Classic Literature

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.

Madame Bovary is the debut novel of French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. When the novel was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. After Flaubert's acquittal on 7 February 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestseller in April 1857 when it was published in two volumes. A seminal work of literary realism, the novel is now considered Flaubert's masterpiece, and one of the most influential literary works in history.

The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons―the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, is social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.

A collection of quintessentially American poems, the seminal work of one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century.

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression follows the western movement of one family & a nation in search of work & human dignity. Perhaps the most American of American classics. The novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of sharecroppers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, & changes in financial & agricultural industries. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, & in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they sought jobs, land, dignity & a future. When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression & its effects]." The book won Steinbeck a large following among the working class, perhaps due to the book's sympathy to the workers' movement & its accessible prose style.This edition is printed by the Folio Society. Set in Palatino with Kabel Heavy display. Bound in full brown cloth (second edition) with a design by the artist.

EDITION INTEGRALE EXCEPTIONNELLE Avec Atlantic Editions, plongez dans la lecture d'un des plus grands chefs-d'oeuvre de la litterature Francaise dans une tres belle edition brochee.Seduisant, intelligent et ambitieux, Julien Sorel, fils de charpentier, est determine a depasser ses origines provinciales modestes. Realisant rapidement que le succes ne peut etre atteint que par l'adoption du code subtil de l'hypocrisie par lequel la societe opere, il accede au sommet de la hierarchie sociale en agissant par interet personnel et tromperies. Mais il n'est pas satisfait de son sort - il reve de devenir une sorte de nouveau Napoleon Bonaparte et meprise les gens de la haute societe. Son ambition demesuree le pousse a courtiser Mme de Renal, epouse devouee et naive du maire de Verrieres, et a conquerir Mathilde, fille altiere et passionnee du marquis de la Mole. Mais le temperament fier et ombrageux de Julien lui fera commettre l'irreparable et le menera a sa perte.Le Rouge et le Noir, d'abord paru en 1830, est un portrait satirique de la societe Francaise sous la Restauration, rongee par la corruption et la cupidite. Ce chef-d'oeuvre, noir par son realisme, et teinte du rouge de la passion et du crime, temoigne de l'immense talent litteraire de l'auteur.Henri Beyle, connu sous le pseudonyme de Stendhal (1783-1842), est l'un des plus grands ecrivains Francais. Il a marque la litterature par la profondeur de ses analyses psychologiques, son souci du realisme et de la recherche de la Verite, ses portraits de jeunes gens aux aspirations romantiques, et par la force de son style.Ce chef-d'oeuvre, incontournable et intemporel, ravira les lecteurs de tous ages.Dans la meme collection brochee de l'editeur Atlantic Editions, retrouvez un autre chef-d'oeuvre de Stendhal: La Chartreuse de Parme

Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0679734511. (ISBN13: 9780679734512)Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a "novel-pamphlet" in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia.

The narrative drive of Stowe's classic novel is often overlooked in the heat of the controversies surrounding its anti-slavery sentiments. In fact, it is a compelling adventure story with richly drawn characters and has earned a place in both literary and American history. Stowe's religious beliefs show up in the novel's final, overarching theme—the exploration of the nature of Christianity and how Christian theology is fundamentally incompatible with slavery.

Alternate editions can be found here and here.A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.

