Pride and Prejudice is a story set in the English countryside outside of London during the early 19th century which centers on the life of Elizabeth Bennet, the second of five sisters who are all unmarried. When a wealthy and sociable young gentleman, Charles Bingley, rents the nearby manor of Netherfield Park the opportunity to find husbands presents itself. While attending a ball the Bennets meet Charles Bingley and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy...

"Great Expectations is among the most masterful of Charles Dickens's novels. Displaying extraordinary tragicomic range, Dickens blends an atmosphere of brooding violence and guilt with sharp and often disturbing humor to create a drama charged with the thrilling intensity of a detective story and the poignancy of a spiritual autobiography. Much of the novel's power comes from Dickens's unequaled skill at making even the most wildly eccentric of characters...

Born a slave in Virginia in 1856, Booker T. Washington rose in prominence to become black America's foremost spokesman. This is the dramatic autobiographical account of Washington's struggle to succeed and prosper in a country that refused to acknowledge his existence. From his fight for an education to his founding of the world-renowned Tuskegee Institute, Up From Slavery is one of the most significant and defining works in American literature. A...

This updated authoritative edition of the classic Hardy novel, which was published anonymously and first attributed to George Eliot, is set from Hardy's revised, unedited final draft of 1912 and features a new Introduction and Afterword. There is in England no more real or typical district than Thomas Hardy's imaginary Wessex, the scattered fields and farms of which were first discovered in Far from the Madding Crowd. It is here that Gabriel Oak observes...

A British stockbroker abandons his wife and career to pursue a simple life as an artist in Tahiti.

A seductive and beautiful love story. Tells about an aristocrat, Sir Clifford Chatterley, who has come home from the war paralyzed from the waist down. His wife devotes herself to his care, but her husband's bitter arrogance soon makes her existence a nightmare. Selfishly he suggests that she produce an heir. He never dreams that she will break all the rules, and forgetting her social class, take their gamekeeper as her lover.

"In his timeless story of two pairs of mismatched lovers, The Return of the Native sets romantic idealism as a destructive counterpoint to reality and disillusionment." "Against the lowering background of Egdon Heath, fiery Eustacia Vye passes her days, wishing only for passionate love. She believes that her escape from Egdon lies in marriage to Clym Yeobright, home from Paris and discontented with his work there. But Clym wishes to return to the...

Translates the classic French story of the master swordsman whose unpleasant appearance prevents him from courting the beautiful woman with whom he has fallen in love. This acclaimed adaptation for the stage by Anthony Burgess has garnered such reviews as: "Emotional depth Rostand himself would surely have envied...Burgess' extravagant verse keeps its contours, yet trips off the tongue almost as though it were contemporary speech."--London Times.

As a young woman, Anne Shirley is embracing adulthood by becoming a productive member of society making the transition from imaginative student to respected schoolteacher. In this classic coming of age story, Anne navigates various challenges that tempt old habits and test her new maturity. A now 16-year-old Anne continues to live with Marilla in the quaint farming town of Avonlea. While poised to start a new teaching position, Anne struggles to balance...

In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret. Charlotte Bronte's novel about the passionate love between Jane Eyre, a young girl alone in the world, and the rich, brilliant, domineering Rochester has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic, ever since...