Frank Carlson Library

Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son tells the story of the wealthy owner of a shipping company, Paul Dombey, who dreams of having a son to carry on the family business. It deals with themes such as marriage for financial gain, cruelty towards children, family relationships, pride, arrogance, betrayal and the destructive effects of industrialization.

Victorian-era novelist George Eliot (the pen name of female writer Mary Anne Evans) is best known for her multi-layered takes on nineteenth-century British society, such as the masterpiece Middlemarch. She takes on a similarly ambitious task in the engaging tale Romola, albeit one that is set in Renaissance Italy rather than her own era. This historical novel adroitly captures the social upheaval and cultural ferment that arose during

Take a trip back in time on the Oregon Trail. This series of non-fiction essays from Francis Parkman details life on the nineteenth-century American frontier, detailing the summer a young Parkman traveled through Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas. Along the way, the author spent time hunting and fishing, as well as participating in a buffalo hunt led by members of the Native American tribe, the Oglala Sioux.