How Do You Write a Love Story? THE STORY GRID WILL TEACH YOU The Story Grid is a writing tool that... 1. Tells you if your Story “works” or “doesn’t work.” 2. Pinpoints Story problems without abusing you, the writer. The Story Grid asserts that you are not the problem. The problem is the problem. 3. Reveals—in very specific terms—what you must do to fix your Story’s problems. 4. Guides you in re-envisioning and resuscitating a seemingly irredeemable pile of paper you’ve stuck in an attic drawer. 5. Helps to inspire an original creation. Why Is Pride and Prejudice the Consummate Love Story? THE STORY GRID WILL SHOW YOU You’ve read Jane Austen’s classic Love Story and you aspire to write one yourself. What do you do now? In a magical world, Jane Austen would sit down with you and explain how she wrote a novel that sells approximately 400,000 copies a year...more than two centuries after it was published! In the real world, Pride and Prejudice, The Story Grid Edition is the next best thing. By transforming the reading experience into writing inspiration, it breaks down how Jane Austen abided by the five commandments of storytelling in each and every scene of her novel. And it shows you how she delivered the obligatory scenes and conventions of the Love Story genre. Pride and Prejudice, The Story Grid Edition details the craft behind the dazzling storytelling and shows you how to tell your own best Love Story.

Découvrez ou redécouvrez A la recherche du temps perdu, de Marcel Proust, dans cette nouvelle édition enrichie. — CONTENU DU LIVRE — Vous trouverez dans ce livre électronique, l’intégralité de l’œuvre A la recherche du temps perdu de Proust : - Les 7 livres - Du côté de chez Swann - A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs - Le côté de Guermantes - Sodome et Gomorrhe - La prisonnière - Albertine disparue - Le temps retrouvé — BONUS — - L’histoire d’A la recherche du temps perdu - La biographie détaillée de Marcel Proust - Le portrait en image de Marcel Proust Le livre a été entièrement adapté et optimisé pour être lu sur tous les supports : - Navigation ergonomique et intuitive - Table des matières détaillée et fonctionnelle - Images d’illustrations adaptées - Compatible Kindle, Tablette, Smartphone et Ordinateur (PC et Mac) — A PROPOS DE L’EDITEUR — Les Editions Vattolo sont spécialisées dans l’édition et la réédition de livres au format numérique. Une équipe de passionnés au service de lecteurs exigeants, pour vous offrir la meilleure expérience de lecture de livres électroniques, au prix le plus bas possible !

Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray—he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants—Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world together, and together they have haunted readers' imaginations for nearly four hundred years.With its experimental form and literary playfulness, Don Quixote has been generally recognized as the first modern novel. The book has been enormously influential on a host of writers, from Fielding and Sterne to Flaubert, Dickens, Melville, and Faulkner, who reread it once a year, "just as some people read the Bible."

Rome’s epic origin story, brilliantly rendered in a vivid, rhythmic idiom.Crafted during the reign of Augustus Caesar at the outset of the Roman Empire, Virgil’s Aeneid is a tale of thrilling adventure, extreme adversity, doomed romance, fateful battles, and profound loss. Through its stirring account of human struggle, meddling gods, and conflicting destinies, the poem brings to life the triumphs and trials that led to one of the most powerful societies the world has ever known. Unlike its Homeric predecessors, which arose from a long oral tradition, the Aeneid was composed by a singular poetic genius, and it has ever since been celebrated as one of the greatest literary achievements of antiquity.This exciting new edition of the Aeneid, the first collaborative translation of the poem in English, is rendered in unrhymed iambic pentameter, the English meter that corresponds best, in its history and cultural standing, to Virgil’s dactylic hexameter. Scott McGill and Susannah Wright achieve an ideal middle ground between readability and elevation, engaging modern readers with fresh, contemporary language in a heart-pounding, propulsive rhythm, while also preserving the epic dignity of the original. The result is a brisk, eminently approachable translation that captures Virgil’s sensitive balance between celebrating the Roman Empire and dramatizing its human costs, for victors and vanquished alike. This Aeneid is a poem in English every bit as complex, inviting, and affecting as the Latin original.With a rich and informative introduction from Emily Wilson, maps drawn especially for this volume, a pronunciation glossary, genealogies, extensive notes, and helpful summaries of each book, this gorgeous edition of Rome’s founding poem will capture the imaginations and stir the souls of a new generation of readers.

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found hereThrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. A huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s, Dumas was inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment when writing his epic tale of suffering and retribution.

