12th Grade Odessa HS IB

Choose ONE

Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier

A young woman who is serving to a rich American Madame, going with her on the Cote d’Azur and accidentally meets there a British aristocrat named Maximilian de Winter. He is the owner of amazingly beautiful estate Manderley. After a brief romance, she agrees to marry him. They return to Manderley together. Almost immediately, the bride realizes how difficult it will be to erase the memory of her husband’s image of his ex-wife, Rebecca. She died about a year ago, sailing on a yacht. Rebecca is rumoured to be not only has outstanding beauty, but also was an excellent hostess, who was able to stay in the community, went sailing on a yacht and was completely perfect. New wife suffers from her own embarrassment, shyness, inability to meet people and afraid of the servants that compares it with the previous mistress.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray is an 1891 philosophical novel by Irish writer and playwright Oscar Wilde. First published as a serial story in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, the editors feared the story was indecent, and without Wilde's knowledge, deleted five hundred words before publication. Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding the public morality. In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press. Wilde revised and expanded the magazine edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) for publication as a novel; the book edition (1891) featured an aphoristic preface — an apologia about the art of the novel and the reader. The content, style, and presentation of the preface made it famous in its own literary right, as social and cultural criticism. In April 1891, the editorial house Ward, Lock and Company published the revised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray.