Published 1800 -1900

The year is 1896. The United States is rocked by the election of an unlikely president. On election night, riots broke out in the streets of New York. The city was paralyzed with dread. Mobs organized under the lead of Anarchists and Socialists. Farther South, people celebrated. This was a President elected by the working class and he was a President who followed through with his commitment to fight for the rights of the people. This president would fight to end the enslavement of the people by money lenders, big bankers, corporations and government overtax. But can he be successful in a society that is rapidly absorbing socialist ideologies? – Summary by CJ Plogue

A Country Doctor is a fiction novel by American author Sarah Orne Jewett. The book, which was first published in 1884, was based on the relationship between Jewett and her physician father. The main character of A Country Doctor, Nan, is a young woman who encounters much strife when she decides to go against the traditional values of the day and become a doctor. The book has been listed as an example of the shift in the perception of the role of women in society, with the main character of Nan choosing to pursue her career in medicine rather than a marriage and family – Summary by Wikipedia

The novel tells the story of Agnes Grey, the daughter of a minister, whose family comes to financial ruin. Desperate to earn the money to care for herself, she takes one of the few jobs allowed to respectable women in the early Victorian era ? the role of governess to the children of the wealthy. In working with two different families (the Bloomfields and the Murrays), she comes to learn about the troubles that face a young woman who must try to rein in unruly, spoiled children for a living, and about the ability of wealth and status to destroy social values. After her father’s death, Agnes opens a small school with her mother and finds happiness with a man who loves her for herself. They have three children at the end of the novel, Edward, Agnes and Mary (Wikipedia)

Joseph Conrad was born in former Poland, spent part of his childhood exiled in Russia because of his father’s Polish nationalist political activities, learned and read French early, and did not speak a word of English until his late teens. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that when Conrad came to write this, his first novel, it centred on the pain of having a contested sense of identity, the experience of having to choose, in the midst of argument and derision, whether one was really ‘this or that’. The Almayer of the story is a morose and hapless trader of Dutch extraction, settled in shambolic poverty on a river in Borneo. He dreams of finding gold inland and taking his mixed-race daughter Nina triumphantly to the Netherlands, where neither of them has ever been. Nina and her strong-willed Filipina mother, however, prove to have quite different loyalties and a quite different plan ? though this plan, in turn, soon appears to come unstuck. (Summary by Peter Dann)

In 1880?s Boston, Mass. the good life is lead according to all the Victorian era societal rules of the New World. Political ambitions and the business of making money go hand in hand. A Senate seat suddenly opens up due to the current junior senator?s unexpected death, and the political machinations to fill the seat begin. Senatorial candidate John Harrington is a young idealist who thinks that fighting for truth and justice, regardless of political affiliation, is the way. But he is told he can?t possibly win because he isn?t partisan enough. His opponents in the iron mine, railroad and shipping business sabotage his first bid for office, because he wants to do away with protectionism in trade to open up global competition. He eventually succeeds in winning a Senate seat. He gives a rousing speech to Congress as they gather to elect a President in a race which has ended in a three way tie. His message is that blindly following a party?s positions and principles is not being free and independent, and will not always lead to the best person being elected, or to the best decisions being made for the country as a whole. (Summary written by Maire Rhode)

Blind Love, also published under the titles Iris and The Lord Harry is Wilkie Collins’ last novel, completed after his death by Walter Besant. The blind love in the title refers to the love of Iris, a woman of virtue, for the morally corrupt Henry Norland. She loves him despite all his faults, but she also does not realize the full extent of them. As in many of Wilkie Collins’ novels, this book also tackles difficult social problems. In this case, the Irish Question and women’s rights bring another layer to the narrative. – Summary by Carolin.

Indefer Jones struggles to name an heir to his estate. Will he choose his favorite niece, Isabel, or a male heir? The story turns on the trouble that arises when Indefer fails to tell anyone his final decision before passing away. ( Summary by Jean Bascom )

Cradock Nowell: a Tale of the New Forest is a three-volume novel by R. D. Blackmore published in 1866. Set in the New Forest and in London, it follows the fortunes of Cradock Nowell who, at the end of Volume 1, is thrown out of his family home by his father following the suspicious death of Cradock’s twin brother Clayton. It was Blackmore’s second novel, and the novel he wrote prior to his most famous work Lorna Doone. ( Wikipedia) *Warning: Some listeners may be offended by some of the language. Words that were considered acceptable in the nineteenth century are not always politically correct today. It is LibriVox policy to leave the original wording as the author intended. – Summary by Lynne Thompson Other volumes in the series: Cradock Nowell, volume 1 Cradock Nowell, volume 3

Follow the young boy Huckleberry Finn and the slave Jim on their epic journey down the Mississippi River in the years before the Civil War. This masterpiece by Mark Twain is a delightful mixture of exciting adventures, sad mishaps, floods, lazy days floating on the raft, conniving con men and human beings in their most bewildering variety. It is a great pleasure to read and listen to. (by Phil Chenevert )

The Cossacks (1863) is an unfinished novel which describes the Cossack life and people through a story of Dmitri Olenin, a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. This text was acclaimed by Ivan Bunin as one of the finest in the language. Additional proof-listening was done by mim@can & katzes.