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats includes all of the poems authorized by Yeats for inclusion in his standard canon. Breathtaking in range, it encompasses the entire arc of his career, from luminous reworking of ancient Irish myths and legends, to passionate meditations on the demands and rewards of youth and old age, from exquisite, occasionally whimsical songs of love, nature, and art to somber and angry poems of life in a nation torn by war and uprising. In observing the development of rich and recurring images and themes over the course of his body of work, we can trace the quest of this century's greatest poet to unite intellect and artistry in a single magnificent vision.Revised and corrected, this edition includes Yeat's own notes on his poetry, complemented by explanatory notes from esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran. The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats is the most comprehensive edition of one of the world's most beloved poets available in paperback.

This Everyman’s Library edition–containing in one volume all three cantos, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso–includes an introduction by Nobel Prize—winning poet Eugenio Montale, a chronology, notes, and a bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from Botticelli’s marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations.Translated in this edition by Allen Mandelbaum, The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity.Mandelbaum’s astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized as a central model for all poets.

John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love.Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.

For this novel, Scott moved far away from the setting of his own turbulent time. He went back to the late 12th century, and to England rather than the Scottish settings of all his previous novels. He connected his writing Ivanhoe with his concerns about contemporary events.Scott drew together the apparently opposing themes of historical reality and chivalric romance, social realism and high adventure, past and present.

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.Emily Brontë's only novel, a work of tremendous and far-reaching influence, the Penguin Classics edition of Wuthering Heights is the definitive edition of the text, edited with an introduction by Pauline Nestor. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before; of the intense relationship between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw; and how Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrendered to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.

The wild rush of action in this classic frontier adventure story has made The Last of the Mohicans the most popular of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. Deep in the forests of upper New York State, the brave woodsman Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo) and his loyal Mohican friends Chingachgook and Uncas become embroiled in the bloody battles of the French and Indian War. The abduction of the beautiful Munro sisters by hostile savages, the treachery of the renegade brave Magua, the ambush of innocent settlers, and the thrilling events that lead to the final tragic confrontation between rival war parties create an unforgettable, spine-tingling picture of life on the frontier. And as the idyllic wilderness gives way to the forces of civilization, the novel presents a moving portrayal of a vanishing race and the end of its way of life in the great American forests.

Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, when, owing to a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place; and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Inspector Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.

Returning to Russia from a sanitarium in Switzerland, the Christ-like epileptic Prince Myshkin finds himself enmeshed in a tangle of love, torn between two women—the notorious kept woman Nastasya and the pure Aglaia—both involved, in turn, with the corrupt, money-hungry Ganya. In the end, Myshkin’s honesty, goodness, and integrity are shown to be unequal to the moral emptiness of those around him. In her revision of the Garnett translation, Anna Brailovsky has corrected inaccuracies wrought by Garnett’s drastic anglicization of the novel, restoring as much as possible the syntactical structure of the original story.

Goethe was probably the last true ‘Renaissance Man’. Although employed as a Privy Councillor at the Duke of Weimar’s court, where he helped oversee major mining, road-building and irrigation projects, he also painted, directed plays, carried out research in anatomy, botany and optics — and still found time to produce masterpieces in every literary genre. His 1,413 maxims and reflections reveal not only some of his deepest thought on art, ethics, literature and natural science, but also his immediate reactions to books, chance encounters or his administrative work. With a freshness and immediacy which vividly conjure up Goethe the man, they make an ideal introduction to one of the greatest of European writers.

The Fratricides by the Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis recounts the tragic violence that swallowed the Greek countryside in the civil war of the late 1940s. Castello, a village in Epirus is not spared all the death and destruction which culminated during the Holy Week.

Four prized selections by one of America's greatest writers: "The Open Boat," based on a harrowing incident in the author's life: the 1897 sinking of a ship on which he was a passenger; "The Blue Hotel" and "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," reflecting Crane's early travels in Mexico and the American Southwest; and the novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a galvanizing portrait of life in the slums of New York City.

