JANE EYRE- PLOTJane Eyreis the story of a young, orphaned girl (shockingly, shes named Jane Eyre) who lives with her aunt and cousins, the Reeds, at Gateshead Hall. Like all 19th century orphans, her situation pretty much sucks. Mrs. Reed hates Jane and allows her son John to torment the girl. Even the servants are constantly reminding Jane that shes poor and worthless. At the tender age of ten, Jane rises up against this treatment and tells them allexactlywhat she thinks of them. (We wish we couldve been there to hear it!) Shes punished by being locked in "the red-room," the bedroom where her uncle died, and she has a hysterical fit when she thinks his ghost is appearing. After this, nobody knows what to do with her, so they send her away to a religious boarding school for orphans Lowood Institute.

At Lowood, which is run by the hypocritical ogre Mr. Brocklehurst, the students never have enough to eat or warm clothes. However, Jane finds a pious friend, Helen Burns, and a sympathetic teacher, Miss Temple. Under their influence, she becomes an excellent student, learning all the little bits and pieces of culture that made up a ladys education in Victorian England: French, piano-playing, singing, and drawing. Unfortunately, an epidemic of typhus breaks out at the school, and Helen diesbut of consumption, not typhus. (We always knew shed be a martyr.) Jane remains at Lowood as a student until shes sixteen, and then as a teacher until shes eighteen. When Miss Temple leaves the school to get married, Jane gets a case of wanderlust and arranges to leave the school and become a governess.

The governess job that Jane accepts is to tutor a little French girl, Adle Varens, at a country house called Thornfield. Jane goes there thinking that shell be working for a woman named Mrs. Fairfax, but Mrs. Fairfax is just the housekeeper; the owner of the house is a mysterious Mr. Rochester, and he's Adle's guardian, although were not sure whether shes his daughter. (Yep, this is getting exciting!) Jane likes Thornfield, although not the third floor, where a strange servant named Grace Poole works alone and Jane can hear eerie laughter coming from a locked room.

One evening when Janes out for a walk, she meets a mysterious man when his horse slips and he falls and, of course, this is Mr. Rochester. Jane and Rochester are immediately interested in each other. She likes the fact that hes craggy, dark, and rough-looking instead of smooth and classically handsome. She also likes his abrupt, almost rude manners, which she thinks are easier to handle than polite flattery. He likes her unusual strength and spirit and seems to find her almost unworldly; hes always comparing her to a fairy or an elf or a sprite.

Rochester quickly learns that he can rely on Jane in a crisis one evening, Jane finds Rochester asleep in his bed with all the curtains and bedclothes on fire, and she puts out the flames and rescues him. Jane and Rochester have fascinating conversations in the evenings and everything seems to be going really welluntil Rochester invites a bunch of his rich friends to stay at Thornfield, including the beautiful Blanche Ingram. Rochester lets Blanche flirt with him constantly in front of Jane to make her jealous and encourages rumors that hes engaged to Blanche. Don't worry, though it's really only Jane he wants.

During the weeks-long house party, a man named Richard Mason shows up, and Rochester seems afraid of him. At night, Mason sneaks up to the third floor and somehow gets stabbed and bitten (ew). Rochester asks Jane to tend Richard Mason's wounds secretly while he fetches the doctor. The next morning before the guests find out what happened, Rochester sneaks Mason out of the house.

Before Jane can discover more about the mysterious situation, she gets a message that her Aunt Reed is very sick and is asking for her. Jane, forgiving Mrs. Reed for mistreating her when she was a child, goes back to take care of her dying aunt. When Jane returns to Thornfield, Blanche and her friends are gone, and Jane realizes how attached she is to Mr. Rochester. Although he lets her think for a little longer that hes going to marry Blanche, eventually Rochester stops teasing Jane and proposes to her. She blissfully accepts.

Everything seems to be going great, until we notice that theres still a third of the book left. That means something bad is about to happen.

