Bleak House, Dickens's most daring experiment in the narration of a complex plot, challenges the reader to make connections - between the fashionable and the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and the victims. Nowhere in Dickens's later novels is his attack on an uncaring society more imaginatively embodied, but nowhere either is the mixture of comedy and angry satire more deftly managed. Bleak House defies a single description. It...
"The Portrait of a Lady is regarded by many as Henry James's finest work, and a lucid tragedy exploring the distance between money and happiness. When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy Aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy the freedom that her fortune has opened up and to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then...
Wilde lived out a conflict between his public identity and his private self; and this fissure between the two is interestingly typical of his age. Introduction by Terry Eagleton.
Mikhail Bulgakov's devastating satire of Soviet life was written during the darkest period of Stalin's regime. Combining two distinct yet interwoven parts-one set in ancient Jerusalem, one in contemporary Moscow-the novel veers from moods of wild theatricality with violent storms, vampire attacks, and a Satanic ball; to such somber scenes as the meeting of Pilate and Yeshua, and the murder of Judas in the moonlit garden of Gethsemane; to the substanceless,...
A monumental new translation--the first in more than twenty years--of Russia's greatest family drama, rendered with all the passion, humor, and soul of the original. Dostoevsky's final, greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, paints a complex and richly detailed portrait of a family tormented by its extraordinarily cruel patriarch, Fyodor Pavlovich, whose callous decisions slowly decimate the lives of his sons--the eponymous brothers Karamazov--and...
Deronda, a high-minded young man searching for his path in life, finds himself drawn by a series of dramatic encounters into two contrasting worlds: the English country-house life of Gwendolen Harleth, a high-spirited beauty trapped in an oppressive marriage, and the very different lives of a poor Jewish girl, Mirah, and her family. As Deronda uncovers the long-hidden secret of his own parentage, Eliot's moving and suspenseful narrative opens up a...
Obsessed with his desire to have a son as an heir, Paul Dombey all but ignores his eldest daughter Florence. Mr Dombey's dream becomes a reality when his wife gives birth to a baby boy. Unfortunately, his wife tragically dies during childbirth, leaving Paul alone with Florence and his newborn son, Paul. Mr Dombey's son is not a healthy child and even after being sent to the Brighton seaside for his illness, young Paul passes away. Mr. Dombey is crushed...
"'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. Allen Mandelbaum's astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece that genius whom...
Written in 1912 and set in and around London, "The Reef" is a story of complex morality and its intricately woven place in society. This narrative primarily follows George Darrow and Anna Leath, a young gentleman and a widowed lady who plan to marry. Both of them experience doubts about their union, with surprising outcomes. Darrow has a brief liaison with the delicate, generous Sophy Viner, a kind woman of the working class. She later meets Anna's...
"Written in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the 'Meditations' of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the 'Meditations' were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of...
Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him.
Raised by a wealthy, idiosyncratic and alcoholic mother, Amory Blaine is arrogant and lacking in proper social etiquette which he eventually has to learn. En route from the Midwest to Princeton University, he experiences flirtations with some predatory young women and a chance at friendship with some intellectual young men. His romantic relationship ended when his soul-mate rejected him to marry a wealthier young man.
Mysteriously imprisoned, Molloy disappears while looking for his mother; a dying man looks back on his life; and, a nameless individual ponders his existence.
Contains three novels and five short stories by American author James M. Cain, including "The Postman Always Rings Twice" about a drifter who embarks on a course of destruction when he falls for the wife of Nick, the genial owner of a roadside cafe.
After Paul D. finds his old slave friend Sethe in Ohio and moves in with her and her daughter Denver, a strange girl comes along by the name of "Beloved." Sethe and Denver take her in and then strange things begin to happen. Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, this profoundly affecting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath is Toni Morrison's greatest novel, a dazzling achievement, and the most spellbinding reading experience of the...
