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.

In this classic adventure story, a wealthy gentleman, Phileas Fogg, makes a bet that he can travel around the world in eighty days. Fogg and his servant set off immediately, determined to win this race against time. Little do they know they aren't making the journey alone.... Fogg has been fingered as the culprit in a bank robbery, and a detective in hot pursuit is trailing them as they cross every continent.

In a novella which remains highly controversial to this day, Conrad explores the relations between Africa and Europe. On the surface, this is a horrifying tale of colonial exploitation. The narrator, Marlowe journeys on business deep into the heart of Africa. But there he encounters Kurtz, an idealist apparently crazed and depraved by his power over the natives, and the meeting prompts Marlowe to reflect on the darkness at the heart of all men. This short but complex and often ambiguous story, which has been the basis of several films and plays, continues to provoke interpretation and discussion.作

203 of Aesop's most enduring and popular fables, translated into readable, modern American English and beautifully illustrated with 50 classic woodcuts by the great French artist J.J. Grandville.

Great Expectations tells the unforgettable story of the orphan Pip and his coming of age with the help of a mysterious benefactor. It is at once an expertly crafted novel and a profound reappraisal of the Victorian middle class and its values.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. I here present you, courteous reader, with the record of a remarkable period in my life. The Confessions of an English Opium Eater is both a classic of the English autobiographical genre and a hard-nosed study of the effects of drugs on an artistic mind. A close associate of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the brilliant but troubled de Quincey recounts both the pleasures and pain of opium addiction in captivating prose. The result is by turns enlightened, nightmarish and witty – a faithful mirror of the drug itself.

Bright and lively Judy Abbott is an orphan who dreams of escaping the drudgery of her life at the John Grier Home. One day she receives a marvelous opportunity—a wealthy male benefactor has agreed to fund her higher education. In return, Judy must keep him informed about the ups and downs of college life. From horrendous Latin lessons to falling in love, the result is a series of letters both hilarious and poignant. Fans of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women will relish this American-girl-power coming-of-age story. This gentle romance is the seventh book in the Looking Glass Library series.

Tragic story of wasted lives, set against a bleak New England background. A poverty-stricken New England farmer, his ailing wife and a youthful housekeeper are drawn relentlessly into a deep-rooted domestic struggle in this hauntingly grim tale of thwarted love.

Examines the conflict of attitudes in mid-19th-century Russia, as distant pre-echoes of the Revolution continue to rumble through the remote rural landscape. The story follows the Kirsanov family, representatives of the old regime, and the violent character of the anti-hero Bazarov.

A Swiss orphan is heartbroken when she must leave her beloved grandfather and their happy home in the mountains to go to school and to care for an invalid girl in the city.

Mark Twain is best known for his novels and short stories. Twain uses his incredible whit to depict life in America. His books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have been read by school children for generations. His life on the Mississippi River has peeked the imagination of boys to go and build a raft and sail off into unknown adventures. Double Barrelled Detective Story is a story in which Sherlock Holmes finds himself in the Old West. From Wikipedia, At a mining camp in California, Fetlock Jones, a nephew of Sherlock Holmes, kills his master, a silver-miner, by blowing up his cabin. Since this occurs when Holmes happens to be visiting, he brings his skills to bear upon the case and arrives at logically worked conclusions that are proved to be abysmally wrong by an amateur detective with an extremely keen sense of smell, which he employs in solving the case. This could be seen as yet another piece where Twain tries to prove that life does not quite follow logic.

Captain Crewe is very wealthy and states that Sara is destined for a lavish, comfortable future. Despite being pampered all her life in India, Sara herself is very intelligent, polite, and creative. Headmistress Miss Minchin is secretly jealous and dislikes Sara for her cleverness, but openly praises and flatters her because of her father's wealth. Before departing for India, Captain Crewe purchases Sara an elegant wardrobe and a doll whom Sara adores and names "Emily." Sara's friendliness and love for pretending and storytelling makes her popular with most of the school's students.

A Short History of the World is a period—piece non—fictional historic work by H.G. Wells first published by Cassell & Co,Ltd Publishing in 1922. It was republished under Penguin Classics in 2006. The book was largely inspired by Wells earlier 1919 work The Outline of History. The book tells of the history of the world,starting with the believed origins of the Earth around 2,000 million years ago,now known to be 4,404 million years according to 2005 estimates.The book then goes on to explain the,at the time believed,development of the Earth and life on Earth,until reaching primitive thought and the development of humankind from the Cradle of Civilisation. The book ends with the outcome of the First World War,the Russian famine of 1921,and the League of Nations in 1922.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer. Twain is most noted for his novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). He is also known for his quotations. His first important work, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, was published in 1865. His next publication was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which drew on his youth in Hannibal. The character of Tom Sawyer was modeled on twain as a child, with traces of two schoolmates, John Briggs and Will Bowen. His next major published work, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, solidified him as a noteworthy American writer. Some have called it the first Great American Novel. Finn was an offshoot from Tom Sawyer and proved to have a more serious tone than its predecessor. The main premise behind Huckleberry Finn is the young boy's belief in the right thing to do even though the majority of society believes that it was wrong.

uncle tom's cabin is the rnost popular，influential and controversial book written by an american. stowe's rich novel passionately dramatises why the whole of america is implicated in and responsible for the sin of slavery，and resoundingly concludes that only‘repentance，justice and mercy’will prevent the onset of‘the wrath of almighty god!’.the novel gave such a terrific impetus to the crusade for the abolition of slavery that president lincoln half-jokingly greeted stowe as‘the little lady’ who started the great civi war，as keith carabine argues in his lively and provocative introduction. the novel immediately provoked a storm of competing and contradictory responses among northern and southern readers，moderate and radical abolitionist groups，blacks and women with regard to issues of form. genre，politics，religion，race and gender，that are still of great interest because they anticipate the concerns that vex and divide modern readers and critical constituencies.

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.

Portraying social life in fashionable Bath and centred around Catherine Morland, this novel ridicules the popular tales of romance and terror and contrasts with these the normal realities of life.

The first and most autobiographical of Maugham's masterpieces. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as a would-be artist, he settles in London to train as a doctor where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a tortured and maso...

Sherwood Anderson was a 20th century American writer of short stories. Anderson grew up in Ohio and after college became a copywriter in Chicago. He is most famous for his collection of interrelated short stories, Winesburg Ohio, which he began writing in 1919. Poor White was published in 1920. Hugh McVey is an inventor who rises from poverty. The story is set on the banks of the Mississippi River during the years when rural America is influenced by industrialization sweeping the country.

Now she bustled up to the parsonage at the top of the oak-tree, to tell old Parson Too-Whit what she thought he ought to preach for his next sermon, and how dreadful the morals of the parish were becoming. