"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...

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...

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...

"Wharton's sly and delicious novel about the ambitious social ascent of Undine Spragg, now in a Penguin Vitae edition, with a foreword by Sofia Coppola"-- "Considered by many to be her masterpiece, Edith Wharton’s second full-length work is a scathing yet personal examination of the exploits and follies of the modern upper class. As she unfolds the story of Undine Spragg, from New York to Europe, Wharton affords us a detailed glimpse of what might...

Dutiful Newland Archer, an eligible young man from New York high society, is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, a suitable match from a good family, when May's cousin, the beautiful and exotic Countess Ellen Olenska, is introduced into their circle. The Countess brings with her an aura of European sophistication and a hint of perceived scandal, having left her husband and claimed her independence. Her worldliness, disregard for society's...

Mrs. Dalloway chronicles a June day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway-a day that is taken up with running minor errands in preparation for a party and that is punctuated, toward the end, by the death of a young man she has never met. In giving an apparently ordinary day such immense resonance and significance-infusing it with the elemental conflict between death and life-Virginia Woolf triumphantly discovers her distinctive style as a novelist. Originally...

This vivid and sweeping tale of the Oklahoma Land Rush, from Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber, traces the stunning challenges of settling an untamed frontier. Staking claim to their new home in Osage, Yancey Cravat, a spellbinding criminal lawyer, and his wife, well-bred Sabra, work against seemingly overwhelming odds to create a prosperous life for themselves. And as they establish themselves in this lawless land, Sabra displays a brilliant business...

Serialized first in the Little Review in 1918 and published first in Paris in 1922, although its censorship for obscenity in America and England were not lifted until the mid-1930sIn terms of its story it defies abridgement or explanation except that it all takes place on one day, 16 June 1904, or Bloomsday, which was the anniversary of Joyces first walk with his beloved Nora Barnacle. It (very) loosely follows the episodes of Ulysses from the Odyssey...

When headstrong and independent Elizabeth Bennet is required to find a wealthy husband, her encounter with the arrogant Mr. Darcy leads to one of the most entertaining and satisfying courtships ever imagined. Beyond the romance, Pride and Prejudice is a book full of humor and wit that is also a commentary on upper-class social manners at the turn of the nineteenth century. Even though it is concerned with love and marriage, the novel is a rejection...

While inebriated, Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a sailor. When he realizes the horror of what he has done, he vows to change his life through hard work and fierce ambition, but his past and his guilt still haunt him.