At The Center of Martin Chuzzlewit -- the novel Angus Wilson called "one of the most sheerly exciting of all Dickens stories"--Is Martin himself, very old, very rich, very much on his guard. What he suspects (with good reason) is that every one of Iris close and distant relations. now converging in droves on the country inn where they believe he is dying, will stop at nothing to become the inheritor of Iris great fortune. Having unjustly disinherited...

Wealth is certainly a most desirable thing, but poverty has its sunny side . . .” It's Christmas time . . . The March family has fallen on bad times after the father lost their money. The four March sisters-the nearly perfect ‘little woman' Meg, the tomboyish Jo, the shy but wise Beth, and the artist of the family Amy-are planning to brighten up their Christmas by buying presents while their father is away, fighting the Civil War. Featuring...

"First published in 1838, ‘Oliver Twist' is one of the most admired novels by Charles Dickens, an English writer, and social critic. It is the story of a young orphan who dares to say, ""Please, sir, I want some more."" After escaping from the dark and dismal workhouse where he was born, Oliver finds himself on the mean streets of Victorian-era London and is unwittingly recruited into a scabrous gang of scheming urchins. In this band of petty thieves,...

The most popular pirate story ever written in English, featuring one of literature's most beloved “bad guys,” Treasure Island has been happily devoured by several generations of boys-and girls-and grownups. Its unforgettable characters include: young Jim Hawkins, who finds himself owner of a map to Treasure Island, where the fabled pirate booty is buried; honest Captain Smollett, heroic Dr. Livesey, and the good-hearted but obtuse Squire Trelawney,...

A beautiful hardcover repackaging of this timeless classic from the publishers of the Autobiography of Mark Twain and in partnership with the Mark Twain Project. This definitive edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the only version of Mark Twain's masterpiece based on his complete manuscript, including the 663 pages found in a Los Angeles attic in 1990. Prepared by the Mark Twain Papers, the official archive of Sam Clemens's papers at the...

The old stage coach was rumbling along the dusty road that runs from Maplewood to Riverboro. The day was as warm as midsummer, though it was only the middle of May, and Mr. Jeremiah Cobb was favoring the horses as much as possible, yet never losing sight of the fact that he carried the mail. The hills were many, and the reins lay loosely in his hands as he lolled back in his seat and extended one foot and leg luxuriously over the dashboard. His brimmed...

Anne Shirley is an eleven-year-old orphan who has hung on determinedly to an optimistic spirit and a wildly creative imagination through her early deprivations. She erupts into the lives of aging brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a girl instead of the boy they had sent for. Thus begins a story of transformation for all three; indeed the whole rural community of Avonlea comes under Anne's influence in some way. We see her grow from a...

Written between 1873 and 1884 and published posthumously in 1903, The Way of All Flesh is regarded by some as the first twentieth-century novel. Samuel Butler's autobiographical account of a harsh upbringing and troubled adulthood shines an iconoclastic light on the hypocrisy of a Victorian clerical family's domestic life. It also foreshadows the crumbling of nineteenth-century bourgeois ideals in the aftermath of the First World War, as well as the...

Natty Bumppo, a young white hunter brought up in the Delaware Indian tribe, has to defend settlers before returning to the Iroquois who have allowed him parole.

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...