Mark Twain

Mark Twain's darkly comic short classic set in the antebellum South stands as a literary condemnation of slavery and racial inequality. Each enriched classic edition includes: A concise introduction that gives readers important background information. A chronology of the author's life and work. A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context. An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations....

"In this enduring and internationally popular novel, Mark Twain combines social satire and dime-novel sensation with a rhapsody on boyhood and on America's pre-industrial past. Tom Sawyer is resilient, enterprising, and vainglorious. In a series of adventures along the banks of the Mississippi, he usually manages to come out on top. From petty triumphs over his friends and over his long-suffering Aunt Polly, to his intervention in a murder trial,...

"Published in 1882, The Prince and the Pauper is a delightful piece of historical fiction set in 1547. The young British Prince Edward, son of Henry VIII, switches place with a young pauper boy, Tom Canty, who happens to look exactly like the Prince. Tom takes over royal duties when King Henry dies and enjoys life in the palace. The real Prince is tossed out on the streets of London and learns about the life and misery of the common people of England...

After being cracked on the head with a crowbar at the Colt factory in Hartford, Connecticut, Hank Morgan awakens to find himself in sixth-century England. Captured by a knight and sentenced to death by King Arthur, the cagey Yankee instead becomes the king's right-hand wizard. Though homesick for the nineteenth century, Morgan makes the best of his surroundings, setting up factories and phone lines, as well as introducing such strange customs as advertising...

A group of nine short stories written in the 1800's about frontier life.

"From Percival Everett--a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards--comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...