The BostoniansHenry James
Henry James' celebrated novel about a passionate New England suffragette, her displaced southern gentleman cousin, and a charismatic young woman whose loyalty they both wished to possess goes so directly to the heart of sexual politics that it speaks to us with a voice as fresh and as vital as when the book was... read more »
The Angel of TerrorEdgar Wallace
Jack Glover of Rennet, glover and Simpson does not believe his cousin Meredith killed Bulford. Meredith s father was an eccentric and unless Meredith is married by the age of thirty, his sister inherits everything. She is dead and Meredith, now in prison, is thirty next Monday. Meanwhile Lydia Beale is struggling to... read more »
The Scarlet LetterNathaniel Hawthorne
It is 1642 in the Puritan town of Boston. Hester Prynne has been found guilty of adultery and has born an illegitimate child. In lieu of being put to death, she is condemned to wear the scarlet letter A on her dress as a reminder of her shameful act. Hester's husband had been lost at sea years earlier and was... read more »
Three Men in a BoatJerome K. Jerome
The erratic progress of J. Harris, George and Montmorency the dog won immediate approval of Londoners, while readers all over the world saw Three Men in a Boat as a key to the British character. The project, which began as an attempt to promote pleasure boating, became one of the greatest comedy turns of Victorian... read more »
Washington SquareHenry James
Washington Square follows the coming-of-age of its plain-faced, kindhearted heroine, Catherine Sloper. Much to her father’s vexation, a handsome opportunist named Morris Townsend woos the long-suffering heiress, intent on claiming her fortune. When Catherine stubbornly refuses to call off her engagement, Dr... read more »
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Volume 1Edgar Allan Poe
Volume two of the complete works in five volumes from one of the leaders of the American Romantics. Macabre parties in isolated castles … Gruesome bestial murders … Talking ravens, hellish black pits, innocents buried alive … Prepare to be chilled and enthralled by the haunting genius of the acknowledged... read more »
Two on a TowerThomas Hardy
Classified by Hardy as a romance and fantasy and now regarded as one of his minor works. The book is one of the Wessex novels, set in a parallel version of late Victorian Dorset. read more »
FanshaweNathaniel Hawthorne
While he had written many short stories before, "Fanshawe" was Nathaniel Hawthorne's first attempt at writing a novel. The novel is based on his experiences at Bowdoin College in the early 1820s and Hawthorne published the novel himself anonymously in 1828. A commercial failure, Nathaniel Hawthorne's contempt for... read more »
Idle Thoughts of an Idle FellowJerome K. Jerome
Published in 1886 and dedicated to the writer’s ally in idling—his pipe—this collection of entertaining essays established Jerome K. Jerome as an eminent English wit. "What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn’t elevate a cow. I cannot... read more »
Three Short WorksGustave Flaubert
First published in 1877, these three stories are dominated by questions of doubt, love, loneliness and religious experience, and together form a triumphant conclusion to Flaubert's literary career. Includes "The Dance of Death," "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller," and "A Simple Soul." read more »
SalammboGustave Flaubert
An historical novel that interweaves historical and fictional characters. The action takes place immediately before and during the Mercenary Revolt against Carthage in the third century BC. This book, which Flaubert researched painstakingly, is largely an exercise in sensuous and violent exoticism. The Carthaginian... read more »
The Blithedale RomanceNathaniel Hawthorne
Set on a communal farm called Blithedale, "The Blithedale Romance" is the story of four inhabitants of the commune: Hollingsworth, a misogynist philanthropist obsessed with turning Blithedale into a colony for the reformation of criminals; Zenobia, a passionate feminist; Priscilla, who turns out to be Zenobia's... read more »
The EuropeansHenry James
Eugenia, a baroness divorced from a German prince, and her bohemian brother, Felix, are coming back to America. Raised and cultured in Europe, they are returning destitute to New England to seek out their rich and innocent cousins. Eugenia wins the attentions of Robert Acton, the most appropriate suitor in the area... read more »
The Adventures of Sherlock HolmesArthur Conan Doyle
A colonel receives five seeds in the mail--and dies within weeks. A young bride disappears immediately after her wedding. An old hat and a Christmas goose are the only clues to a stolen jewel. A son is accused of his father's murder. These mysteries--and many more--are brought to the house on Baker Street where... read more »
The Importance of Being EarnestOscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy of manners set in Victorian England. Algernon lives in London and says he has a sick friend in the country. He uses visits to his imaginary friend to get out of things. His best friend, Ernest, is also Jack and is doing the exact same thing. Misunderstandings abound in... read more »
