This wonderful collection of children's classics consists of The Swiss Family Robinson, The Secret Garden, Black Beauty, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The Swiss Family Robinson
Johann Wyss
The Swiss Family Robinson is a novel by Johann David Wyss, first published in 1812, about a Swiss family of immigrants whose ship en route to Port Jackson, Australia, goes off course and is shipwrecked in the East Indies. The ship's crew is lost, but the family and several domestic animals survive.
The Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in The American Magazine. Set in England, it is one of Burnett's most popular novels and seen as a classic of English children's literature. Several stage and film adaptations have been made. After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle's gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely and has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed - and a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. Slowly she turns the key and enters a world she could never have imagined.
Black Beauty
Anna Sewell
Continuously in print and translated into multiple languages since it was first published, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty is a classic work of children’s literature and an important text in the fields of Victorian studies and animal studies. Writing to “induce kindness, sympathy and an understanding treatment of horses,” Sewell realistically documents the working conditions of Black Beauty, who moves down the social scale from a rural carriage horse to a delivery horse in London. Sewell makes visible and tangible the experience of animals who were often treated as if they were machines. Though she died shortly after it was published, Sewell’s book contributed significantly to late nineteenth-century campaigns for humane treatment of horses and remains a seminal anti-cruelty text today.
A Journey To The Centre Of The Earth
Jules Verne
A classic 1864 science fiction novel. The story involves German professor Otto Lidenbrock who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the centre of the Earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans descend into the Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull, encountering many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, before eventually coming to the surface again in southern Italy, at the Stromboli volcano.
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Howard Pyle
The classic story of social justice and outrageous cunning. Robin Hood, champion of the poor and oppressed, stands against the cruel power of Prince John and the brutal Sheriff of Nottingham. Taking refuge in the vast Sherwood Forest with his band of men, he remains determined to outwit his enemies.
The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz
L. Frank Baum
A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home by a tornado. Originally published in 1900.