It's the day of Jane and Rochester's wedding. It should be the happiest day of Jane's life, but during the church ceremony two men show up claiming that Rochester is already married! (Is this sounding like aJerry Springerepisode yet?) Rochester admits that he is married to another woman, but tries to justify his attempt to marry Jane by taking them all to see his "wife." Mrs. Rochester is Bertha Mason, the "madwoman in the attic" who tried to burn Rochester to death in his bed, stabbed and bit her own brother (Richard Mason), and whos been doing other creepy things at night. Rochester was tricked into marrying Bertha fifteen years ago in Jamaica by his father, who wanted him to marry for money and didn't tell him that insanity ran in Berthas family. Rochester tried to live with Bertha as husband and wife, but she was too horrible, so he locked her up at Thornfield with a nursemaid, Grace Poole. Meanwhile, he traveled around Europe for ten years trying to forget Bertha and keeping various mistresses. Adle Varens (Jane's student) is the daughter of one of these mistresses, though she may not be Rochesters daughter. Eventually he got tired of this lifestyle, came home to England, and fell in love with Jane.

After explaining all this, Rochester claims that hes not really married because his relationship with Bertha isnt a real marriage. The main problem is that he cant divorce her (because it was pretty tough to get a divorce at all in the Victorian period, and Berthas behavior isnt grounds for a divorce, since shes mentally ill and therefore not responsible for her actions). He wants Jane to go and live with him in France, where they can pretend to be a married couple and act like husband and wife. Jane refuses to be his next mistress and runs away before shes tempted to agree.

Jane travels in a random direction away from Thornfield. Having no money, she almost starves to death before being taken in by the Rivers family, who live at Moor House near a town called Morton. The Rivers siblings Diana, Mary, and St. John are about Janes age and well-educated, but somewhat poor. They take whole-heartedly to Jane, who has taken the pseudonym "Jane Elliott" so that Mr. Rochester cant find her. Jane wants to earn her keep, so St. John arranges for her to become the teacher in a village girls school. When Janes uncle Mr. Eyre dies and leaves his fortune to his niece, it turns out that the Rivers siblings are actually Janes cousins, and she shares her inheritance with the other three. (Now shesJane Heir, ha ha.)

St. John, who is a super-intense clergyman, wants to be more than Janes cousin (back when that wasn't considered gross). He admires Janes work ethic and asks her to marry him (how un-romantic), learn Hindustani, and go with him to India on a long-term missionary trip. Jane is tempted because she thinks shed be good at it and that it would be an interesting life. Still, she refuses because she knows she doesnt love St. John. To top it off, St. John actually loves a different a girl named Rosamond Oliver, but he wont let himself admit it because he thinks she would make a bad wife for a missionary.

Jane offers to go to India with him, but just as his cousin and co-worker, not as his wife. St. John won't give up and keeps pressuring Jane to marry him. Just as shes about to give in, she supernaturally hears Mr. Rochesters voice calling her name from somewhere far away.

The next morning, Jane leaves Moor House and goes back to Thornfield to find out whats going on with Mr. Rochester. She finds out that Mr. Rochester searched for her everywhere, and, when he couldnt find her, sent everyone else away from the house and shut himself up alone. After this, Bertha set the house on fire one night and burned it to the ground. Rochester rescued all the servants and tried to save Bertha, too, but she committed suicide and he was injured. Now Rochester has lost an eye and a hand and is blind in the remaining eye.

