Emma Woodhouse is the charming, artful heroine of Jane Austen's widely loved satiric novel of manners. With her time consumed by nothing but the care of her indulgent father, Emma amuses herself by arranging the lives of others the way she sees fit. The disastrous consequences of her meddling eventually lead Emma to see the folly of her ways--but not before we meet an unforgettable cast of characters in a story delivered with Austen's matchless wit...

"Gatsby emerges as if from nowhere, evading questions about his past and throwing dazzling parties sparkling with champagne and jazz at his luxurious Long Island mansion. Nick Carraway, a young man who has moved in next door, is fascinated by his oddly detached neighbor, and by his discovery that Gatsby is motivated by a single-minded quest to regain his long-lost love, Daisy Buchanan. Nick finds something both appalling and appealing about the intensity...

Originally serialized in Knickerbocker's Magazine between 1847 and 1849, The Oregon Trail is a fascinating chronicle of Francis Parkman's travels on the Oregon Trail during the summer of 1846 through the western states of Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado. Living and hunting with a tribe of Native Americans for a period of time, Francis Parkman captures the spirit of the old west in this gripping 19th century narrative. Fans of the old west...

Kidnapped was published in 1886 amid one of the most productive periods of Robert Louis Stevenson's career. Although it was immediately met with popular success and critical acclaim, the novel was derided for decades as a story for children before being recognized as a major work of English literature. Set in the aftermath of the Jacobite uprising of 1745, and full of a rich blend of English and Scots, Kidnapped is a powerful work with strong Scottish...

Revered by some and despised by others, the Scarlet Pimpernel--an Englishman who works to save aristocrats during the height of the French Revolution--is pursued by a blackmailing agent of the new Republic.

To be oneself was a supreme, gleaming triumph of infinity This is the insight that flashes upon Ursula as she struggles to assert her individuality and to stand separate from her family and her surroundings on the brink of womanhood and the modern world. In The Rainbow (1915) Lawrence challenged the customary limitations of language and convention to carry into the structure of his prose the fascination with boundaries and space that characterize...

"Instead of choosing to wed a wealthy landowner and settle for a comfortable life, Dorothea Brooke decides to marry Edward Casaubon -- a dull scholar who is her senior by a few decades. Dorothea hopes the union will afford her with the opportunity to share in her husband's intellectual pursuits, but even her best efforts can't save the disastrous marriage. Meanwhile, idealistic doctor Tertius Lydgate has progressive ideas about the medical field,...

A model for the ideal state includes discussion of the nature and application of justice, the role of the philosopher in society, the goals of education, and the effects of art upon character.

"The story of Candide, a naive youth who is conscripted, shipwrecked, robbed, and tortured by the Inquisition without losing his will to live, is accompanied by four other stories"--NoveList.