Pride and Prejudice is the story of Mr and Mrs Bennet (minor gentry), their five daughters, and the various romantic adventures at their Hertfordshire residence of Longbourn. The parents' characters are greatly contrasted: Mr Bennet being a wise and witty gentleman; while Mrs Bennet is permanently distracted by the issue of marrying off her daughters at any cost. The reason for Mrs Bennet's obsession is that their estate will pass by law after Mr Bennet's death to his closest blood relative: his cousin, the Reverend William Collins (a fatuous, tactless and pompous man). Austen's tale is spurred on by the arrival of the young and wealthy bachelor Charles Bingley and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy. It is the story of the various affections, affectations and engagement shenanigans that develop due to Mrs Bennet's relentless matchmaking and the dashing Darcy's tempestuous relationship with Elizabeth Bennet who Jane Austen claimed was favourite amongst her literary offspring. Its 1797 earlier version was turned down for publication and it appeared in this form in 1813.

This novel tells the story of Hank Morgan, the quintessential self-reliant New Englander who brings to King Arthur's Age of Chivalry the "great and beneficent" miracles of nineteenth-century engineering and American ingenuity. Through the collision of past and present, Twain exposes the insubstantiality of both utopias, destroying the myth of the romantic ideal as well as his own era's faith in scientific and social progress. A central document in American intellectual history, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is at once a hilarious comedy of anachronisms and incongruities, a romantic fantasy, a utopian vision, and a savage, anarchic social satire that only one of America's greatest writers could pen.

Edmond Rostand's bittersweet melodrama tells the tale of France's master swordsman--Cyrano de Bergerac, a valiant soldier cursed with the face of a clown. Gallantry, love, poetry, and failure all combine in this timeless classic, further enhanced by Kyle Baker's captivating illustrations.

Mary Shelly's classic tale of terror is the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young student, who learns the secret of imparting life into a creature that he has constructed from corpses he finds.

Moving, heart-felt prose poems by the beloved and much admired Bengali poet and mystic who first achieved international fame (and a Nobel Prize) in 1913 with his translation of these moving poems. Reminiscent of Blake and Gibran, they include many works that are almost biblical in their rhythms, phrasing and images. Introduction by William Butler Yeats.

They saw their work in gathering the fairy tales of Europe as an academic exercise,but the Brothers Grimm-aka German folklorists and linguists JAKOB (1785-1863) and WILHELM GRIMM (1786-1859)-are today remembered best as tellers of dark stories for children.Here,in one compact volume,are 53 of the most beloved of the stories they assembled,from well-known ones such as"The Sleeping Beauty,""The Frog Prince,""Rapunzel,"and"Hansel and Grethel"to more obscure ones including"The Rabbit's Bride,""Six Soldiers of Fortune,""Faithful John,"and"The Three Spinsters."A treasury of classic stories,this replica of an 1886 edition-translated by English writer LUCY CRANE (1842-1882),with beautiful line drawings by her brother,William Crane-will delight children and adults alike.

Dans ce roman, je lirai balzac avaient fait preuve de personnalités très percutant décrivent les capacités et la vie sociale à paris et JingDao vivants panoramique. En général on balzac traduisent la noblesse grimper riches ou le mariage, ainsi que l’importance de MenDangHuDui différents secteurs des unions de personnes d’origine ne peut en métal et des idées de toute espèce, la tragédie. Nom roman est un portrait magasins, un chat et pour la pelote roman métaphore.

Fashioned from the same experiences that would inspire the masterpiece Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain's most brilliant and most personal nonfiction work. It is at once an affectionate evocation of the vital river life in the steamboat era and a melancholy reminiscence of its passing after the Civil War, a priceless collection of humorous anecdotes and folktales, and a unique glimpse into Twain's life before he began to write. Written in a prose style that has been hailed as among the greatest in English literature, Life on the Mississippi established Twain as not only the most popular humorist of his time but also America's most profound chronicler of the human comedy.

"Little Men" (1871) continues Louisa May Alcott's story of the March family. It picks up from "Little Women" and "Good Wives" to follow tomboy Jo into her married life. Jo and her husband, Prof. Bhaer, have opened a school for boys. Jo takes charge, but she retains a "merry sort of face," and the boys call her jolly. The school takes in troubled cases including homeless "little chap," Nat, and rowdy run-away Dan. Alcott pictures the kind of boyhood that the recent bestseller, "The Dangerous Book for Boys," hopes to rekindle. Alcott's boys climb trees and sneak off to light their first (choke ) cigars, but each lad has the makings of a good man -- qualities that Jo intends to bring out. The language might sound as quaint as "thunder turtles " and "hoydens" (grrrls), but the drama is the same now as always. Jo's concern for her boys is every teacher's -- every right parent's -- hope for every child. The story concludes with "Jo's Boys: And How They Turned Out."