Jane goes to Mr. Rochester and offers to take care of him as his nurse or housekeeper. What she really hopes is that he'll ask her to marry him and he does. They have a quiet wedding, and after two years of marriage Rochester gradually gets his sight back. St. John Rivers, meanwhile, goes to India alone and works himself to death there over the course of several years.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICEMrs. Bennet has five daughters and a big problem: none of them are married, there isn't much fortune to go around, andthanks to a quirk of English property lawthey'll all be kicked out of their house when Mr. Bennet dies. Enter Mr. Bingley, a rich, single man who moves into their neighborhood and takes a liking to the eldest Miss Bennet, Jane.But don'tsave the datequite yet: Mr. Bingley might be easygoing and pleasant, but his sisters are catty snobs and his controlling friend Mr. Darcy isn't about to let Mr. Bingley marry beneath him. When they all meet up at a local ball, Mr. Darcy lets everyone around him know just how dumb and boring he finds the whole thingincluding our new BFF and protagonist, the second Bennet daughter, Elizabeth.It's clear to everyone that Mr. Bingley is falling in love with Jane, but Jane keeps her feelings on the down low, against the advice of Lizzy's good friend Charlotte Lucas. And, surprising no one, Mr. Darcy finds himself strangely attracted to Lizzy. The two get even more opportunities to snip at each other when Lizzy goes to Mr. Bingley's house to nurse her sister, who's gotten sick on a wet horseback ride over for dinner.And now it's time to meet Bachelor #3: Mr. Collins. As Mr. Bennet's closest male relative, Mr. Collins will inherit the estate after Mr. Bennet's death. Mr. Collins has decided that the nice thing to do is to marry one of the Bennet girls in order to preserve their home. Unfortunately, he's a complete fool and Lizzy hates him on sight. Also unfortunately, he sets his sights on her.As for the two youngest Bennet sisters, the militia has arrived in town and they're ready to throw themselves at any military officers who wander their waylike Mr. Wickham, who rapidly befriends Elizabeth and tells her a sob story about how Mr. Darcy totally ruined his life, which Elizabeth is happy to believe. Oh, and Mr. Collins's boss, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, just so happens to be Mr. Darcy's aunt.Small world!Not too long after this, all the Bennet girls (including middle sister Mary, who's too wrapped up in books to notice boys) head to a ball at Netherfield (a.k.a. Mr. Bingley's mansion). It's kind of awful. Darcy, of all people, asks Elizabeth to dance, and Lizzy's entire family is unbearably embarrassinglike her mom loudly announcing that they all expect Bingley to marry Jane.But it getsworsewhen Mr. Collins proposes the next morning. Elizabeth refuses, obviously, but hold your pity: Charlotte Lucas shows up to "help out," by which we mean "get Collins to propose to her instead." It works, which is good news for the 27-year-old Charlotte, who's too poor and plain to expect anything better; but bad news for Elizabeth, who can't believe that her friend would actually marry the guyeven when Charlotte explains that she's really out of options, here.

And then more bad news arrives: Jane gets a letter from Miss Bingley basically breaking up with her on her brother's behalf. Jane is super bummed, and she goes to stay with her aunt and uncle in London to get over it (and just maybe see Bingley, who's off to the big city). Elizabeth travels too: she's off to visit the newly married Charlotte, who seems to be holding up well. One problem: Mr. Darcy is on his way to visit his aunt, who's also, you might remember, Mr. Collins's boss.Darcy almost acts like he's glad to see Lizzy, and even comes to visit her at Charlotte's house, but Lizzy is not having it: she learns from Mr. Darcy's friend that Bingley was going to propose to Jane until Darcy intervened. And that's exactly the moment Darcy chooses to propose. Can you guess how it goes?Not well. During the proposal, mixed in with Darcy's "I love you" are some "I am so superior to you" comments, which, not surprisingly, don't go over so well. Elizabeth has some choice things to say to him, and the next day he hands her a letter with the full story about Wickham (he's a liar, a gambler, and he tried to elope with Darcy's underage sister) and Jane (Darcy was convinced Jane was just agold-digger).Cue emotional transformation.When Lizzy gets him, she finds that Lydia, the youngest of the Bennet girls, has been invited to follow the officers to their next station in Brighton. Elizabeth thinks this is a Very Bad Idea, but Mr. Bennet overrules her. Big mistake, as we'll find out soon.But first, it's time for Elizabeth to accompany her aunt and uncle on a trip to Derbyshire, which, incidentally, is where Mr. Darcy lives. Uh-oh! Oh, but he's out of town. Phew. They visit his estate (Pemberley) as touristsyou can do that kind of thing in Englandand Lizzy is impressed. Darcy's housekeeper also has nothing but compliments for her master. Weird, right? It gets weirder when they run into Darcy who's home early, and he's actually polite and friendly.Before we can start practicing our wedding toasts, disaster strikes: Elizabeth learns that Lydia has run off with Wickham. This scandal could ruin the family, so Elizabeth's uncle and father try to track the renegade couple down. Elizabeth's uncle saves the day and brings the twoyoung 'unsback as a properly married (and unapologetic) couple. When Lydia lets slip that Darcy was at her wedding, Elizabeth realizes that there's more to the story and writes to her aunt for more information.Here's the full story:Darcysaved the Bennet family's honor. He tracked down the couple and paid off Wickham's massive debts in exchange for Wickham marrying Lydia. Why would he possibly do that? Well, we have some ideasbut we don't get to find out right away. First, Bingley comes back and finally proposes to Jane. And then, Lady Catherine visits Longbourn to strong-arm Elizabeth into rejecting any proposal from Darcy, which obviously doesn't work.When Lizzy and Darcy finally get some alone time on a walk, we get the moment we've all been waiting for: they clear up all their past misunderstandings, agree to get married, and then make out in the rain. (Oh wait, that was the movie version.)And they all live happily ever after. More or less.

