Showing results by author "Jennifer Bassett" in All Categories

Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new ’man’. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him – even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill....

When a handsome young man begins to court Catherine Sloper, she feels she is very lucky. She is a quiet, gentle girl, but neither beautiful nor clever; no one had ever admired her before, or come to the front parlour of her home in Washington Square to whisper soft words of love to her. But in New York in the 1840s young ladies are not free to marry where they please. Catherine must have her father’s permission, and Dr Sloper is a rich man.

I often walked along the shore, and one day I saw something in the sand. I went over to look at it more carefully . . . It was a footprint – the footprint of a man!’In 1659 Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked on a small island off the coast of South America. After fifteen years alone, he suddenly learns that there is another person on the island. But will this man be a friend – or an enemy?

Suddenly, there was a high voice screaming in the darkness: "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" It was Long John Silver’s parrot, Captain Flint! I turned to run . . .’But young Jim Hawkins does not escape from the pirates this time. Will he and his friends find the treasure before the pirates do? Will they escape from the island, and sail back to England with a ship full of gold?

Little Mary Lennox is a bad-tempered, disagreeable child. When her parents die in India, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle in a big, lonely, old house. There is nothing to do all day except walk in the gardens – and watch the robin flying over the high walls of the secret garden . . . which has been locked for ten years. And no one has the key. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Frances Hodgson Burnett original by Clare West.

The job was too good. There had to be a problem - and there was. John Duncan was an honest man, but he needed money. He had children to look after. He was ready to do anything, and his bosses knew it. They gave him the job because he couldn’t say no; he couldn’t afford to be honest. And the job was like a poison inside him. It changed him and blinded him, so that he couldn’t see the real poison - until it was too late. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English.

In EDI (the European Department of Intelligence in Brussels) there are some very secret files - the Omega Files. There are strange, surprising, and sometimes horrible stories in these files, but not many people know about them. You never read about them in the newspapers.Hawker and Jude know all about the Omega Files, because they work for EDI. They think fast, they move fast, and they learn some very strange things.

William Shakespeare. Born April 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Died April 1616. Married Anne Hathaway: two daughters, one son. Actor, poet, famous playwright. Wrote nearly forty plays. But what was he like as a man? What did he think about when he rode into London for the first time... or when he was writing his plays Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet... or when his only son died? We know the facts of his life, but we can only guess at his hopes, his fears, his dreams.

I wish I could get through into looking-glass house,’ Alice said. ’Let’s pretend that the glass has gone soft and . . . Why, I do believe it has! It’s turning into a kind of cloud!’ A moment later Alice is inside the looking-glass world. There she finds herself part of a great game of chess, travelling through forests and jumping across brooks. The chess pieces talk and argue with her, give orders and repeat poems . . .It is the strangest dream that anyone ever had...

Adapted from the story by Thomas Hardy. A woman and a man... words of love whispered on a summer night. Later, there is a child, but no wedding-ring. And then the man leaves the first woman, finds a younger woman, marries her - it’s an old story. Yes, it’s an old, old story. It happens all the time – today, tomorrow, a hundred years ago. People don’t change. But this story, set among the green hills of southern England, has something different about it.

Adapted from the Arthur Conan Doyle story "Silver Blaze".... Horseracing is the sport of kings, perhaps because racehorses are very expensive animals. But when they win races, they can make a lot of money too - money for the owners, for the trainers, and for the people who put bets on them to win.Silver Blaze is a young horse, but already the winner of many races. One night he disappears from his stables, and someone kills his trainer.

When a large plane is hijacked, the Prime Minister looks at the list of passengers and suddenly becomes very, very frightened. There is a name on the list that the Prime Minister knows very well - too well. There is someone on that plane who will soon be dead - if the hijackers can find out who he is! And there isn’t much time. One man lies dead on the runway. In a few minutes the hijackers will use their guns again. And the Prime Minister knows who they are going to kill.

Tony Kytes is a favourite with the girls but he’s not terribly clever. If you meet an old girlfriend and she asks for a ride home in your wagon, do you say yes? And then if you meet the girl you are planning to marry, what do you do? Very soon, Tony is in a great muddle, and does not know how to escape from it. These stories are set in an English country village of the nineteenth century, but Hardy’s tales of mistakes and muddles and marriages belong in any place, at any time.

Adapted from the classic by Lewis Carroll.... There, on top of the mushroom, was a large caterpillar, smoking a pipe. After a while the Caterpillar took the pipe out of its mouth and said to Alice in a slow, sleepy voice, "Who are you?" What strange things happen when Alice falls down the rabbit-hole and into Wonderland! She has conversations with the Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat, goes to the Mad Hatter’s tea party, and plays croquet with the King and Queen of Hearts.

A man is running in the night. He is afraid and needs to rest. But there are people behind him - people with lights, and dogs, and guns.A man is standing in front of a desk. His boss is very angry, and the man is tired and needs to sleep. But first he must find the other man, and bring him back - dead or alive.Two men: the hunter and the hunted. Which will win and which will lose?

"We have to leave our house in London," Mother said to the children. "We’re going to live in the country, in a little house near a railway line." And so begins a new life for Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis. They become the railway children - they know all the trains, Perks the station porter is their best friend, and they have many adventures on the railway line. But why has their father had to go away? Where is he, and will he ever come back?

"We must leave for Zenda at once, to find the King!" cried Sapt. "If we’re caught, we’ll all be killed!" So Rudolf Rassendyll and Sapt gallop through the night to find the King of Ruritania. But the King is now a prisoner in the Castle of Zenda. Who will rescue him from his enemies, the dangerous Duke Michael and Rupert of Hentzau? And who will win the heart of the beautiful Princess Flavia? An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Anthony Hope original by Diane Mowat.

Sara Crewe is a very rich little girl. She first comes to England when she is seven, and her father takes her to Miss Minchin’s school in London. Then he goes back to his work in India. Sara is very sad at first, but she soon makes friends at school. But on her 11th birthday, something terrible happens, and now Sara has no family, no home, and not a penny in the world.

It is hay-making time on the Wookey farm. Two brothers are building the haystack, but thinking about other things – about young women, and love. There are angry words, and then a fight between the brothers. But the work goes on, visitors come and go, and the long hot summer day slowly turns to evening. Then the sun goes down, covering the world with a carpet of darkness. From the hedges around the hayfield comes the rich, sweet smell of wild flowers, and the hay will make a fine, soft bed.

Life is always hard for the poor, in any place and at any time. Ethan Frome is a farmer in Massachusetts. He works long hours every day, but his farm makes very little money. His wife, Zeena, is a thin, grey woman, always complaining, and only interested in her own ill health. Then Mattie Silver, a young cousin, comes to live with the Fromes, to help Zeena and do the housework. Her bright smile and laughing voice bring light and hope into the Fromes’ house - and into Ethan’s lonely life.