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Mizora: A Prophecy.

Mary E Bradley Lane
After being exiled from her home and family, Vera Zarovich finds herself in Mizora, a civilization at the center of the Earth made up entirely of women. This text recounts her experiences there and what she learns during in time in this "utopian" civilization.
Work: A Story of Experience

Louisa May Alcott
It is one of "several nineteenth-century novels [which] uncovers the changes in women's work in the new industrial era, as well as the dilemmas, tensions, and the meaning of that work" The story depicts the struggles of a young woman trying to support herself. The main character, Christie Devon, works outside the home in a variety of different jobs, but the end of her story marks "the beginning of a new career as a voice and activist for other working women".
Impressions of Theophrastus Such

George Eliot
Impressions of Theophrastus Such is a work of fiction by George Eliot, first published in 1879. It was Eliot's last published writing and her most experimental, taking the form of a series of literary essays by an imaginary minor scholar whose eccentric character is revealed through his work.
Mark the Match Boy or Richard Hunter's Ward

Horatio Alger, Jr.
In this third installment from the “Ragged Dick” series by Horatio Algers, Jr., the reader is reacquainted with some old friends and meets young Mark Manton. Mark is a match boy plagued by bad luck and an even worse guardian. But, with new friends, hard work, and smart choices, Mark may just find his luck taking a turn for the better.
Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

Harriet Beecher Stowe
This is Stowe's second book, another one depicting the horrors of southern slavery, published 4 years after Uncle Tom's Cabin and 5 years before the commencement of the Civil War, when new territories wanting admittance into the US (Texas, Oklahoma, name the states), were vying to become slave states, threatening to spread the heinous system. While a work of fiction, the book successfully documents the horrors of the slave system, and depicts how some slaves escaped into the Dismal Swamp (a real place spreading over a million acres in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina), where they often lived for years hiding from their pursuers, often in community. Dred, one of Stowe's most unusual heroic characters, proclaims his mission as follows: ". . .the burden of the Lord is upon me . . . to show unto this people their iniquity, and be a sign unto this evil nation!'" The book depicts that slaves were not all passive victims, as so often portrayed, and had many white sympathizers, but all were caught in the grips of a legal system so stacked against them that nobody could overturn it without threats to life and limb. The book was welcomed by the anti-slavery movement in Europe as well as in America, and helped move the needle of sympathy to finally overthrowing the system.
Traveller from Altruria

William Dean Howells
Set in the early 1890s, at a fashionable summer resort somewhere on the East Coast of the United States, this book tells the story of Mr. Twelvemough, an author who has been selected to function as host to a visitor from the faraway island of Altruria. The visitor, Mr. Homos, has come all the way to the United States, a country which prides itself on democracy and equality, to experience everyday life in America firsthand, and to see for himself how the principle that "All men are created equal" is being put into practice. Due to Altruria's secluded existence, very little is known about the island, so Twelvemough and his circle of acquaintances, all of whom are staying at the same resort hotel, seem more eager to learn about Altruria than to explain American life and institutions. To their dismay, it becomes gradually clear that the United States is greatly lagging behind Altruria in practically every aspect of life, be it political, economic, cultural or moral.
Mauprat

George Sand
Bernard Mauprat was raised by lawless brigands and knows no other way of life until age 17. Then everything changes for him when his cousin Edmee is taken hostage in the castle where he lives. After helping her escape, he goes to live with his uncle and is offered the opportunity of an education. He has fallen hopelessly in love with Edmee, but his brutishness makes her hold him out at arm's length. Can the positive influence of Bernard’s new home environment overcome the moral turpitude of his upbringing? How will he respond when his past comes back to haunt him? And can he clear his name after being accused of a heinous crime?
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Golden Calf

Mary Elizabeth Braddon
A late 19th Century sensation novel following the young life of Ida Palliser as she searches for fortune and love within England's Gentry Class. Victorian sensation books were often set in ordinary, familiar setting, undermining the perceived adherence to social convention. They exposed the true lives of Victorian England's upper class - lives they tried to keep hidden.
Lost Illusions: Ève and David

Honoré de Balzac
Ève and David (1843) is the final book in Balzac’s Lost Illusions trilogy, which is part of his sweeping set of novels collectively titled La Comédie Humaine. The story is set in post-Napoleonic France. In the first volume of the trilogy (Two Poets, 1837), we meet Lucien Chardon, an aspiring poet frustrated by the pettiness of provincial life. In the second volume (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris, 1839) Lucien, now using the more aristocratic-sounding surname "de Rubempré," leaves his family in order to seek fame and fortune in the literary world of Paris. By the end of that book, he faced imminent emotional and financial collapse.

