"Wuthering Heights is one of the most famous love stories in the English language. It is also one of the most potent revenge narratives. The intense and unbreakable bond between the fiery Catherine Earnshaw and the foundling Heathcliff has startled and fascinated readers since its first publication in 1847. Of uncertain parentage and ethnicity, Heathcliff comes to Wuthering Heights as a child when Catherine's father finds him wandering alone through...

Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking,...

Jane Eyre is the story of the life of its titular protagonist, Jane Eyre, starting with her abusive childhood in Gateshead Hall, and continuing with her challenging education at Lowood School, her time as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her mysterious employer, Mr. Rochester, her time in the Moor House, where she is courted by her earnest but cold cousin, St. John Rivers, and finally with her reunion with Rochester. Jane...