Edna May Oliver

A pair of lookalikes, one a former French aristocrat and the other an alcoholic English lawyer, fall in love with the same woman amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution. Alas, an aristocrat and a barrister on the same plateau. This is the story of a revolution, a revolution that occurred in France known as the Reign of Terror. The barrister, the town alcoholic and man of disrepute, is in love with a beautiful woman, who marries the aristocrat and bears a beautiful baby girl. The baby girl is infatuated with the barrister, and he with her because of her mother. The ultimate sacrifice occurs and a man's soul goes forward. Dissipated lawyer Sydney Carton defends emigre Charles Darnay from charges of spying against England. He becomes enamored of Darnay's fiancée, Lucie Manette, and agrees to help her save Darnay from the guillotine when he is captured by Revolutionaries in Paris. —Marg Baskin <marg@asd.raytheon.ca> A disreputable barrister finds redemption through the most unlikely of friendships and in the process provides for himself both human and spiritual salvation. —Carl Schultz

A chronicle of the lives of sisters growing up in 19th-century New England. Little Women is a "coming of age" drama tracing the lives of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. During the American Civil War, the girls' father is away serving as a minister to the troops. The family, headed by their beloved Marmee, must struggle to make ends meet, with the help of their kind and wealthy neighbor Mr. Laurence, and his high-spirited grandson Laurie. —Liza Esser <essereli@student.msu.edu> Josephine March and her three sisters Meg, Amy, and Beth grow up with their mother's guidance while their father is a chaplain in the American Civil War. The vivacious quartet are very close and happy despite limited means. Laurie Laurence, the well-off boy next door, takes a liking to Jo, and his tutor John Brooke eyes older sister Meg during a party. Meg marries Mr. Brooke, but Jo rejects Laurie's proposal and moves to New York for new adventures. When Beth starts to lose her battle with scarlet fever, Jo returns to her deathbed. Sister Amy returns married to Jo's one true love, Laurie. Will she ever find someone for herself? —Gary Jackson <garyjack5@cogeco.ca>

A newspaper editor settles in an Oklahoma boom town with his reluctant wife at the end of the nineteenth century. When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes a leading citizen of the boom town of Osage. Once the town is established, though, he begins to feel confined again and heads for the Cherokee Strip, leaving his family behind. During this and other absences, his wife Sabra must learn to take care of herself and soon becomes prominent in her own right. —George S. Davis <mgeorges@prodigy.net> 40 years of social and urban progress in American life from 1889 to 1929 are seen through the life of a progressive newspaper editor/lawyer in Oklahoma, and the wife who resents his longing for the excitement of the frontier in the years after the Oklahoma land rush. —scgary66