Don Quixote is a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha in central Spain. Obsessed with the chivalrous ideals touted in books he has read, he decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked. After a first failed adventure, he sets out on a second one with a somewhat befuddled laborer named Sancho Panza, whom he has persuaded to accompany him as his faithful squire. In return for Sanchoʹs services,...

When John Barton's wife dies, he is forced to raise his daughter, Mary, alone, while he grieves the love of his life. Though he is a hard-working man, John struggles to provide for his family. Realizing how unfair his financial situation is, John becomes very resentful towards the unethical distribution of wealth between the social classes. Against John's wishes, when Mary comes of age, she decides to help support their family by working in a dressmaking...

Includes the favorite redemption tale of misanthrope Ebenezer Scrooge as well as such holiday pieces as "The Chimes," "The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Battle of Life" and "The Haunted Man."

"The Grandet household, oppressed by the exacting miserliness of Grandet himself, is jerked violently out of routine by the sudden arrival of Eugénie's cousin Charles, recently orphaned and penniless. Eugénie's emotional awakening, stimulated by her love for her cousin, brings her into direct conflict with her father, whose cunning and financial success are matched against her determination to rebel."--Back cover.

The celebrated Victorian author of Middlemarch explores the turbulent world of Florence during the Italian Renaissance in this sweeping historical novel. Florence, 1492. Lorenzo de Medici has just died, leaving governance of the Florentine Republic to his son Piero, an unskilled ruler. Meanwhile, Tito Melema, a shipwrecked stranger, finds love with a young woman named Romola, the devoted daughter of a blind scholar. Though her brother has a vision...

"This collection of Poe's best stories contains all the terrifying and bewildering tales that characterize his work. As well as the Gothic horror of such famous stories as The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Premature Burial, and The Tell-Tale Heart, all of Poe's Auguste Dupin stories are included. These are the first modern detective stories, and include The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget and The...