Accused of political subversion as a young man, Fyodor Dostoyevsky was sentenced to four years of hard labor at a Siberian prison camp — a horrifying experience from which he developed this astounding semi-autobiographical memoir of a man condemned to ten years of servitude for murdering his wife.As with a number of the author's other works, this profoundly influential novel brilliantly explores his characters' thoughts while probing the depths of the human soul. Describing in relentless detail the physical and mental suffering of the convicts, Dostoyevsky's character never loses faith in human qualities and the goodness of man.A haunting and remarkable work filled with wonder and resignation, The House of the Dead ranks among the Russian novelist's greatest masterpieces. Of this powerful autobiographical novel, Tolstoy wrote, "I know no better book in all modern literature."

A story with no real beginning or end (it ends in the middle of a sentence and begins in the middle of the same sentence), this "book of Doublends Jined" is as remarkable for its prose as for its circular structure. Written in a fantastic dream-language, forged from polyglot puns and portmanteau words, the Wake features some of Joyce's most hilarious characters: the Irish barkeep Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Shem the Penman, Shaun the Postman, and Anna Livia Plurabelle. Joyce's final work, Finnegan's Wake is his masterpiece of the night as Ulysses is of the day. Supreme linguistic virtuosity conjures up the dark underground worlds of sexuality and dream. Joyce undermines traditional storytelling and all official forms of English and confronts the different kinds of betrayal - cultural, political and sexual - that he saw at the heart of Irish history. Dazzlingly inventive, with passages of great lyrical beauty and humour, Finnegans Wake remains one of the most remarkable works of the twentieth century.

The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas contains poems that Thomas personally decided best represented his work. A year before its publication Thomas died from swelling of the brain triggered by excessive drinking. Since its initial publication in 1953, this book has become the definitive edition of the poet’s work. Thomas wrote “Prologue” addressed to “my readers, the strangers” — an introduction in verse that was the last poem he would ever write. Also included are classics such as “And Death Shall Have No Dominion,” “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,” and “Fern Hill” that have influenced generations of artists from Bob Dylan (who changed his last name from Zimmerman in honor of the poet), to John Lennon (The Beatles included Thomas’ portrait on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band); this collection even appears in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road when it is retrieved from the rubble of a bookshelf.

Daniel Defoe relates the tale of an English sailor marooned on a desert island for nearly three decades. An ordinary man struggling to survive in extraordinary circumstances, Robinson Crusoe wrestles with fate and the nature of God. This edition features maps.

Written in 1908, this is Lawrence's first novel and one that he found himself compelled to write and rewrite, to pour himself into, in order to prove himself to himself. Begun when he was 21 and published in 1911, it shows many of Lawrence's major themes.

Green Hills of Africa is Ernest Hemingway's lyrical journal of a month on safari in the great game country of East Africa, where he and his wife Pauline journeyed in December 1933. Hemingway's well-known interest in - and fascination with - big-game hunting is magnificently captured in this evocative account of his trip. It is an examination of the lure of the hunt and an impassioned portrait of the glory of the African landscape and of the beauty of a wilderness that was, even then, being threatened by the incursions of man.

George Webber has written a successful novel about his family and hometown. When he returns to that town he is shaken by the force of the outrage and hatred that greets him. Family and friends feel naked and exposed by the truths they have seen in his book, and their fury drives him from his home. He begins a search for his own identity that takes him to New York and a hectic social whirl; to Paris with an uninhibited group of expatriates; to Berlin, lying cold and sinister under Hitler's shadow. At last Webber returns to America and rediscovers it with love, sorrow, and hope.

When d’Artagnan goes to Paris to become a Musketeer, he embarks on a swashbuckling adventure with the legendary Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. If they wish to trump the nefarious Cardinal Richelieu, it’s got to be “all for one, one for all.”