In this present volume, the reader is returned to the provincial town of Angoulême, where Lucien's sister Ève and her husband, Lucien's friend David, have been desperately struggling against clever competition to keep a their printing shop afloat. Their situation is complicated when Lucien's financial distress spills over into their lives.

Balzac’s work was hugely influential in the development of realism in fiction. The Lost Illusions trilogy is one of his greatest achievements, and is named in the reference work 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.
Romance of California Life; Illustrated By Pacific Slope Stories, Thrilling, Pathetic And Humorous

John Habberton
These 37 short stories were authored by John Habberton (1842–1921), an American writer. He spent nearly twenty years as the literary and drama critic for the New York Herald, but he is best known for his stories about early California life, many of which were collected in this 1880 book.
Henry Dunbar

Mary Elizabeth Braddon
In this novel by Victorian sensationalist Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Henry Dunbar returns to England after a 30-year exile to India for committing forgery. What follows is an adventure involving murder, deception, the ethical quandaries of guilt and responsibility, and the struggle against the gender and social barriers of the Victorian era.
Heavenly Twins

Sarah Grand
First published in 1893, this novel came to question many subjects which were considered taboo. Through a few interconnected plots and sub plots, the story examines the role of women and the different opportunities women and men had. Through the twins of the title, a girl and a boy, and through two other ladies we discover the Victorian world in a different light. What does a woman have to do if, after marriage, she discovers very unsettling things about her husband's past? Yes, society expects her to stay with him and honor the marriage. But what if she is not willing? What are women expected to do when trapped in loveless marriages? The book also examine in many ways the idea that women are not inferior to men and should receive the same education, information about life, and preparation for the real world. This book received much academic attention. It is a must read for all feminist fiction admirers, history lovers, and many more from every field. It tells about Victorian society as it really was.
Ormond

Maria Edgeworth
Maria Edgeworth was one of the most popular writers of her time, a sharp and witty observer of society manners, and a favorite author for Jane Austen.

“Ormond,” published in 1817, is a “coming-of-age” novel, tracing a young man’s development as he approaches the age of majority. When we meet him, Harry Ormond has his “heart in the right place,” but is unsettled of character, naïve and impulsive. The central issue is: “What kind of man will he become?”

In part, Harry is influenced by the books he reads: Fielding’s “Tom Jones,” Richardson’s “Sir Charles Grandison,” and works of the French Enlightenment. More important, however, are influences from the company he keeps, much as Prince Hal in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” takes shape as a reflection of the people around him. As an orphan, Harry had been adopted by Sir Ulick O’Shane, a man of society, full of subtlety and strategies, who exploits his public trust for private advantage (a practice known at that time as “jobbing”). Harry also spends time with Sir Ulick’s cousin Cornelius, a Falstaffian figure of hearty good cheer and eccentric rural lifestyle. (He enthrones himself on a tiny island in an Irish lake, calls himself the “King of the Black Islands” and nicknames Ormond “Prince Harry.”) Later, Harry follows Cornelius’s daughter to Paris, where he witnesses the glamorous dissipation of French society in the years before the Revolution.

This novel explores the challenges of bringing together apparent oppositions: reconciling promised loyalty with assertion of self, Anglo-Irish landlords with their Irish tenants, Catholics with Protestants, and the impulsive heart with the rational head.

