Classic Literature

Poor Fanny Price, raised by her aunt and uncle and growing up with her four cousins, is always treated as if she doesn't measure up. The only one who seems to appreciate her is her cousin Edmund . . . and she's fallen for him. When Henry and Mary Crawford come to Mansfield Park, the stage is set for a series of romantic adventures. Also, Mary and Edmund get along quite well and Fanny fears that she'll ending up capturing Edmund's heart. To make matters worse, it's decided the young folks put o... more info>>

An August Strindberg classic.

The original prose version of Master Olof, which is here presented for the first time in English form, was written between June 8 and August 8, 1872, while Strindberg, then only twenty-three years old, was living with two friends on one of the numerous little islands that lie between Stockholm and the open sea.

In some ways, it was unfortunate for author James Leo Herlihy that his novel Midnight Cowboy was adapted into the landmark film of the same name starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. Although the film, which won several Oscars including Best Picture, certainly brought the rising author a new level of regard and notice, its almost legendary status in the history of American filmmaking has somewhat overshadowed its literary progenitor. This is especially unfortunate since Herlihy's work is consi... more info>>

by Herman Melville Melville's classic of the great white whale, Moby Dick, and the vengeance planned by Captain Ahab. Now touted as the Greatest, Great American Novel, ironically during Melville's lifetime, he was considered a hack writer. ISBN 1-59431-876-X Fiction / Classics/ Bonus

It will be necessary, for the purpose of my story, that I shall go back more than once from the point at which it begins, so that I may explain with the least amount of awkwardness the things as they occurred, which led up to the incidents that I am about to tell; and I may as well say that these first four chapters of the book--though they may be thought to be the most interesting of them all by those who look to incidents for their interest in a tale--are in this way only preliminary.

A landmark work of world literature, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is an account of one day in the life of an upper class British woman, her husband, and her circle of friends. Woolf's narration of Clarissa Dalloway's day begins with her protagonist's preparations for a party she is holding at her house that evening, and it ends as the party gets underway. In between, Clarissa is visited by an old friend, Peter Walsh, and her mind is returned to a time thirty years earlier when she considered m... more info>>

MY DEAR MR. FIELDS,--I did promise to write an Introduction to these charming papers but an Introduction,--what is it?--a sort of pilaster, put upon the face of a building for looks' sake, and usually flat,--very flat. Sometimes it may be called a caryatid, which is, as I understand it, a cruel device of architecture, representing a man or a woman, obliged to hold up upon his or her head or shoulders a structure which they did not build, and which could stand just as well without as with them.

Early in my married life I bought a small country estate which my wife and I looked upon as a paradise. After enjoying its delight for a little more than a year our souls were saddened by the discovery that our Eden contained a serpent. This was an insufficient water-supply.

At the great atomic plant in Kimberly, a congressional committee makes a surprise inspection raising the level of the men's tension even higher than it has been. By midday there have already been minor accidents but in the giant nuclear converters which are at the heart of the project work goes on at desperate speed. Until converter Number four fails disastrously. Jorgenson, the supervisor of the technical team and his crew had been running through a new and unstable isotope when the walls of t... more info>>

When a thoroughly "nice" girl is clever as well, let her less strongly armed sisters beware. Phyllis Gordon was completely honest and very intelligent. Terry McLean was her first and only lover, and he really loved her. But Phyllis cared too much for him to marry him until she had rid herself of her unrequited passion for her millionaire employer, Kenyon Rutledge. Kenyon's fiancee, Letty Lawrence, was also well equipped with beauty and brains, and she had money besides. Yet the arrival in town ... more info>>

Gothic novel reader Catherine Morland is invited to the resort town of Bath to take part in the winter season of balls, and other fun. It is there she meets Henry Tilney, with whom she shares a dance and talks. But then the young man disappears, leaving Catherine alone. Her friend Isabella's brother, John, arrives, is taken with her and pursues her. In a surprise move, Henry comes back to Bath and his family invites Catherine to stay with them for a few weeks at their home, Northanger Abbey. Th... more info>>

To Laius, King of Thebes, an oracle foretold that the child born to him by his queen Jocasta would slay his father and wed his mother. So when in time a son was born the infant's feet were riveted together and he was left to die on Mount Cithaeron. But a shepherd found the babe and tended him, and delivered him to another shepherd who took him to his master, the King or Corinth. Polybus being childless adopted the boy, who grew up believing that he was indeed the King's son.

