Joseph Andrews, or The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, was the first published full-length novel of the English author and magistrate Henry Fielding, and indeed among the first novels in the English language. Published in 1742 and defined by Fielding as a 'comic epic poem in prose', it is the story of a good-natured footman's adventures on the road home from London with his friend and mentor, the absent-minded...

Overview: Alexandre Dumas's novel of justice, retribution, and self-discovery - one of the most enduringly popular adventure tales ever written - appears here in a newly revised translation. "This novel tells the story of Edmond Dantes, wrongfully imprisoned for life in the supposedly impregnable sea fortress the Chateau d'If. After a daring escape, and after unearthing a hidden treasure revealed to him by a fellow prisoner, he devotes the rest...

Before taking up her new post as a governess, the artful and ambitious Becky Sharp spends a brief period at the family home of her friend Amelia Sedley. Passive, pampered and utterly reliant on others, Amelia is the opposite of her scheming and ruthless friend. While Becky tries to ensnare the wealthy and vain Jos Sedley, Amelia desires nothing more than to be betrothed to the self-obsessed and raffish soldier George Osborne. Meanwhile, Captain William...

The Puritans thought Hester Prynne's crime was unforgiveable. She was convicted, imprisoned -- and then forced to wear, forever, a public reminder of her sin. The Scarlet Letter. The Letter was unending punishment: it set Hester apart from society, it tormented her days and haunted her soul. But the Letter haunted others, as well. Its mystery turned Roger Chillingworth from a gentle healer into a man driven by revenge. Its meaning burned into Rev....

A 19th-century woman pursues her romantic dreams through a series of lovers.

The Moonstone is one of the most famous suspense novels of all time: a masterpiece of construction and the ultimate page-turner, it introduced one of the world's most beloved genres, the detective story. At a party celebrating her eighteenth birthday, Rachel Verinder wears the stunning yellow diamond she unexpectedly inherited from her uncle, Colonel John Herncastle. She is not aware that the precious gem, known as the Moonstone, has been missing...

Chingachgook and Uncas are the last living members of the great Mohican tribe. Hawkeye, a colonial scout, is their companion and loyal friend. In the midst of the French and Indian War, the three take great risks to lead the two daughters of a British colonel to safety through the battle-torn northern wilderness. When the girls are captured by the vicious Huron tribe, Chingachgook, Uncas, and Hawkeye risk their very lives to rescue them.

Relationships within the Pontifex family reflect the hypocrisy of middle-class life in Victorian England. Butler's novel satirizes Victorian hypocrisy in its chronicle of the life and loves of Ernest Pontifex. Along the way, it offers a powerful indictment of 19th-century England's major institutions. Beginning with the life of John Pontifex, a carpenter, the novel traces four generations of the Pontifex family, each of which perpetuates the frustration...

While Hank Morgan, Twain's time-displaced Yankee traveller, keeps up a steady stream of flippancies, founding the first tabloid, the Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano, and organizing a game of baseball between armour-clad knights, he also keeps up a steady commentary on the social mores of King Arthur's court, criticizing the hereditary social classes and state church still strong in the Victorian England of Twain's own day, and championing...

"When Marilla Cuthbert and her brother, Matthew, decide to adopt a child from a distant orphanage, they don't get quite what they bargained for. The child who awaits them at the tiny Bright River train station is not the strapping young boy they'd imagined--someone to help Matthew work the fields of their small farm--but rather a freckle-faced, redheaded girl named Anne (with an e, if you please). Matthew and Marilla may not be sure about Anne, but...