FRANKENSTEINThe story begins with Captain Robert Walton hanging out in St. Petersburg, Russia, probably near the end of the 18th century. He's waiting around for a ride to the port of Archangel, where he's going to hire some hardy Russians to go sailing off to the North Pole. Unfortunately, the boat gets stuck in impassible ice hundreds of miles from land. Boring! With nothing else to do, he writes letters to his sister back in England. His main complaint? He wants a male friend to keep him company. (What about that ship full of sailors? No, he means aworthycompanion.)Soon, Walton's despair is interrupted by the sight of a man! On the ice! Riding a dog-sled! The man boards the ship, and it seems as if Walton's wish for a friend has come true. Except this new guy, Victor? Kind of nuts. Here's his story, as told to Walton:Victor started out like any normal kid in Geneva, with his parents adopting a girl named Elizabeth for him to marry when he was older. You know, totally normal. At college, he decides to study natural philosophy (like a rudimentary physics) and chemistry, along withchemistry's evil twin,alchemy. In about two years, he figures out how to bring a body made of human corpse pieces to life. (We couldn't even manage to finish high school in two years.) Afterwards, he's horrified by his own creation (noreally?) and is sick for months while his friend Henry Clerval nurses him back to health.Back in Geneva, Victor's younger brother, William, is murdered. The Frankenstein family servant, Justine, is accused of killing him. Victor magically intuits that his monster is the real killer, but thinking that no one would believe the "my monster did it" excuse, Victor is afraid to even propose his theory. Even when poor Justine is executed.

Victor, in grief, goes on a trip to the Swiss Alps for some much needed R&R. All too conveniently, he runs into the monster, who confesses to the crime and tells Victor this story (if you're keeping track, we're now in a story-within-a-story-within-a-story):When Frankenstein fled, he found himself alone and hideous. No one accepted him (being a corpse-parts conglomeration can do that to you), except for one old blind man. He hoped that the blind man's family of cottagers would give him compassion, but even they drove him away. When he ran across William, he killed the boy out of revenge. In short, he'sticked offthat his maker created him to be alone and miserable, and so would Frankenstein please make him a female companion?After much persuading, Victor agrees. He drops off Henry in Scotland while he goes to an island in theOrkneysto work. But, just before he finishes, he destroys the second monster: he's afraid that the two will bring destruction to humanity rather than love each other harmlessly. The monster sees him do this and swears revenge again. When Victor lands on a shore among Irish people, they accuse him of murdering Henry, who has been found dead. He's acquitted, but not before another long illness.Victor returns to Geneva and prepares to marry Elizabeth, but he's a little worried: the monster has sworn to be with him on his wedding night. Eek! Victor thinks the monster is threatening him, but the night he and Elizabeth are married, the monster kills the bride instead. This causes Victor's father to pass away from grief (as he just lost a daughter-in-law and a daughter), so it's kind of a twofer for the monster.Alone and bent on revenge, Victor chases the monster over all imaginable terrain until he is ragged and near death. (In fact, we can't really tell the two of them apart anymore except that the monster is taller and uglier.) And now we're back up the present: he finds Walton's ship, tells his story, and dies.Story over? Not quite. Walton discovers the monster crying over Victor's dead body. We're not sure if he's crying because he's sad or because, as he says, he has nothing to live for anymorebut either way, he heads off into the Arctic to die. Alone.Yeah, it's not quite a Hollywood ending

A TALE OF TWO CITIES, CHARLES DICKENSAs our novel starts, a very businessman-like British gentleman makes his way into the heart of Paris. Hes on a very unsettling mission. In fact, its almost enough to make a businessman cry. You see, eighteen years ago, a French doctor was imprisoned without any warning (or any trial). Hes been locked up in the worst prison of all prisons, the Bastille. After almost two decades, he was released again without any explanation and hes currently staying with an old servant of his, Ernst Defarge. Today, Mr. Lorry (thats our British businessman) is on a mission to the French doctor back to England, where he can live in peace with his daughter.

Dr. Manette may be free, but hes still a broken man. He spends most of his time cobbling together shoes and pacing up and down in his dark room. Too accustomed to the space of a prison to understand that he can actually leave his room, Dr. Manette seems doomed to live a pitiful life.

