Description by OLDIES.com:
Nine literary classics are brought to the screen in this collection.
HORATIO HORNBLOWER - VOL. 1: THE DUEL: The first of a four-part series, THE DUEL tells the story of Horatio Hornblower as he reports for duty aboard the battleship Justinian in 1793.
HORATIO HORNBLOWER - VOL. 2: THE FIRE SHIPS: The second of a four-part series, THE FIRE SHIPS relates the story of Horatio Hornblower and his crewmates aboard a warship named the Indefatigable.
VANITY FAIR: William Makepeace Thackeray's classic satirical novel is brought to the screen once again in this faithful and lengthy adaptation. Becky Sharp is a beautiful, clever, but poor girl determined to earn a higher place in society at any cost. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, the story recounts Becky's adventures as, on her climb upward, she manipulates the various characters from London ballrooms to the battlefields of Waterloo.
THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY: London's Royal Shakespeare Company performs this nine-hour marathon version of Charles Dickens's classic tale.
THE FLAME TREES OF THIKA: This is an excellent television mini-series based on Elspeth Huxley's much-loved memoir of her upbringing in East Africa, where her family established a farm on the rugged land in 1913.
THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE: Ciaran Hinds (Persuasion, Circle Of Friends) stars as the tormented Michael Henchard in this A&E movie adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel The Mayor Of Casterbridge.
CATHERINE THE GREAT: Catherine Zeta-Jones (Mask Of Zorro, Traffic) portrays the legendary Russian empress in this made-for-TV epic. The film is helmed by the great TV-movie director Marvin Chomsky, who earlier made Holocaust, Roots, and Victory At Entebbe, among others.
TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES: Made for the Arts & Entertainment network, this TV production is based on Thomas Hardy's classic novel of the same name.
THE GREAT GATSBY: Superb dialogue and the use of dreamy scene overlaps and flashbacks mark this gorgeous, deceptively simple, and quietly intense A&E original movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Truer to the novel than any other film adaptation, this version of The Great Gatsby beautifully and dramatically weaves a tangled web of wealth and entitlement, love and longing, and brutality and apathy.