Trollope did not write for posterity,'observed Henry James. 'He wrote for the day, the moment; but these are just the writers whom posterity is apt to put into its pocket.' Considered by contemporary critics to be Trollope's greatest novel,The Way We Live Now is a satire of the literary world of London in the 1870s and a bold indictment of the new power of specul……

In 1889, while many Americans were disdainful of newly arrived immigrants, Jane Addams established Hull-House as a refuge for Chicago's poor. The settlement house provided an unprecedented variety of social services. Addams's inspiring autobiography chronicles the institution's early years and discusses the ever-relevant philosophy of social justice that served as its foundation.

A deliciously satirical attack on a money-mad society, Vanity Fair, which first appeared in 1847, is an immensely moral novel, and an immensely witty one. Called in its subtitle "A Novel Without a Hero," Vanity Fair has instead two heroines: the faithful, loyal Amelia Sedley and the beautiful and scheming social climber Becky Sharp. It also engages a huge cast of wonderful supporting characters as the novel spins from Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies to affairs of love and war on the Continent to liaisons in the dazzling ballrooms of London. Thackeray's forte is the bon mot and it is amply exercised in a novel filled with memorably wicked lines. Lengthy and leisurely in pace, the novel follows the adventures of Becky and Amelia as their fortunes rise and fall, creating a tale of both picaresque and risqué. Thackery mercilessly skewers his society, especially the upper class, poking fun at their shallow values and pointedly jabbing at their hypocritical "morals." His weapons, however, are not fire and brimstone but an unerring eye for the absurd and a genius for observation of the foibles of his age. An enduring classic, this great novel is a brilliant study in duplicity and hypocrisy…and a mirror with which to view our own times.

By virtue of its casual, off-handedly brilliant wisdom and the easy splendor of its nature writing, Thoreau's account of his adventure in self-reliance on the shores of a pond in Massachusetts is one of the signposts by which the modern mind has located itself in an increasingly bewildering world. Deeply sane, invigorating in its awareness of humanity's place in the moral and natural order, Walden represents the progressive spirit of nineteenth-century America at its eloquent best. (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

In the hope of saving her brother's life, should a woman submit to rape? Should the law be respected when its administrator is corrupt? How powerful in the state should religion become? Although Measure for Measure ends like a comedy, with reconciliations, forgiveness and marriages, it has often been regarded as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The drama shows the difficulty of effecting an appropriate balance between judicial severity and mercy, between sexual repression and decadence, and between political vigilance and social manipulation. These problems remain topical, and, in Measure for Measure, they are given immediacy by vivid character-conflicts and memorably intense poetry. This is one of Shakespeare's most probing and powerful works.Measure for Measure is the fouteenth volume in the new Wordsworth Classics'Shakespear Series.

Entertaining collection of exciting animal adventures from a master storyteller introduces an appealing little porcupine and his neighbors of Green Forest. Learn what makes Old Granny Fox lose her dignity, how Prickly Porky makes friends, why Old Man Coyote loses his appetite, and more.

The Age of Innocence (1920) is a novel by Edith Wharton, which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize.The story is set in upper-class New York City in the 1870s.

Balzac's literary output began with chronicles and sketches on widely varied social and artistic topics. The journals to which he contributed were increasingly looking for short fiction, which Balzac was able to provide. A collection Scnes de la vie prive (Scenes from Private Life) came out in 1829, and was well received: these were tales told with a journalistic eye which looked into the fabric of modern life and did not shun social and political realities. Balzac had found a distinctive voice.

The story of an unhappy little girl, her invalid cousin, andthe healing power of friendship and love.

In one of the fairest of the West Indian islands a simple but elegant villa lifted its gabled roofs amidst a bewildering wealth of tropical beauty. Brilliant birds flitted among the foliage gold and silver fishes darted to and fro in a large stone basin of a fountain which threw its glittering spray over the lawn in front of the house and on the vine-shaded veranda hammocks hung temptingly and low wicker chairs invited to repose.

This collection defining documents from one of America's most influential thinkers presents Pragmatism in its entirety, James's seminal set of lectures in which he argues in his witty and limpid style for the "reasonableness of ordinary experience." Also gathered here are selections from James's other formative works, including The Meaning of Truth, Psychology, The Will to Believe, and Talks to Teachers on Psychology.