“Ormond” is named in the reference list “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.”
Select Conversations with an Uncle (Now Extinct) and Two Other Reminiscences

H. G. Wells
Select Conversations with an Uncle, published in 1895, was H.G. Wells's first literary publication in book form. It consists of reports of twelve conversations between a fictional witty uncle who has returned to London from South Africa with "a certain affluence," as well as two other conversations (one on aestheticism that takes place in a train, titled "A Misunderstood Artist," and another on physiognomy, titled "The Man with a Nose")
Blind Love

Walter Besant
Blind Love, also published under the titles Iris and The Lord Harry is Wilkie Collins' last novel, completed after his death by Walter Besant. The blind love in the title refers to the love of Iris, a woman of virtue, for the morally corrupt Henry Norland. She loves him despite all his faults, but she also does not realize the full extent of them. As in many of Wilkie Collins' novels, this book also tackles difficult social problems. In this case, the Irish Question and women's rights bring another layer to the narrative.
Three Clerks (version 2)

Anthony Trollope
Romance and crime in the mid-19th century British Civil Service. In this early novel,Trollope draws on his own experiences as a junior clerk in the General Post Office to provide an entertaining and moving account of how ambition within the service can affect friendship and love.
Three Clerks

Anthony Trollope
The Three Clerks was Trollope’s sixth novel and was written mostly in railway carriages, since his work for the Post Office still entailed a good deal of travelling; to make life easier for himself, Trollope had devised what he called his ‘tablet’, a square block which he rested upon his knees in such a way that he could write in complete comfort. The story is drawn from his memories of his work (as a clerk) at the GPO in St Martin-le-Grand, and it is considered the most autobiographical of Trollope’s novels – a story of the differing fortunes of 3 young men working at “Weights and Measures” and their relationships with a family of 3 sisters.
Macdermots of Ballycloran

Anthony Trollope
This is the story of the Macdermots of Ballycloran the story is about the tragic demise of a landowning family. Larry Macdermot lives in a dilapidated mansion in Co. Leitrim, whose mortgage to Joe Flannelly he cannot keep up. Enmity between the Macdermot and Flannelly families is sharpened by son Thady's having declined to marry Joe Flannelly's daughter, Sally. Macdermot's daughter, Feemy, is herself seduced by the locally hated English police officer, Captain Myles Ussher. This was Trollope's first published novel, which he began in September 1843 and completed by June 1845. However, it was not published until 1847.
Beyond These Voices

Mary Elizabeth Braddon
This novel tells the fictional life story of Veera Davis. The daughter of a poet and a poor noble woman, who is left in the care of her grandmother to a lonely and monotonous childhood, she has to make her way up in the world. But everything has a price. She tries to follow the conventions of the society which shunned her when she was poor. The novel explores themes such as love, money and loss. Don't worry, there is also a good murder mystery
Caxtons: A Family Picture

Edward Bulwer-Lytton
The quiet country life of the Caxton family is interrupted by a visit to London. There the son, Pisistratus, is offered the position of secretary to a leader in Parliament. That parliamentarian's wife was loved as a girl by both Pisistratus' father and uncle; but she had passed them both by to make a marriage better suited to an ambitious woman. By a freak of fate, Pisistratus now falls in love with her daughter Fannie.

Meanwhile, Pisistratus' uncle is estranged from his own son. Between each person's pride, the rift doesn't seem possible to settle. Pisistratus does what he can to heal the wounds and reunite the family.

A further outline of this story would give no idea of its charm. The mutual affection of the Caxtons is finely indicated, and the gradations of light and shade make a beautiful picture. Never before had Bulwer written with so light a touch and so gentle a humor, and this novel has been called the most brilliant and attractive of productions. His gentle satire of certain phrases of political life was founded, doubtless, on actual experience. - Summary modified from "Warner's Synopsis of Books Ancient and Modern, Vol. 2" (1910)
Moments With Mark Twain

Albert Bigelow Paine
These selections from the works of Mark Twain are presented in chronological order. They include the memorable whitewashing of the fence in "Tom Sawyer", events preceding the Mississippi River raft journey in "Huckleberry Finn", a dark moment during the exchange of identities in “The Prince and the Pauper”, and reflections of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. A critic wrote of another excerpt concerning a feud, "...as dramatic and powerful an episode as I know in modern literature." Also included are comments about travel abroad, Joan of Arc, a generous helping of Twain’s renowned quips, and mortality. (Lee Smalley)
Charlotte's Inheritance

