Of the complex, richly rewarding masterworks he wrote in the last decade of his life, Little Dorrit is the book in which Charles Dickens most fully unleashed his indignation at the fallen state of mid-Victorian society. Crammed with persons and incidents in whose recreation nothing is accidental or spurious, containing, in its picture of the Circumlocution Office, the most witheringly exact satire of a bureaucracy we possess, Little Dorrit is a stunning...

Contemporary fiction. 'I walk'd about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the contemplation of my deliverance . . . reflecting upon all my comrades that were drown'd, and that there should not be one soul sav'd but my self . . . ' Who has not dreamed of life on an exotic isle, far away from civilization? Here is the novel which has inspired countless imitations by lesser writers, none of which equal the...

The Mill on the Floss follows the life of Maggie Tulliver, a young girl growing up in a rural English town. Maggie is a passionate and intelligent girl who struggles to reconcile her desires with the expectations of her family, friends, and society. She finds solace in her relationship with her brother Tom and her childhood friend Philip Wakem. The novel follows her journey from childhood to adulthood as she navigates her family's financial struggles...

Henry Jekyll was the kindest, most respected man in England. Why then was the foul, brutal Hyde his sole heir? The answer to this was so shocking it could drive men mad.

Featuring the images of some of the world's most famous stage and film actors, these additions to the all-new Oxford School Shakespeare introduce--and enthrall--young people to one of the greatest writers of all time. This season brings revised editions of five of the Bard's most famous plays--As You Like It, Othello, Hamlet, Love's Labour Lost and The Taming of the Shrew. Designed specifically for students unfamiliar with Shakespeare's rich literary...

Colonel Pyncheon does well in denouncing Old Matthew: he founds a New England dynasty and builds a remarkable mansion; but on its opening day he is found dead, slaked in his own blood. By 1840, that dynasty is almost spent; amid the dust and decay of the Seven Gables, Clifford and Hepzibah believe in their own continued nobility as much as they believe in the mysterious curse still tracking the Pyncheons. After 30 years in prison for a murder he did...

"On board a ship bound for Natal, adventurer Allan Quatermain meets Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good. His new friends have set out to find Sir Henry's younger brother, who vanished while seeking King Solomon's legendary diamond mines in the African interior. By strange chance, Quatermain has a map to the mines, drawn in blood, and agrees to join the others on their perilous journey. The travellers face many dangers on their quest - the baking...

Dramatizes how the birth of American culture was intertwined with that of Native Americans. In 1757, as the English and the French war over American territory, the frontier scout Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo) risks his life to escort two sisters through hostile Huron country. Hawkeye enlists the aid of his Mohican friends Chingachgook and Uncas, and together they battle deception, brutality, and death.

In fifteenth-century Paris, a disfigured man named Quasimodo, who was abandoned as an infant in the cathedral of Notre-Dame and now lives in its bell tower, must come to the aid of a beautiful gypsy girl named Esmeralda after she repels the advances of the cruel archdeacon Don Claude Frollo.

English literature's first and greatest superhero, Sherlock Holmes still fascinates readers more than 100 years after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the beloved detective. In this, the first collection of Holmes's stories, the detective uses his uncanny skills to rescue a king from blackmail, to capture an ingenious bank robber, and to save an innocent son accused of patricide. Though readers have good reason to believe Holmes will somehow triumph...