Here Kipling again shows his love for the Indian subcontinent and its people and his understanding of their belief in these stories. All stories were published in magazines as early as 1894-5, often under different titles. The 1994 film “The Jungle Book” used them as a source. The size of the eBook corresponds to about 250 printed pages, and it is provided with the original illustrations by John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911).  

When the tiger Shere Khan attacks a village in the Indian jungle, little Mowgli is separated from his parents. A pack of wolves accepts him as their own offspring and feeds him. Mowgli is raised by the bear Baloo, the panther Bagheera, and the python Kaa. They teach Mogli the laws and language of the jungle. After his apprenticeship, Mowgli is strong enough to seek battle with the tiger Shere Khan. The bestseller “The Jungle Book” from 1894 made Rudyard Kipling famous. In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. “The Jungle Book” was filmed several times. Kipling’s adventure story has become one of the most popular youth books in the world since Walt Disney’s wonderful cartoon. But it is precisely this apparent fame that distracts attention from this literary masterpiece that conjures up the exoticism of the jungle and the fascination of India like no other. The almost limitless imagination, the sparkling wit and not least the extensive knowledge of the Indian animal and plant world make up the magical charm of these stories. The book is decorated with the wonderful original illustrations by John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911). Its size is about 170 pages.  

An unspeakably ugly man hides in the vaults of the Paris Opera. He has two passions: music and the young singer Christine Daaé. To make her the star of the opera, he uses every means at his disposal, and soon he turns the venerable building into a madhouse, because he frightens singers and staff alike. Christine initially succumbs to his courtship until she falls in love with one of her childhood playmates, the viscount de Chagny, and the phantom becomes furious with jealousy.

The figure of Count Dracula is one of the most famous literary figures in the world. Since the vampire novel “Dracula” by the Irish writer Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was published in 1897, it has become indispensable in literature and film. The cinema in particular quickly discovered the vampires as powerful images for themselves, but this did not detract from the genre-own qualities of the literary original. Bram Stoker’s novel about the young lawyer Harker and the demonic undead Dracula is still a scary and beautiful reading experience today. “Dracula” is a story about unconditional friendship, love and the fight against evil, which Jonathan Harker and his comrades-in-arms take up. It is built up with special stylistic means (diary excerpts, newspaper excerpts, letter texts) and told in a stirring way. The material contains far more than many film adaptations have made of it and rightly belongs to world literature. In this early montage novel the great oppositions of the 19th century meet on top of each other. Science struggles with faith, empiricism with intuition, Protestantism with Catholicism, the West with the East, the visible with the invisible. This novel even refers to the coming emancipation of women, and does not limit its female protagonists to the role of victims. But more than anything else, this is a novel on eternal love and infinite grief. Bram Stoker (1847-1912), born in Dublin and unable to walk until the age of seven, became the most successful football player at Dublin University as a student. For 27 years he worked as a manager for the actor Henry Irving and as an English agent for Mark Twain. He did not live to see the worldwide success of his novel Dracula. The size of the eBook is about 500 pages.  

The fascination of the Frankenstein myth remains unbroken to this day. Mary Shelley’s exciting masterpiece explores the limits of our imagination and brings to life an eternal dream: the dream of creating a human-like being. After years of experimentation, the ambitious researcher Victor Frankenstein has succeeded in creating an artificial human being from dead matter. But the result of his alchemical experiments shocks him to the core. Horrified, he leaves the being to its fate. His desperate search for closeness and acceptance ends in chaos and devastation. As the creature gradually takes revenge on Frankenstein’s family, he decides to hunt down and kill his creature… The first work of a 19-year-old woman was written as a creepy story to be read to her friends. The young Mary Shelley succeeded in writing one of the most famous novels in world literature, which has been asking questions about man’s responsibility for his creation for 200 years now and is still valid today. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is the second great archetype of the modern horror genre besides Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. In contrast to the Prince of Darkness, Shelley’s main character is not a supernatural being, but an artificially created human being who, through the cruelty and ignorance of his environment, becomes the monster everyone thinks him to be. The really monstrous, on the other hand, are the ordinary people: with their cold hearts and their delusion of having the world under control. A gothic fiction classic and at the same time one of the great moral stories of European literature. The size of the eBook is about 200 pages.  

In this dictionary Bierce compiles the canon of human weaknesses, prejudices, absurdities and habits. The subtle, nasty ”definitions” of words expose the very aspect in them that normal consciousness hypocritically tries to cover up. Over 1,000 barbed and brilliant definitions by the 19th-century journalist and satirist often called “the American Swift.” First published as “The Cynic’s Word Book” (1906) and later reissued under its preferred name in 1911, Bierce’s notorious collection of barbed definitions forcibly contradicts Samuel Johnson’s earlier definition of a lexicographer as a harmless drudge. There was nothing harmless about Ambrose Bierce, and the words he shaped into verbal pitchforks a century ago–with or without the devil’s help–can still draw blood today. The American writer Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) had not only a sharp tongue, but also a pointed feather. He was one of the most dazzling figures in 19th-century literary America – the personified provocation and a hateful cynic who left no subject out. No matter whether it was about general, small or great weaknesses of the human race – nothing was sacred to his mockery. He became famous with his “Devil´s Dictionary”, a collection of gallant and pointedly spiritual aphorisms. The size of the eBook is about 180 pages.  

Young Jim Hawkins comes into possession of a map depicting an island where the infamous pirate Captain Flint has buried his prey. Together with a colourful crew under Captain Smollett, a dangerous search for the pirate’s treasure begins. But parts of the crew, especially the unscrupulous ship’s cook Long John Silver, turn out to be pirates from Flint’s former troop. In the end, countless fights between Jim and the pirates stand in the way of recovering the treasure. “Treasure Island”, first published in 1883, has inspired young and old for generations; and there is hardly a reader who has not devoured this exciting adventure novel from the first to the last page. The book is decorated with the original illustrations.  

Dorian Gray is young and in great demand. He enjoys life to the full. He fervently desires to keep his youthful appearance forever. Instead of his, only his portrait on a painting should show the traces of aging. After Dorian Gray has separated from his fiancée because of an invalidity, she commits suicide. Then Dorian Gray notices some minor changes in the portrait painting. A hard pull is visible on the mouth. His wish has apparently come true. The traces of his actions no longer appear in his own face, but only in the portrait. Gray hides it in the attic of his house to be on the safe side...