Mary Elizabeth Braddon
A lesser known novel by the sensational English novelist, Charlotte's Inheritance opens in Paris in a dilapidated boarding house let to students by a scarcely adequate landlady. Enter Gustave, a young provincial, arriving in Paris supposedly to study law, but in reality as the proposed husband of the dour and unattractive daughter of his sponsor. Unable to tolerate the life arranged for him, Gustave quits the boarding house but recommends it to a mysterious young English widow who approaches him for assistance.
Wyllard's Weird

Mary Elizabeth Braddon
A novel written in three volumes. In the golden age of steam, the London train wends its way across the Tamar into the strange and mystic land that is Cornwall, having left most of its length at Plymouth. A weary doctor gazes at the countryside, when the train grinds to a halt and his professional attention is demanded. A young woman. An apparent suicide. Who was she? What brought her to Cornwall? What drove her to kill herself? Or did she?
Around The Yule Log

Willis Boyd Allen
Eleven yule-tide stories by a popular writer of the late 19th – early 20th centuries. -
Christmas Stories from French and Spanish Writers

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón y Ariza
Fifteen short stories by Antoinette Ogden from French and Spanish writers of many times.
Mont Oriol: or A Romance of Auvergne

Guy de Maupassant
Young bride Christiane arrives in Auvergne to "take the waters" with her husband, described as "a sickly flower, or a sucking pig with its hair shaved off." But rather than the relaxing family vacation she expects, she finds herself the center of a conspiracy between her father, the Marquis, and the "fossil" medical team in an effort to solve the problem of a lack of heir. Suddenly the discovery of a new spa throws the resort into disarray and brings a lowly family to prominence. Romantic intrigue, financial speculation, satire in the medical profession, a social commentary on the status of women, are all delivered in de Maupassant's picturesque prose. (Lynne Thompson)
Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Dr. Grimshawe is a spider-cultivating eccentric. The central secret of the book is an all-encompassing spiders web. The central character is loosely based on the author Nathaniel Hawthorne. He always considered the book as unfinished and it wasn't published until after his death by his son Julian.Summary by Michele Eaton
Antonia

George Sand
Will love conquer all? An entertaining novel of growth in light of societal pressures of propriety, finance and inheritance of 19th century France. Intriguing events and turns of phrase abound.
Lear of the Steppes, etc.

Ivan Turgenev
This book contains three novellas by one of the major writers of Russian literature. The first, A LEAR OF THE STEPPES, is a brilliant re-imagining of Shakespeare’s play King Lear, wherein a larger-than-life father makes a life-altering decision with consequences unforeseen by him. FAUST begins at Section 11. In a series of letters to a friend the writer recounts his chance meeting with a married woman whom he had known years earlier when both were single and committed to each other. The ensuing events are vividly revealed in the letters.Section 19 introduces ACIA, the final “ETC.” of the book’s title. Turgenev poignantly portrays the twists and turns of human emotions in this moving psychological portrait of two people who fall in love. Leo Tolstoy believed Acia to be one of Turgenev's greatest stories.(Lee Smalley)
Wounds In The Rain; War Stories

Stephen Crane
Eleven stories of war by the author of The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane was an American author. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. Crane's writing is characterized by vivid intensity, distinctive dialects, and irony. Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises and social isolation. His writing made a deep impression on 20th-century writers, most prominent among them Ernest Hemingway, and is thought to have inspired the Modernists and the Imagists.
Barchester Towers

Anthony Trollope
This is the second in Trollope’s ‘Barsetshire’ series of novels. The later novels in the series move away from Barchester itself but 'Barchester Towers' is very much a sequel to the first book ‘The Warden’, which is also available from Librivox.

The old bishop dies, the archdeacon, Dr. Grantly fails to succeed him and a new bishop, Dr. Proudie is appointed. Dr. Grantly gains a worthy foe, not the new bishop but his wife, Mrs. Proudie, strict Sabbatarian and power behind the Episcopal throne together with the bishop’s chaplain, Mr. Slope.

