A novel of Regency England that centers upon a self-assured young lady who is determined to arrange her life and the lives of those around her into a pattern dictated by her romantic fancy.

In tracing the parish boy's progress, Dickens did not write a topical satire on the workhouse system and the role of the 1834 New Poor Law in fostering criminality, he created a story about the survival of good, and the exploitation of violence.

Considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens' most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Haversham and her beautiful...

Recounts the further adventures, successes, and failures of the numerous young men of Plumfield school.

The Last of the Mohicans is the second and most popular of James Fenimore Cooper's five Leatherstocking Tales. Set in 1757 during the fierce French and Indian wars, Cooper's classic novel of adventure follows an adroit scout and his companion as they weave through the lush and spectacular wilderness of upstate New York, fighting to save the beautiful daughters of a fort commander from a treacherous Huron renegade. With its death-defying chases and...

Begun as an ambitious project by the versatile English courtier, diplomat, philosopher, and author Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century, The Canterbury Tales follows a group of people on their pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Saint Thomas Becket. The Prologue introduces all of the pilgrims in great detail, and through these descriptions Chaucer provides the entire spectrum of social classes and professions of his time. When the group stops at an inn...

Presents the text of Shakespeare's comedy of love and redemption in exile, and includes information about the performance history of the play, explanatory notes, and other reference materials.

The first of Cather's renowned prairie novels--a story that expresses Cather's conviction that "the history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman". When Alexandra Bergson takes over the family farm after her father's death, she falls under the spell of the rich, forbidding Nebraska prairie.

When "Lord Jim" first appeared in 1900, many took Joseph Conrad to task for couching an entire novel in the form of an extended conversation - a ripping good yarn, if you like (one critic in The Academy complained that the narrator 'was telling that after-dinner story to his companions for eleven solid hours'). Conrad defended his method, insisting that people really do talk for that long, and listen as well. In fact his chatty masterwork requires...

The sisters -- An encounter -- Araby -- Eveline -- After the race -- Two gallants -- The boarding house -- A little cloud -- Counterparts -- Clay --A Painful Case -- Ivy Day in the Committee Room -- A Mother -- Grace -- and perhaps the most welL-known of all the stories (and the longest): The Dead.