Fortunately for Dr. Manette (and for Mr. Lorry, now that we think about it), he happens to have the Worlds Perfect Daughter. Lucie, the child he left eighteen years ago, is now a grown-up, smiling, blond, perfect ray of sunshine. Everything she touches seems to turn to gold. Vomit if youd like, but Lucie is indeed perfect. And shell need every ounce of that perfection to restore her father back to health.

Of course, she does manage to bring Dr. Manette back into the everyday world. We never doubted her for a second. Within the space of five years (thats 1780, for those of you who are counting), Dr. Manette is a new man. Hes a practicing doctor again; he and Lucie live in a small house in Soho. They dont have much money (Dr. Manettes cash was all seized in France), but Lucie manages to shine her rays of wonderfulness over their lives. In other words, theyre pretty happy. And theyve adopted Mr. Lorry as a sort of drop-in uncle.

As we pick up the story in 1780, Dr. Manette and Lucie have been called as witnesses in a treason case. Apparently, a young man named Charles Darnay is accused of providing classified information to the French government. English trials at the time resemble smoke-and-mirror tricks: Dickens takes great delight in mocking the "esteemed" members of the court. Thanks to Lucies compassionate testimony and some quick work by a man who looks strangely like Charles Darnay, however, our man Charles is off the hook.

A free man, Charles Darnay immediately realizes just how perfect our perfect Lucie actually is. He sets up shop in the Manette house, coming to visit almost every day. The Charles look-alike, a disreputable (but, lets face it, really likable) guy called Sydney Carton, also takes a liking to Lucie. If Charles is shiny and good and perfect, Sydney is not any of those things. He also likes to beat himself up a lot. (In fact, were thinking that he could really use one of those twelve-step esteem boosting programs.)

Sydney loves Lucie with all his heart, but hes convinced that he could never deserve her. What does he do? Well, he tells her precisely why she could never love him. Surprise, surprise: she agrees. Shed like to help him be a better person, but he would rather wallow in his misery. After all, wallowing sounds like so much fun, doesnt it? Wallow, wallow, wallow. Thats Sydney in a nutshell.

Charles, meanwhile, fares a little bit better. He marries Lucie. On the day of his wedding, he tells Dr. Manette a secret: hes actually a French nobleman in disguise. A very particular French nobleman, as a matter of fact: the Marquis Evrmonde. Because everything in a Dickens novel has to fit into a neat pattern, its no real surprise that the Evrmondes were the evil brothers who locked Dr. Manette up in the first place. The good doctor is a bit shocked, of course, but he eventually realizes that Charles is nothing like his father or his uncle (the evil Evrmondes brothers). Dr. Manette is willing to love Charles for the man he is, not the family he left behind.

Things are going swimmingly in England. Charles moves in with the Manettes, he makes a decent wage as a tutor, and Dr. Manette seems to be as happy as ever. But wait, wasnt this a tale of two cities? What happened to the other city?

OK, you got us. While everythings coming up roses in London, everythings coming up dead in Paris. We only wish we were kidding. People are starving, the noblemen run over little children with their carriages, and everyone is pretty unhappy. In fact, theyre so unhappy that theyre beginning to band together as "citizens" of a new republic. Right now, Ernst Defarge and his wife are at the center of a revolutionary group. We can tell that theyre revolutionary because theyre super-secret. And they also call each other "Jacques." Thats "Jack" in French.

In the village of the Evrmondes, the Marquis has been stabbed in the night. Gasp! The government hangs the killer, but tensions dont ever really settle down. Finally, the steward of the Evrmonde estate sends a desperate letter to the new Marquis: because folks hated the old Marquis so much, theyre now throwing the steward into prison.

A bunch of fluke accidents conspire to make sure that Charles gets the letter. Hes the Marquis, remember? Even though hes thrown off his old title and his old lands entirely, he cant help but feel responsible for the fate of this steward. Without telling his wife or his father-in-law anything about whats been going on, he secretly sets off for France.

Unfortunately for Charles, he picked a bad time for a summer vacation. By the time he arrives on the shores of France, the revolutionaries have overturned the country. The King is about to be beheaded. The Queen soon follows suit. Murder and vengeance and mob mentality are all boiling over. Immediately detained, Charles soon realizes that hes made a big, big mistake. By the time he reaches Paris, hes become a prisoner. New laws dictate that hes going to be executed by La Guillotine.

