Persuasion by Jane Austen. What does persuasion mean - a firm belief, or the action of persuading someone to think something else? Anne Elliot is one of Austen's quietest heroines, but also one of the strongest and the most open to change. She lives at the time of the Napoleonic wars, a time of accident, adventure, the making of new fortunes and alliances. A woman of no importance, she maneuvers in her restricted circumstances as her long-time love...

Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking,...

After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the aging Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained...

"Young Mary Lennox is left an orphan when her parents die of illness while living abroad. In their absence, Mary is sent to stay under the care of her Uncle in Yorkshire, England. It's there in Misselthwaite Manor that she meets two young boys--a servant named Dickon and her cousin Colin, who lives locked away in the manor due to a disability that leaves him bound in a wheelchair. The trio discover a secret garden hidden in the manor grounds and work...

Born and raised in the appalling deprivation of a Victorian-era London workhouse, the orphan Oliver escapes the drudgery of apprenticeship only to fall into the hands of the notorious Fagin and his gang of child thieves. But Oliver is an innocent at heart and the attempts by Fagin and the impudently witty Artful Dodger to teach the boy the trick of the pick-pocket's trade lead only to his almost immediate capture. Oliver's rescue by the kindly Mr....

A pastoral romance set in the Forest of Arden in medieval France, this story is full of kindliness, good fellowship, goodwill, and tales about all kinds of love--physical and intellectual, sentimental and cynical, enduring love between friends, and romantic love at first sight.

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.

This is the classic, hypnotic story of the undead creatures of the night--and the human lives they touch--as they relentlessly seek to satiate an accursed craving for their only sustenance: human blood. A Gothic novel of immense proportions, "Dracula" has only strengthened its grip on the public over the course of the last century.

A prose retelling of William Shakespeare's play about the strange events that take place in a forest inhabited by fairies who magically transform the romantic fate of two young couples.

An edition of Shakespeare's comedy, including discussion of its plot, characters, themes, language, production, and author. Great pains have been taken to follow Shakespeare's intentions with regard to the act and scene division and the exact form of speech. The editing has been done from the quarto or folio texts, depending on which is considered more authoritative, and the ideal has been to reproduce the chosen texts with as few alterations as possible....