Charles Baudelaire's 1857 masterwork was scandalous in its day for its portrayals of sex, same-sex love, death, the corrupting and oppressive power of the modern city and lost innocence, Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) remains powerful and relevant for our time.In Spleen et idéal," Baudelaire dramatizes the erotic cycle of ecstacy and anguish--of sexual and romantic love. Tableaux Parisiens condemns the crushing effects of urban planning on a city's soul and praises the city's anti-heroes including the deranged and derelict. Le Vin centers on the search for oblivion in drink and drugs. The many kinds of love that lie outside traditional morality is the focus of Fleurs du Mal while rebellion is at the heart of Révolte.

Few novelists have conveyed the subtleties and nuances of their own social milieu with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. Through her vivacious and spirited heroines and their circle, she paints vivid portraits of English middle-class life as the eighteenth century came to a close. Each of the novels is a love story and a story about marriage — marriage for love, for financial security, for social status. But they are not mere romances; ironic, comic and wise, they are masterly studies of the society Jane Austen observed. The seven novels in this volume contain some of the most brilliant, dazzling prose in the English language.--back coverEmma / Lady Susan / Mansfield Park / Northanger Abbey / Persuasion / Pride and Prejudice / Sense and Sensibility

Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December that year (but dated 1818). Persuasion is linked to Northanger Abbey not only by the fact that the two books were originally bound up in one volume and published together, but also because both stories are set partly in Bath, a fashionable city with which Austen was well acquainted, having lived there from 1801 to 1805. Besides the theme of persuasion, the novel evokes other topics, such as the Royal Navy, in which two of Jane Austen's brothers ultimately rose to the rank of admiral. As in Northanger Abbey, the superficial social life of Bath-well known to Austen, who spent several relatively unhappy and unproductive years there-is portrayed extensively and serves as a setting for the second half of the book. In many respects Persuasion marks a break with Austen's previous works, both in the more biting, even irritable satire directed at some of the novel's characters and in the regretful, resigned outlook of its otherwise admirable heroine, Anne Elliot, in the first part of the story. Against this is set the energy and appeal of the Royal Navy, which symbolises for Anne and the reader the possibility of a more outgoing, engaged, and fulfilling life, and it is this worldview which triumphs for the most part at the end of the novel.

Unfairly deprived of their family inheritance by the grasping Mrs John Dashwood and her husband, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood and their mother find themselves in greatly reduced circumstances.Compelled to leave Norland in Sussex for Barton Cottage in Devonshire, the two sisters are soon accepted into their new society. Marianne, whose sweet radiance and open nature charm the roguish John Willoughby, is soon deeply in love. Elinor, whose disposition is more cautious and considered, who carefully conceals her emotions, is suffering the loss of Edward Ferrars whom she has left behind.Despite their very different personalities, both sisters experience great sorrows in their affairs of the heart: Marianne demonstrably wretched and Elinor allowing no one to see her private heartache. It is, however, the qualities common to them both - discernment, constancy and integrity in the face of the fecklessness of others - that allow them entry into a new life of peace and contentment.Jane Austen began Sense and Sensibility when she was barely 20. It was published 16 years later, in 1811, at her own expense; the only clue to the novel’s authorship was the inscription ’By a lady’. In her introduction to this edition, the best-selling Italian author Elena Ferrante – a notoriously private figure whose true identity remains unknown – suggests that Austen’s anonymity only makes her work more intriguing. Whoever Austen was, writes Ferrante, she was ’an extremely cultured, extremely perceptive lady who was well acquainted with the ways of the landed gentry, who knew the rituals of the London bourgeoisie, who was aware of how unstable the world is – of how everything changes in spite of sense and in the tumult of sensibility’.This Folio edition is bound in gold cloth with a blocked slipcase to match the Folio editions of Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. The illustrations are by Philip Bannister, whose work for Folio includes Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier.