Fortunately, Dr. Manette hears about his fate. With Lucie in tow, he rushes to Paris. It turns out that hes something of a celebrity there: anybody who was falsely arrested under the aristocratic rule of old is now revered as one of the heroes of the new Republic. The doctor shows up at Charles's trial and wows the judges with his heroic plea to save his son-in-law.

Everything seems happy again. Sure, its the middle of the French Revolution, but the Manettes and Charles are in the clear. Or at least, thats how it seems for a few hours. All too quickly, however, Charles is arrested again. This time, the Defarges have accused him of being a member of the nobility and a stain on the countrys name.

Frantic, Doctor Manette tries to intervene. The court case for Charless second trial goes very differently from the first one, though. Ernst Defarge produces a letter, written by Dr. Manette himself, which condemns Charles to death.

Wait a second! Dr. Manette? Impossible! Well, not exactly. Long ago, Dr. Manette scribbled down the history of his own imprisonment and secreted it in a wall of the Bastille. The history tells a sordid tale of rape and murder crimes committed by Charless father and brother. Incensed, the jury of French revolutionary "citizens" decides that Charles should pay for the crimes of his father.

Before he can be executed, however, Sydney Carton comes to the rescue. A few good tricks and a couple of disguises later, Charles is a free man. He and his family head back to England in (relative) safety. Sydney, however, doesnt fare so well. He takes Charless place in prison and dies on the guillotine.

Crazy, huh? The novel, however, thinks that his sacrifice is pretty heroic. And weve got to say, we agree.

SILAS MARNERSilas is a weaver living in a manufacturing city in the north of England. He and his friends are Dissenters, Christians who don't belong to the state-sponsored Anglican Church that was (and is) dominant in England. Things are good. He's got a best friend named William Dane, a best girl named Sarah, and the only minor issue is that he occasionally spaces outlike, really spaces out, to the point that he doesn't know what's going on around him.And then he's accused of theft. The group kicks him out, and Silas makes his way south to the Midlands, where he sets up his loom and settles down in the village of Raveloe. Business is good, but the villagers think he's a weird loner. For fifteen whole years, he weaves and holds nightly sessions with his growing hoard of money.Meanwhile, things aren't going well for Raveloe's wealthy family up at the Red House. The head of the family, old Mr. Cass, is a jerk, and he's got a jerky younger son, Dunstan. His older son, Godfrey is secretly married to the opium-addled Molly. This is depressing to Godfrey, because these are pre-regular divorce days, and he's got his eye on another girl, Nancy Lammeter.When the main action of the story opens, Dunstan convinces Godfrey to sell his horse to pay a debt, and even offers to sell it for him. Big mistake, Godfrey. Before getting the money, Dunstan takes the horse off hunting, but he makes a stupid move and the horse ends up dead. As Dustan is walking home, he spies Silas's cottage and has the bright idea to steal the money everyone suspects Silas has.

Silas, who can't catch a break and knows it, promptly sinks into depression. He's depressed all through Christmas, and then New Year's arrives. Up at the Red House, Mr. Cass is giving his big annual party. Godfrey recklessly flirts with Nancy. Dunstan is nowhere to be found, and hasn't been for a while.Down near the Stone-Pits by Silas's cottage, Molly trudges along the snow-covered road carrying a child. She takes some opium (dumb), sits down under a bush (dumber), and falls asleep (really, really dumb, but also sad). The child wakes up and toddles off, accidentallyor miraculously?deciding to cuddle up in front of Silas's hearth.Silas refuses to let anyone take the child: she's his replacement for the gold. Cue the life-changing montage. Silas takes advice from his neighbors, has her baptized, and stops hoarding for the sake of hoarding. The next sixteen years pass in a haze of neighborly good-feeling and childish hijinks.When Part Two opens, we meet a grown-up Eppie. She's eighteen, adorable, and everyone loves her, most especially Dolly Winthrop's son Aaron. But all is not well up at the Red House: Godfrey and Nancy are childless. One day, Godfrey comes to give Nancy some news: first, they've found Dunstan. He was lying drowned at the bottom of the quarry, which has been drained as a nearby landowner improves his land. Second, Dunstan had stolen Silas's money, and the money has now been returned to Silas. Third, Eppie is Godfrey's child.Nancy and Godfrey offer to adopt Eppie, but she refuses. She loves Silas, she loves the villagers, and she's going to marry Aaron. The novel ends with a wedding. As Aaron, Silas, and Eppiewho would be unbearably annoying, if she weren't fictionalenter their little cottage, Eppie sigHS with happines

