At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant...

D. H. Lawrence declared in Women in Love, his masterpiece that presaged the erotic consciousness of the 20th century, "Let us hesitate no longer to state that the sensual passions and mysteries are equally sacred with the spiritual mysteries and passions." Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen, two sisters, serve as the main characters' eyes as Lawrence examines love, sex, passion, and marriage. The two very different sisters pursue passionate, scorching adventures...

Tolstoy based "Resurrection", the last of his novels, on a true story of a philanderer whose misuse of a beautiful young orphan girl leads to her ruin. Fate brings the two together many years later and the meeting awakens the man's moral conscience. Anger, intimacy, forgiveness, and grace result. While the situation of Tolstoy's plot is alien to most people, his nuanced treatment of mortal life is familiar to all. Late in his life Tolstoy confessed...

"A hundred and fifty years after its first publication, Crime and Punishment continues to fascinate readers. It was the first of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's long novels to feature not only profound debate on the most pressing philosophical and spiritual questions of the day, but also a murder plot and a level of intrigue and tension associated more commonly with popular fiction than high literature. It established the author's reputation as both...

"A true masterwork of storytelling, Dracula has transcended generation, language, and culture to become one of the most popular novels ever written. It is a quintessential tale of suspense and horror, boasting one of the most terrifying characters ever born in literature: Count Dracula, a tragic, night-dwelling specter who feeds upon the blood of the living, and whose diabolical passions prey upon the innocent, the helpless, and the beautiful. But...

Based on the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is W. Somerset Maugham's ode to the powerful forces behind creative genius. Charles Strickland is a staid banker, a man of wealth and privilege. He is also a man possessed of an unquenchable desire to create art. As Strickland pursues his artistic vision, he leaves London for Paris and Tahiti, and in his quest makes sacrifices that leave the lives of those closest to him in tatters. Through...

Artist Basil Hallward is greatly impressed by Dorian Gray's physical beauty when he paints his portrait. Basil becomes strongly infatuated with Dorian, believing that his beauty is responsible for a new mode in Basil's art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new kind of hedonism, Lord Henry suggests that the only thing worth pursuing in life is beauty, and the fulfilment of the senses. Dorian...