The complex story of a notorious law-suit in which love and inheritance are set against the classic urban background of 19th-century London, where fog on the river, seeping into the very bones of the characters, symbolizes the corruption of the legal system and the society which supports it.“Jarndyce and Jarndyce” is an infamous lawsuit that has been in process for generations. Nobody can remember exactly how the case started but many different individuals have found their fortunes caught up in it. Esther Summerson watches as her friends and neighbours are consumed by their hopes and disappointments with the proceedings. But while the intricate puzzles of the lawsuit are being debated by lawyers, other more dramatic mysteries are unfolding that involve heartbreak, lost children, blackmail and murder.The fog and cold that permeate Bleak House mirror a Victorian England mired in spiritual insolvency. Dickens brought all his passion, brilliance, and narrative verve to this huge novel of lives entangled in a multi-generational lawsuit—and through it, he achieved, at age 41, a stature almost Shakespearean.

The Warden centers on Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity who is nevertheless in possession of an income from a charity far in excess of the sum devoted to the purposes of the foundation. On discovering this, young John Bold turns his reforming zeal to exposing what he regards as an abuse of privilege, despite the fact that he is in love with Mr. Harding's daughter Eleanor. It was a highly topical novel (a case regarding the misapplication of church funds was the scandalous subject of contemporary debate), but like other great Victorian novelists, Trollope uses the specific case to explore and illuminate the universal complexities of human motivation and social morality

Emma features one of Jane Austen's most unforgettable characters, an irresistible yet misguided young woman who must learn not to meddle with others' hearts--and in the process learn how to understand her own.With a new introduction by Jennifer Egan.Twenty-one-year-old Emma Woodhouse comfortably dominates the social order in the village of Highbury, convinced that she has both the understanding and the right to manage other people’s lives—for their own good, of course. Her well-meant interfering centers on the aloof Jane Fairfax, the dangerously attractive Frank Churchill, the foolish but sweet Harriet Smith, and the ambitious young vicar Mr. Elton—and ends with her complacency shattered, her mind awakened to some of life’s more intractable dilemmas, and her happiness assured.Austen’s comic imagination was so deft and beautifully fluent that she could use it to probe the deepest human ironies while setting before us a dazzling gallery of characters—some pretentious or ridiculous, some admirable and moving, all utterly true.

Hemingway’s beloved novel of doomed love during wartime, now available for the first time from Penguin Classics, with a new foreword by Abraham Verghese, the multimillion-copy bestselling author of The Covenant of Water and Cutting for StoneOne of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsA Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paperAmid the horrors of the Italian front in World War I, American ambulance driver Frederic Henry and English nurse Catherine Barkley fall hopelessly in love. For Frederic, the nurse’s kindness and beauty are an anchor against the carnage; for Catherine, the ambulance driver is a lifeboat in the sea of grief for her first love. But even their passion is not enough to forestall the battle lines that creep ever closer with each Italian loss, and as the chaos and tragedy of war threaten their love, Frederic and Catherine must face the fragile nature of their humanity head-on.In his signature spare prose, Hemingway draws from his own experience as an ambulance driver in World War I to evoke the horrors of war with brutal precision. A Farewell to Arms, his first bestseller, is a masterful portrayal of humanity in all its highs and lows that secures Hemingway’s place among the foremost authors of American literature.

A new translation of the complete texts of the Republic, Apology, Crito Phaido, Ion, Meno, and Symposium reveals the genius of Plato as he struggled with education, justice, the "philosopher king," and utopian visions of society. Reprint. BAKER & TAYLOR Bks

Although Tennyson (1809-1892) has often seemed to personify the Victorian Age, he was a poet before it began and his poems endure to speak clearly to this modern one. His mastery of a great variety of poetic forms and moods enables him to communicate such extremes of feeling as ‘calm despair and wild unrest’; rapturous love: ‘the soul of the rose went into my blood’; and noble resolve:…One equal temper of heroic hearts / Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.