THE JUNGLE BOOK

Mowgli's Brothers "It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening" (1.1) when Father Wolf wakes up. How does he know the precise time? Does he check his watch? His iPhone? He's about to go hunt, when Tabaqui thejackalslinks up to cause trouble. He says that Shere Khan"the Big One" (1.8)has shifted his hunting ground. Father Wolf is angry because this tiger will scare away all the game, making it harder for him to hunt. Mother Wolf chimes in that the villagers hate "the Lame One" (1.11), and they might get angry enough to set the grass on fire to scare him away. Speak of the devil, they all hear Shere Khan roaring up a storm. Father Wolf doesn't understand why he does that; all he's doing is scaring everything away. (SingingKaty Perrythat loud will do that.) Mother Wolf interprets the roar differently: She says the tiger is hunting Man. The narrator tells us that it's against the Law of the Jungle to eat Man, so when the young man's cub just walks up to them, Father Wolf gently carries him back to Mother Wolf. They're impressed that the man's cub isn't afraid, so they decide to raise him. Inside their cave is safe because it's too narrow for Shere Khan to get insidehe sure tries, though, sticking his big furry head in the cave's mouth. Mother Wolf yells at him, saying that one day the man's cub will grow up to hunthim.("Is that a threat?" "No, it'sforeshadowing.") Shere Khan backs away, swearing to gobble that man cub up someday. After the tiger leaves, Mother Wolf names the man's cub Mowgli, which means "little frog" (1.44). Later, they take Mowgli to Council Rock to introduce him to the Pack, especially Akela, the great Lone Wolf who leads them. When they present Mowgli to Akela, Shere Khan shows up (who invited him?) and says, "the cub is mine" (1.49). Akela says that, according to the Law of the Jungle, "if there is any dispute as to the right of a cub to be accepted by the Pack, he must be spoken for by at least two members of the Pack who are not his father and mother" (1.50). Baloo the bear and Bagheera the Black Panther speak up for Mowgli; to sweeten the deal, Bagheera promises a fat bull to buy Mowgli's safety. Bagheera kills the bull, and Akela agrees to admit Mowgli into the Seeonee Wolf-Pack. Now we skip ten or eleven years while Mowgli is taught everything he needs to know by Father Wolf, Bagheera, and Balooit's like the text version of a montage. By this point, Akela is an old wolf, and Bagheera fears the day is nigh that he will no longer rule the pack. He's really worried, because Shere Khan is always lurking around trying to convince the younger wolves that a man-cub has no place with the pack. Bagheera tells Mowgli that they have to strike Shere Khan first. He advises Mowgli to sneak down to the village and take "Red Flower" (1.89) for Shere Khan. No, he isn't deathly allergic to rosesRed Flower is what they call fire. Mowgli creeps to the village and steals a pot-full of red-hot charcoal. On the way, he spots Akela try to eat asambhur, but instead get kicked by it. #huntingfail Back in the jungle, Mowgli tends to the Red Flower to keep it burning all night long. At the next council meeting, Shere Khan is there, trying to take control of the Pack: "Give me the man-cub, or I will hunt here always, and not give you one bone" (1.119), he says. Akela says they are cowardly if they let Shere Khan kill the man-cub, pointing out that "He is our brother in all but blood" (1.127). He says he will agree to step down as leader without fighting if they simply let Mowgli go. They don't really care, probably because a deer almost took Akela out earlier, and the wolves gather around Shere Khan. Bagheera tells Mowgli it is time for them to fight, so Mowgli flings the fire-pot at Shere Khan, setting the grass aflame. Mowgli says that he will leave for the village of man, and he promises not to betray the wolves as they have betrayed him. For good measure, he whacks Shere Khan in the head with a branch. Bagheera tells Mowgli to spare Akela, so he tells the wolves that Akela is free to live as he pleases. As the fire closes in, Mowgli leaves with the only creatures who stood by his side: Akela, Bagheera, and a handful of wolves. Mowgli starts crying for the first time ever: "Am I dying, Bagheera?" (1.138) he asks. Bagheera says they are only tears. Mowgli says goodbye to Mother and Father Wolf, then he heads down the hillside, alone, "to meet those mysterious things that are called men" (1.146).