The Hand of EthelbertaThomas Hardy
The only novel from Hardy that that provides a lighter tale, The Hand of Ethelberta, gives account of the life of a woman who lifts herself to the higher classes of the society. read more »
Lady SusanJane Austen
The victim of a vicious scandal, the impoverished Lady Susan is obliged to take up residence with her brother-in-law and his family. Refusing to resign herself to the role of placid house guest, she conspires to baffle her hosts, seducing her sister-in-law's brother in the process by means of her impeccable... read more »
PellucidarEdgar Rice Burroughs
In this sequel to At the Earth's Core, David Innes vows revenge and returns to the Inner World of Pellucidar to rescue the beautiful Dian, who had been torn from his arms by trickery. However, his return trip places him far from the land of his beloved and he is forced to undertake a desperate journey thousands of... read more »
The CossacksLeo Tolstoy
Olenin was a youth who had never completed his university course, never served anywhere (having only a nominal post in some government office or other), who had squandered half his fortune and had reached the age of twenty-four without having done anything or even chosen a career. He was what in Moscow society is... read more »
Jo's BoysLouisa May Alcott
This sequel to Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Little Men chronicles the return of the classmates of Plumfield, Jo's school for boys. Ten years after the events of Little Men, readers reencounter Nat, the orphaned street musician, now a conservatory student; restless Dan, back from the gold mines of California... read more »
LeviathanThomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Influenced by the English Civil War, Hobbes wrote that chaos or civil war-situations identified with a state of nature and the famous motto Bellum omnium contra omnes ("the war of all against all")-could only be averted by strong central... read more »
The Portrait of a LadyHenry James
When Isabel Archer, a young American woman with looks, wit, and imagination, arrives in Europe, she sees the world as 'a place of brightness, of free expression, of irresistible action'. She turns aside from suitors who offer her their wealth and devotion to follow her own path. But that way leads to disillusionment... read more »
Ethan FromeEdith Wharton
Set against the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome is the story of a poor farmer, lonely and downtrodden, his wife Zeena, and her cousin, the enchanting Mattie Silver. In the playing out of this short novel's powerful and engrossing drama, Edith Wharton constructed her least characteristic and most... read more »
The Well-BelovedThomas Hardy
The Well-Beloved completes the cycle of Hardy's great novels, reiterating his favourite themes of man's eternal quest for perfection in both love and art, and the suffering that ensues. Jocelyn Pierston, celebrated sculptor, tries to create an image of his ideal woman - his imaginary Well-Beloved - in stone, just as... read more »
Eight CousinsLouisa May Alcott
Life with seven boy cousins isn't quite what Rose expected. Left an orphan after her father's death, Rose Campbell is sent to live at the "Aunt Hill" with her six aunts and seven rowdy boy cousins. For someone who is used to a girl's boarding school, it all seems pretty overwhelming. Her guardian, Uncle Alec, makes... read more »
The Longest JourneyE. M. Forster
Trilling described The Longest Journey as "perhaps the most brilliant, the most dramatic, and the most passionate" of E.M. Forster's works. Certainly it's the most autobiographical -- but its form confuses many. Full of sudden death, hopeless love, and quaintly doomed relationships -- and yet for all that, it's an... read more »
SummerEdith Wharton
Summer, Edith Wharton wrote to Gaillard Lapsley, "is known to its author and her familars as the Hot Ethan." One of the first American novels to deal frankly with a young woman's sexual awakening, it was a publishing sensation when it appeared in 1917, praised by Joseph Conrad, Howard Sturgis, and Percy Lubbock, and... read more »
Swiss Family RobinsonJohann David Wyss
A classic tale of a Swiss pastor, his wife and their four sons who find themselves shipwrecked on an isolated tropical island. Along with a couple of dogs, some livestock, pigeons and geese, The story of a family's struggle to survive in a foreign land isolated from society. Everyday brings a new adventure and a new... read more »
The TouchstoneEdith Wharton
The Touchstone was Edith Wharton's first published novella, and it's spare, perhaps even underwritten. Even so, this Faustian tale of a man who stoops to publish love letters for money has mesmerizing, even dangerous qualities -- it has betrayals, greed, and consequences faced: hidden meanings emerge in places where... read more »
A LaodiceanThomas Hardy
Paula Power inherits a medieval castle from her industrialist father who has purchased it from the aristocratic De Stancy family. She employs two architects, one local and one, George Somerset, newly qualified from London. She is attracted to both men for their different virtues and is thrust onto the horns of... read more »