The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary...

"The novel takes place entirely in the environs of Egdon Heath, and, with the exception of the epilogue, covers exactly a year and a day. The narrative begins on the evening of Guy Fawkes Night as Diggory Venn drives slowly across the heath, carrying a hidden passenger in the back of his van. When darkness falls, the country folk light bonfires on the surrounding hills, emphasizing--not for the last time--the pagan spirit of the heath and its denizens."...

Thomas Hardy's classic tale of a woman brave enough to defy convention: Soon to be a major motion picture starring Carey MulliganSpirited, impulsive, and beautiful, Bathsheba Everdene arrives in Wessex to live with her aunt. She strikes up a friendship with a neighbor, Gabriel Oak, and even saves the young shepherd's life. But when he responds by asking for her hand in marriage, she refuses. She cannot sacrifice her independence for a man she does...

"Everything has a price...Railway magnate Tom Severin is wealthy and powerful enough to satisfy any desire as soon as it arises. Anything--or anyone--is his for the asking. It should be simple to find the perfect wife--and from his first glimpse of Lady Cassandra Ravenel, he's determined to have her. But the beautiful and quick-witted Cassandra is equally determined to marry for love--the one thing he can't give. Everything except her... Severin is...

"Written deliberately to increase the circulation of Dickens's weekly magazine, Household Words, Hard Times was a huge and instantaneous success upon publication in 1854. Yet this novel is not the cheerful celebration of Victorian life one might have expected from the beloved author of The Pickwick Papers and The Old Curiosity Shop. Compressed, stark, allegorical, it is a bitter exposé of capitalist exploitation during the industrial revolution-and...

Achieving wealth and success through his savage ambitions, tycoon Rhys Winterborne resolves to marry shy, aristocratic Lady Helen Ravenel, who in spite of her gentle upbringing responds to Rhys' seductions with her own unexpected passions.

Kathleen knows better than to trust a ruthless scoundrel like Devon. But the fiery attraction between them is impossible to deny. And from the first moment Devon holds her in his arms, he vows to do whatever it takes to possess her. As Kathleen finds herself yielding to his skillfully erotic seduction, only one question remains: Can she keep from surrendering her heart to the most dangerous man she's ever known?

"Calista Langley operates an exclusive "introduction" agency in Victorian London, catering to respectable ladies and gentlemen who find themselves alone in the world. But now, a dangerously obsessed individual has begun sending her trinkets and gifts suitable only for those in deepest mourning--a black mirror, a funeral wreath, a ring set with black jet stone. Each is engraved with her initials. Desperate for help and fearing that the police will...

Anne Bronte's second novel is a passionate and courageous challenge to the conventions supposedly upheld by Victorian society and reflected in circulating-library fiction. The heroine, Helen Huntingdon, after a short period of initial happiness, leaves her dissolute husband, and must earn her own living to rescue her son from his influence. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is compelling in its imaginative power, the realism and range of its dialogue, and...

"The latest novel in the enchanting Westcott series from New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh. As a young man, Justin Wiley was banished by his father for mysterious reasons, but now his father is dead, and Justin has been Earl of Brandon for six years. A dark, dour man, he nonetheless takes it as his responsibility to care for his half-sister Maria when her mother dies. He travels to her home to fetch her back to the family seat at Everleigh...