The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. They centre on Joyce's idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character experiences self-understanding or illumination. Many of the characters in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses. The initial stories in the collection are narrated by child protagonists, and as the stories continue, they deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people. This is in line with Joyce's tripartite division of the collection into childhood, adolescence and maturity.

This daily journal was written primarily because I well knew that time would force the swiftly passing incidents and impressions to blur each other in my memory.

ONE day as little Puss, Junior, was traveling through New Mother Goose country, he came to a funny little house all covered with rose vines, even up to the top of the small red chimney they grew in crimson splendor. And as Puss stopped to look at the pretty sight, a tiny blue bird in a cage on the front porch began to sing:

The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by English Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–94. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six years of his childhood there. After about ten years in England, he went back to India and worked there for about six-and-a-half years. These stories were written when Kipling lived in Vermont. There is evidence that it was written for his daughter Josephine, who died in 1899 aged six, after a rare first edition of the book with a poignant handwritten note by the author to his young daughter was discovered at the National Trust's Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire in 2010.

When founding the Pilawin preserve in 1901 my intention was limited to the breeding of elk, which still have their native haunts not very far away to the north, but have for many years ceased to inhabit these forests. No one, to my knowledge, has hitherto attempted to naturalise these splendid deer in enclosed parks; but the fact that Pilawin forms a part of their original habitat induced me to try the experiment, which has thus far proved an unqualified success. 

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers and buried gold". First published as a book on 23 May 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881 and 1882 under the title Treasure Island or, the mutiny of the Hispaniola with Stevenson adopting the pseudonym Captain George North.

THE morning service was over, and the congrega-tion gone home. The preacher was to dine with Captain Maynard, but there was an hour and more to dinner-time, and she had begged permission to stroll about for half an hour, promising to find her way to the comfortable white cottage, perched on a point of rock over-looking the little bay.
Now she was standing on the lower rocks, looking about her; a trim, quiet figure in a black gown, with a close straw bonnet set on her smooth brown hair.

Moby Dick, or the Whale, A common consensus among critics is that at this point, the book was a familiar sea yarn along the lines of his earlier work. Melwille, He has been described as "the most ambitious book ever conceived by an American writer." In Moby-Dick, Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, and metaphor to explore numerous complex themes.

Victor Hugo says, that "Africa will be the continent of the twentieth century." Already the nations are struggling to possess it. Stanley's explorations proved the majesty and efficacy of equipment and force amid these dusky peoples and through the awful mazes of the unknown. Empires watched with eager eye the progress of his last daring journey. Science and civilization stood ready to welcome its results. He comes to light again, having escaped ambush, flood, the wild beast and disease, and his revelations set the world aglow. He is greeted by kings, hailed by savants, and looked to by the colonizing nations as the future pioneer of political power and commercial enterprise in their behalf, as he has been the most redoubtable leader of adventure in the past.

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels"and part of the Western canon. The story centers on Charles Marlow, who narrates most of the book. He is an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a river-boat captain in Africa.