"The book relates the tale of Hank Morgan, an engineer from 19th century Hartford Connecticut, who is inexplicably transported to the early medieval England of King Arthur. While there he uses his knowledge of modern technology to appear as though he is a magician. Despite his best intentions, Hank?s attempts to modernize the past bring about a tragic end. A bittersweet depiction of the Arthurian legend through the eyes of a 19th century American..."...
Seven year old Sara Crewe learns of the tragic death of her father not long after she is left in the care of Miss Michin, headmistress of a boarding school. Now an orphan and stripped of her family fortune, Sara must survive the emotional trials of loss and the mental anguish of abuse at the hands of her new caretakers.
"Sanora Babb experienced pioneer life in a one-room dugout, eye-level with the land that supported, tormented and beguiled her; where her family fought for their lives against drought, crop-failure, starvation, and almost unfathomless loneliness. Learning to read from newspapers that lined the dugout's dirt walls, she grew up to be a journalist, then a writer of unforgettable books about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, most notably Whose Names...
One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and dangerous locations, they seize whatever transportation is at hand - whether train or elephant - overcoming set-backs and always racing against the clock.
A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens's great historical novel, set against the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author's novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores...
Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, including longtime friend Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Dora, Mack and his boys, Lee Chong, and the other characters in this world where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his...
Cormac McCarthy has won nearly every major literary honor, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Set in Tennessee in the 1960s, this chilling novel sees Lester Ballard become increasingly isolated from society. After taking a deceased woman as a girlfriend, he "saves her" from a fire - and his life spirals into deepening depravity.
Philosopher, naturalist, poet and rugged individualist, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) has inspired generations of readers to think for themselves, to follow the dictates of their own conscience and to make an art of their lives. This representative sampling of his thought includes five of his most frequently cited and read essays: 'Civil Disobedience, ' his most powerful and influential political essay, exalts the law of conscience over civil law....
Step into the charming world of "Cranford" by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. This delightful novel invites you to a quaint English village, where the lives of its eccentric and endearing inhabitants are interwoven in a tapestry of humor, heartwarming moments, and social observations.
Set in the early 19th century, the narrative unfolds through the eyes of Mary Smith, an outsider welcomed into the close-knit community. As she navigates the idiosyncrasies...
A Timeless Classic of Societal Customs, Cultural Disputes, and The Cost of Non-Conformity
Henry James' novella Daisy Miller, features one of his greatest heroines. At first glance it seems to be a simple story of a lovely young, independent American girl traveling through Europe. But her flouting of social conventions has the potential to lead to catastrophe as she disrupts the rigid social rules of the Old World, attracting and scandalizing all...
David Copperfield enjoys an idyllic life with his gentle, widowed mother and his loving nurse, Peggotty. Then tragedy strikes when Mr. Murdstone weds David's mother and drives her to an early grave. Despised by his stepfather, the boy is forced to live in misery and poverty until he runs away to throw himself upon the mercy of his eccentric aunt. Charles Dickens's classic tale of growing up.
"Over one hundred and fifty years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French nobleman and an astute political scientist, came to the United States to evaluate the meaning and actual functioning of democracy. Democracy in America is the classic treatise on the American way of life that he wrote as a result of his visit." "Tocqueville discusses the advantages and dangers of the majority rule -- which he thought could be as tyrannical as the rule of...
The third of Dostoevsky's five major novels, Devils (1871-2), also known as The Possessed, is at once a powerful political tract and a profound study of atheism, depicting the disarray that follows the appearance of a band of modish radicals in a small provincial town.
"One of the most frequently read and performed of all stage works, Shakespeare's Hamlet is unsurpassed in its complexity and richness. Now the most extensively annotated version of Hamlet to date makes the play completely accessible to readers in the twenty-first century. It has been carefully assembled with students, teachers, and the general reader in mind." "Eminent linguist and translator Burton Raffel offers generous help with vocabulary and...
A Dutch boy and girl work toward two goals--finding the doctor who can restore their father's memory and winning the competition for the silver skates. Includes a brief biography of the author and a history of ice skating.
A Swiss orphan is heartbroken when she must leave her beloved grandfather and their happy home in the mountains to go to school and to care for an invalid girl in the city. This edition of the classic tale includes illustrations and notes about the life of the times.
Hunter S. Thompson's vivid account of his experiences with California's most notorious motorcycle gang, the Hell's Angels. In the mid-1960s, Thompson spent almost two years living with the controversial Angels, cycling up and down the coast, reveling in the anarchic spirit of their clan, and, as befits their name, raising hell. His book successfully captures a singular moment in American history, when the biker lifestyle was first defined, and when...
The magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a proud stranger in his native land. He was a young American Indian named Abel, and he lived in two worlds. One was that of his father, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, the ecstasy of the drug called peyote. The other was the world of the twentieth century, goading him into a compulsive cycle of sexual exploits, dissipation, and disgust. Home from a foreign war,...