A collection of Christmas Traditions written by a master especially for the holiday season.

This exquisite novel, first published in 1859, like so many great works of art, holds depths of meaning which at first sight lie veiled under the simplicity and harmony of the technique. To the English reader On the Eve is a charmingly drawn picture of a quiet Russian household, with a delicate analysis of a young girl's soul; but to Russians it is also a deep and penetrating diagnosis of the destinies of the Russia of the fifties.

A novel that is as witty and playful as it is probing and profound, Virginia Woolf's Orlando is the fantastic story of a person who lives through five centuries, first as a man and then as a woman. The novel opens with Orlando living as a young man in Elizabethan England. A favorite of the queen, Orlando is given a vast estate by the aging monarch and instructed to never to grow old. He doesn't, and Woolf's novel follows him through the centuries, across the globe, through all sorts of love affa... more info>>

A William Shakespeare classic.

From the moment Dale's headlights hit the nyloned legs of lovely Julia Casson on that old Connecticut highway, trouble moved right in on him--and stayed there. Gunmen, straight coppers and crooked coppers, luscious bedtime lovelies and the fabulous mystery of the Task Force dagger deaths...Bogard cracks his way through it all to the most breathless showdown ever.

Anne Elliot fell in love with Frederick Wentworth when she was young and the two got engaged. However, persuaded by Lady Russell, Anne broke off the engagement with the penniless Frederick, the hope being someone more affluent would come along. Now, eight years later, Anne is still alone, when lo and behold Frederick re-enters her life. But this man is no longer the poor man she once knew, but instead has amassed a considerable sum capturing enemy vessels during the war. The problem is Frederic... more info>>

After having his portrait painted, Dorian Gray is captivated by his own beauty. Tempted by his world-weary friend, decadent friend Lord Henry Wotton, he wished to stay young forever and pledges his very soul to keep his good looks. As Dorian's slide into crime and cruelty progresses, he stays magically youthful, while his beautiful portrait changes, revealing the hideous corruption of moral decay.

Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, published in 1952, heralded the beginning of one of the most diverting and provocative adventures in modern American fiction. Vonnegut went on to write novels that perhaps had greater formal skill and technique, but Player Piano is a tour de force of imaginative insight into modern life and a shrewd satire of American progress. What must Vonnegut's first readers have made of Player Piano? The story gives off the dank chill of 1984 and Brave New World, b... more info>>

Pollyanna, the little girl who played the "glad" game grows up and falls in love. But will the young man she adores return her love? And if he does, how will her old "best friend" Jimmy cope

Elizabeth Bennet is the perfect Austen heroine: intelligent, generous, sensible, incapable of jealousy or any other major sin. That makes her sound like an insufferable goody-goody, but the truth is she's a completely hip character, who if provoked is not above skewering her antagonist with a piece of her exceptionally sharp--but always polite--18th century wit. The point is, you spend the whole book absolutely fixated on the critical question: will Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy hook up?

Pride and Prejudice is the story of Mr and Mrs Bennet (minor gentry), their five daughters, and the various romantic adventures at their Hertfordshire residence of Longbourn. The parents' characters are greatly contrasted: Mr Bennet being a wise and witty gentleman; while Mrs Bennet is permanently distracted by the issue of marrying off her daughters at any cost. The reason for Mrs Bennet's obsession is that their estate will pass by law after Mr Bennet's death to his closest blood relative: his... more info>>

The old man and the little boy, his grandson, sat together in the shade of the big walnut tree in the front yard, watching the "Decoration Day Parade," as it passed up the long street; and when the last of the veterans was out of sight the grandfather murmured the words of the tune that came drifting back from the now distant band at the head of the procession.