Thomas Gradgrind is an eminently practical man who believes in facts and statistics and has brought up his two children, Louisa and Tom, accordingly, thoroughly suppressing the imaginative sides of their nature. They are raised in ignorance of love and affection, and the consequences are devastating. No other work of Dickens presents so harsh an indictment against the attitude of life he associated with Utilitarianism. With savage bitterness Dickens...

Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, first published in 1910, remained a perennial favorite throughout the twentieth century and into the early 2000s. It was adapted to several popular motion pictures and into one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. Its main character, Erik, is a romantic figure whose appeal reaches across different cultures and times. He is a sensitive soul, an accomplished composer and musician whose great...

Anna Karenina is the story of a married aristocrat/socialite and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. The story opens when she arrives in the midst of a family broken up by her brother's unbridled womanizing. A bachelor, Vronsky is eager to marry her if she will agree to leave her husband Karenin, a senior government official, but she is vulnerable to the pressures of Russian social norms, the moral laws of the Russian Orthodox Church, her...

Upton Sinclair's dramatic and deeply moving story exposed the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth century and brought into sharp moral focus the apalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream. Denounced by the conservative press as an un-American libel on the meatpacking industry, the book was championed by more progressive thinkers, including then...

This beloved historical satire, played out in two very different socio-economic worlds of 16th-century England, centers around the lives of two boys born in London on the same day: Edward, Prince of Wales, and Tom Canty, a street beggar. During a chance encounter, they realize they are identical and, as a lark, decide to exchange garments and roles -- a situation that briefly, but drastically, alters the lives of both youngsters. Brimming with gentle...

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.

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,...

"When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited, while he struggles to remain indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever"--Book cover p. [4].

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.

From the Publisher: Frankenstein: Using parts from corpses, Victor Frankenstein creates a large, man-like creature. Rejected and abused by humans, the creature takes revenge by committing murder. Frankenstein then pursues the creature, determined to kill him or die in the attempt. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: When Dr. Henry Jekyll begins to look ill and isolates himself from his friends, they fear for his life. A mysterious, evil man...