Chafed by the "sivilized" restrictions of his foster home, and weary of his drunkard father's brutality, Huck Finn fakes his own death and sets off on a raft down the Mississippi River. He is soon joined by Jim, an escaped slave. Together, they experience a series of rollicking adventures that have amused readers, young and old, for over a century.
The fugitives become close friends as they weather storms together aboard the raft and spend idyllic

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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...

The epitome of the chivalric novel, Ivanhoe sweeps readers into Medieval England and the lives of a memorable cast of characters. Ivanhoe, a trusted ally of Richard-the-Lion-Hearted, returns from the Crusades to reclaim the inheritance his father denied him. Rebecca, a vibrant, beautiful Jewish woman is defended by Ivanhoe against a charge of witchcraft -- but it is Lady Rowena who is Ivanhoe's true love. The wicked Prince John plots to usurp England's...

The great sixteenth-century poet vividly imagines the end of the First Crusade, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, and the taking of Jerusalem. This decidedly fictional 1581 account, influenced by Homer and Virgil as well as Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, is heavily seasoned with romance, intrigue, and sorcery. Tasso's poem inspired painters, playwrights, and librettists for centuries. Verse translation by Edward Fairfax.

Arthur's seduction of an innocent, young country girl results in remorse, suffering, and regret. According to The Oxford Companion to English Literature, "the plot is founded on a story told to George Eliot by her aunt Elizabeth Evans, a Methodist preacher, and the original of Dinah Morris of the novel, of a confession of child-murder, made to her by a girl in prison." The story's plot follows four characters' rural lives in the fictional community...

The Pioneers is perhaps the most realistic and beautiful of the Leatherstocking series. Drawing on his own experiences, Cooper brilliantly describes frontier life, providing a fascinating backdrop to the real heart of the novel, the competing claims to land ownership of Native Americans and settlers.

Follows Professor Lidenbrock, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans as they venture deep into a volcanic crater in Iceland on a journey that leads them to the center of the earth and to incredible and horrifying discoveries.

"Christopher Newman, a wealthy American businessman, descends on Europe in search of a wife to make his fortune complete. In Paris he is introduced to Claire de Cintré, daughter of the ancient House of Bellegarde, and to Valentin, her charming young brother. His bid for Claire's hand receives an icy welcome from the heads of the family, an elder brother and their formidable mother, the old Marquise. Can they stomach his manners for the sake of his...

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...

Twenty Years After is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, first published in 1845. It is the sequel to the famous novel "The Three Musketeers" and continues the story of the musketeers 20 years after the events of the first book.The novel follows the adventures of the musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as their friend, the former musketeer D'Artagnan, who is now a lieutenant in the king's musketeers. The story takes place during the reign of Louis...