Emma, by Jane Austen, is about youthful hubris and romantic misunderstandings. It is set in the fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England. Emma is a comedy of manners, and depicts issues of marriage, sex, age, and social status. Before...

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

O Pioneers by Willa Cather is story of a family of Swedish immigrants who settle in a fictional town in Nebraska. When her father dies, Alexandra Bergson inherits the family farm and is determined to see it succeed, even at a time when many immigrant families are leaving the prairie.

After harsh early years, Pip, an orphan growing up in Victorian England, is given the means to become a gentleman by an unknown benefactor and learns that outward appearances can be deceiving.

Henry Fleming, a raw Union Army recruit in the American Civil War, is anxious to confirm his patriotism and manhood-to earn his "badge of courage." But his dreams of heroism and invulnerability are soon shattered when he flees the Confederate enemy during his baptism of fire and then witnesses the horrible death of a friend. Plunged unwillingly into the nightmare of war, Fleming survives by sheer luck and instinct.

Presents the adventures of a boy and a runaway slave as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft. Universally acclaimed as one of the greatest creations of American fiction, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of those few books that are read over and over again, with ever increasing enjoyment.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Tales collects the best macabre stories of Washington Irving. Blending sly humor with supernatural thrills, these tales are among the most beloved and re-read of all American fiction. In the thirteen stories gathered for this volume, Irving evokes the colorful landscapes of his Hudson Valley hometown, and conjures characters and creatures from its historical past for a unique kind of weird tale that speaks directly...