John Bold is also dead and Eleanor, now a wealthy young widow sets clerical hearts fluttering. The new bishop must deal with the wardenship of Hiram’s Hospital. Will it go to Mr. Harding? All is to play for. Then the old Dean dies and the stakes are raised.
Juggernaut: A Veiled Record

Eggleston, George
Edgar Braine was consistently successful at all he set out to accomplish. He went through life with goals and worked diligently and with ethical purity in reaching those goals, from becoming editor of the local newspaper on up to his political aspirations. That was how his mother, in her waning years, had advised him to reach his goals, and Edgar was determined to honor her advice. There was one caveat in his mothers advice however, and it is for Edgar to determine exactly what she meant by it. Is success measured by the interactions between business, politics, and marriage?
Mysteries of Paris - Volume 6

Eugène Sue
Rodolphe, who is really the Grand Duke of Gerolstein (a fictional kingdom of Germany) but is disguised as a Parisian worker. He can speak in argot, is extremely strong and a good fighter. However he shows great compassion for the lower classes, good judgment, and has a brilliant mind. He is at ease in all layers of society and so is able to understand their problems, and how the different social classes are linked. Summary by wikipedia
Bagpipers

George Sand
A story of two sets of lovers and the development of their relationships, set in rural France in the mid 19th century.
Alice Dugdale

Anthony Trollope
An ordinary village girl's plans for the future with her long-standing beau are threatened when he is seen to be an attractive prospect by a local noble family Trollope's novella works through the consequences with typical affection and sensitivity.
Mysteries of Paris - Volume 2

Eugène Sue
Rodolphe, is really the Grand Duke of Gerolstein (a fictional kingdom of Germany) but is disguised as a Parisian worker. He can speak in argot, is extremely strong and a good fighter. However he shows great compassion for the lower classes, good judgment, and has a brilliant mind. He is at ease in all layers of society and so is able to understand their problems, and how the different social classes are linked. Summary by Michele Eaton
Freaks on the Fells: Three Months' Rustication, Story 2 (Dramatic Reading)

R. M. Ballantyne
Join us in a journey of two young men in search of adventure as they discover more than they bargained for.
Noughts and Crosses: Stories, Studies and Sketches

Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
This is a collection of well-written engaging short stories written by "Q", the pen name of the prolific and eccentric Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch.
Murder of Delicia

Marie Corelli
The following slight and unelaborated sketch of a very commonplace and everyday tragedy will, I am aware, meet with the unqualified disapproval of the 'superior' sex. They will assert, with much indignant emphasis, that the character of 'Lord Carlyon' is an impossible one, and that such a 'cad' as he is shown to be never existed. Anticipating these remarks, I have to say in reply that the two chief personages in my story, namely, 'Lord Carlyon' and his wife, are drawn strictly from the life; and, that though both the originals have some years since departed from this scene of earthly contest and misunderstanding, so that my delineation of their characters can no longer grieve or offend either, the 'murder of Delicia' was consummated at the hands of her husband precisely in the way I have depicted it.
Our Street

William Makepeace Thackeray
Written as an autobiographical sketch of a Mr. M.A. Titmarsh, Our Street is a tongue-in-cheek look at English society and the characters who live in the street where he finds himself. It is the second of five "Christmas Books" written by Thackeray under the pseudonym of M.A. Titmarsh.
Arabella Stuart

George Payne Rainsford James
Lady Arabella Stuart was an English noblewoman at the beginning of the seventeenth century. At one time considered to be a possible successor to Elizabeth I, the crown eventually went to her cousin, the tyrannical James I. Our story begins in 1603, shortly after his ascension to the throne. Apparently she was happy at the change in fortune, although relations with her kinsman deteriorated after her clandestine marriage, which was incorrectly seen as a power struggle. Even her closest friends could not protect her. In James's usual fashion, this is a colorful fictional account of her life.
Gold Bag

Carolyn Wells
The case involves a millionaire murdered in his study, suspicious servants, a beautiful niece, a private secretary and a will. enamored. A Holmes like detective is brought in to solve the mystery.
Far Above Rubies

George MacDonald
Proverbs 31:10-11 says, "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil." (KJV) With this in mind, George MacDonald gives us the short story of a young and aspiring Scottish poet named Hector.
Strangers at Lisconnel

