The Puritans thought Hester Prynne's crime was unforgiveable. She was convicted, imprisoned -- and then forced to wear, forever, a public reminder of her sin. The Scarlet Letter. The Letter was unending punishment: it set Hester apart from society, it tormented her days and haunted her soul. But the Letter haunted others, as well. Its mystery turned Roger Chillingworth from a gentle healer into a man driven by revenge. Its meaning burned into Rev....

In A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain's unofficial sequel to The Innocents Abroad, the author records his hilarious and diverse observations and insights while on a fifteen-month walking trip through Central Europe and the Alps.

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...

The adventures and pranks of a mischievous boy growing up in a Mississippi River town on the early nineteenth century. Here is one of the great American novels, illustrated by one of this country's most distinguished artists. Readers will enjoy the antics of that irrepressible boy-hero, Tom, who lies to his Aunt Polly and still is forgiven, wins the heart of Becky Thatcher by getting whipped at school, gets out of whitewashing a fence by tricking...

In the year 1792, Sir Percy and Lady Marguerite Blakeney are the darlings of British society-he is known as one of the wealthiest and most fashionable men in England, and a dimwit; she is French, a stunning fomer actress, and "the cleverest woman in Europe" - and they find themselves at the center of a deadly political intrigue. The Reign of Terror controls France and everyday, aristocrats in Paris fall victim to Madame la Guillotine. Only one man...

When Alexandra Bergson, the daughter of Swedish immigrants, takes over the family farm after her father's death, she falls under the spell of the rich, forbidding Nebraska prairie. With strength and resoluteness, she turns the wild landscape into orderly fields.

Oliver Twist is born in the harsh confines of a workhouse, his mother expiring in childbirth, his father unknown. After enduring years of brutal treatment, Oliver runs away to London, where he falls in with a band of child pickpockets led by the villainous Fagin. His foray into a life of crime soon lands him into the arms of the law, when Oliver's fortunes finally appear to turn as the robbery victim becomes his benefactor. But Fagin isn't about to...

John Seelye, an expert on Robert Louis Stevenson, writes the Introduction for this repackaged edition of a classic that Stevenson considers his finest work. An orphan destined for slavery, David Balfour embarks on a spirited odyssey that includes a shipwreck, a hazardous journey across Scotland, and narrow escapes. This memorable favorite among students is the story of young David Balfour, an orphan, whose miserly old uncle cheats him out of his inheritance...

"For the diver Kino, finding a magnificent pearl means the promise of better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to tragedy. Kino and his wife illustrate the fall from innocence of people who believe that wealth erases all problems" -- P. 4 of cover.

This novel is a study of New World hope and innocence set in an Old World of violence. The scene is Saigon in the violent years when the French were desperately trying to hold their footing in the Far East. The principal characters are a skeptical British journalist, his attractive Vietnamese mistress, and an eager young American sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission.