jeffrey.cam Public Library
Unless otherwise noted, all works here are in the public domain.
Books
1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. (wikipedia)
1895 The Time Machine by H G Wells
The Time Machine is an 1895 dystopian, post-apocalyptic, science fiction novella by H G Wells about a Victorian scientist known as the Time Traveller who travels to the year 802,701. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. In his 1931 preface to the book, Wells wrote that The Time Machine seemed "a very undergraduate performance to its now mature writer, as he looks over it once more", though he states that "the writer feels no remorse for this youthful effort". (wikipedia)
1898 The War of the Worlds by H G Wells
Illustrations by Henrique Alvim Corrêa
1936 radio adaptation by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre (opus 13MiB)
The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between humankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is the first-person narrative of an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and his younger brother who escapes to Tillingham in Essex as London and Southern England are invaded by Martians. It is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon. (wikipedia)
1899 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness is an 1899 novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad, in which sailor Charles Marlow tells the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, whilst also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between "civilised people" and "savages". Heart of Darkness implicitly comments on imperialism and racism. Heart of Darkness is criticised in postcolonial studies, particularly by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe. In his 1975 public lecture "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness", Achebe described Conrad's novella as "an offensive and deplorable book" that dehumanised Africans. Achebe argued that Conrad, "blinkered [...] with xenophobia", incorrectly depicted Africa as the antithesis of Europe and civilisation, ignoring the artistic accomplishments of the Fang people who lived in the Congo River basin at the time of the book's publication. He argued that the book promoted and continues to promote a prejudiced image of Africa that "depersonalises a portion of the human race" and concluded that it should not be considered a great work of art. (wikipedia)
Film
1917 The Immigrant (United States)
The Immigrant is a 1917 American silent romantic comedy short written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film stars Chaplin's Tramp character as an immigrant coming to the United States who is accused of theft on the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean and falls in love with a young woman along the way. The scene in which Chaplin's character kicks an immigration officer was cited later as evidence of his anti-Americanism when he was forced to leave the United States in 1952. (wikipedia)
1925 Battleship Potemkin (Soviet Union)
Battleship Potemkin is a 1925 Soviet silent epic film produced by Mosfilm. Directed and co-written by Sergei Eisenstein, it presents a dramatization of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers. The film is a prime example of the Soviet montage theory of editing, such as in the "Odessa Steps" scene, which became widely influential and often recreated. (wikipedia)
1929 Man With a Movie Camera (Soviet Union)
Man with a Movie Camera is a 1929 Soviet experimental silent documentary film, written and directed by Dziga Vertov. It was filmed by his brother Mikhail Kaufman (who also appears as the titular cameraman), and edited by Vertov's wife Yelizaveta Svilova. Man with a Movie Camera is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invented, employed or developed, such as multiple exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reversed footage, stop motion animations and self-reflexive visuals (wikipedia)
1953 Glen or Glenda (United States)
Glen or Glenda is a 1953 American independent exploitation film directed, written by and starring Ed Wood (credited in his starring role as "Daniel Davis"), and featuring Wood's then-girlfriend Dolores Fuller and Bela Lugosi. It was produced by George Weiss who also made the exploitation film Test Tube Babies that same year. The film is a docudrama about cross-dressing and transvestism, and is semi-autobiographical in nature. Wood himself was a cross-dresser, and the film is a plea for tolerance. It was widely considered one of the worst films ever made upon release. However, it has since been reevaluated and has become a cult film due to its low-budget production values, idiosyncratic style, and early cinematic themes of transgender acceptance. (wikipedia)