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...

Middle-aged American Lambert Strether, sent to Paris by his patron Mrs. Newsome to find her son Chad and bring him home, finds Chad transformed by the influence of a remarkable woman, and soon follows suit, letting himself be swept away by the charms of the city and the mysterious Madame de Vionnet.

The adventures of a mischievous young boy and his friends growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth century. Includes illustrated notes throughout the text explaining the historical background of the story.

Henchard, a hay-tresser in England in 1886, gets drunk at a fair and sells his wife and child for five guineas. Eighteen years later, when the man has become the respected mayor of Casterbridge, his wife returns, and with her comes renewed problems and intoxication.

A blow on the head transports a Yankee to 528 A.D. where he proceeds to modernize King Arthur's kingdom by organizing a school system, constructing telephone lines, and inventing the printing press.

John Harmon returns to England as his father's heir. Believed drowned under suspicious circumstances--a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity--John evaluates Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colorful Victorian characters and incidents -- the faded aristocrats and parvenus gathered at the Veneering's dinner table, Betty Higden and her terror of the workhouse and the greedy plottings of Silas...

Falsely accused, cut off from his past, Silas the weaver is reduced to a spider-like existence, endlessly weaving his web and hoarding his gold. Meanwhile, Godfrey Cass, son of the squire, contracts a secret marriage. While the village celebrates Christmas and New Year, two apparently inexplicable events occur: Silas loses his gold and finds a child on his hearth.