Jane Barlow
Strangers at Lisconnel is a sequel to Jane Barlow’s Irish Idylls. The locations and most of the characters are common to both. There is great humor and concomitantly a certain melancholy in most of these stories of the most rural of rural places in Ireland. Although of a higher social class than her characters, Our Jane seems to have a touch of softness in her heart for their utter simplicity, abject poverty and naiveté. From the following brief example of dialogue, can be seen that Ms Barlow could only have come to write these words after having heard them countless times in person: Mrs. Kilfoyle: "I declare, now, you'd whiles think things knew what you was manin' in your mind, and riz themselves up agin it a' purpose to prevint you, they happen that conthráry." Although Jane Barlow did not consider her poetry worthwhile, the rythmn and music of her prose is magical to the ear.
Silver Bullet

Fergus Hume
Dr. Jim Herrick and his friend Robin are on a walking tour in the English countryside when they come across a large house where all the lights in the house are on and all of the doors are open. While trying to find someone at home, they discover the body of Colonel Carr, dead from a gunshot wound. After reporting their discovery to the authorities, Dr. Jim decides he would investigate the murder. Suspects abound as the Colonel was an intensely disliked person. A classic “who done it” written by a well respected British mystery writer will hold the attention of a listener throughout the tale.
Mysteries of Paris - Volume 3

Eugène Sue
Rodolphe, who is really the Grand Duke of Gerolstein (a fictional kingdom of Germany) but is disguised as a Parisian worker. He can speak in argot, is extremely strong and a good fighter. However he shows great compassion for the lower classes, good judgment, and has a brilliant mind. He is at ease in all layers of society and so is able to understand their problems, and how the different social classes are linked.
Compleat Bachelor

Oliver Onions
George Oliver Onions was a British writer of story collections and over 40 novels…. Onions wrote detective fiction, social comedy, historical fiction and romance novels. This social comedy of late Victorian England is among his first published materials. Rollo Butterfield, the compleat bachelor, looks upon his family and friends with an affectionate, gently humorous eye.
Pretty Sister Of José

Frances Hodgson Burnett
Pepita would rather become a witch than a wife. She's seen too many women, including her mother, wither away at their husband's hands. Popular and respected, our gentle, but fiercely independent heroine immediately grows cruel and cold to any suitor drawn in by her allure. When a famous bullfighting lady killer from Madrid takes interest in her, will Pepita's resolve crumble with disastrous consequences?

A hit upon its 1899 release, this novella later spawned both a play and silent film adaptation. Despite its public popularity, its (now rather tame) intense love story and positive portrayal of Spaniards drew some controversy from English critics.

Summary by Mary Kay.
Untempered Wind

Joanna E. Wood
Upon publication of “The Untempered Wind” in 1894, Joanna Wood quickly rose to international prominence, becoming in the next few years the most highly paid fiction-writer in Canada. In this novel, we find a detailed picture of village life. The narrative weaves through a variety of character types: the refined and the coarse, the humble and the self-righteous, the virtuous and the vicious. All these types are measured according to their treatment of Myron Holder, a young unwed mother — a “fallen woman” in the eyes of this “spiteful, narrow-minded village.”An early reviewer extolled Wood as Canada’s Charlotte Brontë, because of her sympathetic treatment of a disadvantaged woman trying to forge an independent life. An even more apt comparison might be to Thomas Hardy: like Hardy's characters, Myron is buffeted by cruel, relentless Fate — the “untempered wind” of the title.In “Silenced Sextet” (a 1993 study of once-popular Canadian women writers who subsequently dropped out of the public eye), Joanna Wood is seen as an important figure in the development of realism in Canadian literature: “No nineteenth-century writer better presents the sound, smell, and feel of day-to-day village life in this country.”
Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter?

Helen H. Gardener
Twenty-year-old Gertrude Foster has had the sheltered upbringing typical of women of her class. Yet, she questions the restrictive norms with which she has been raised and does not wish to marry a man who will not see her as an equal.Gertrude receives a rude awakening to the state of society when she is brought face to face with poverty in her community, and she is further disturbed when she learns of shocking age of consent legislation being discussed in the state assembly. Her concerns hit close to home after she befriends two working-class girls.
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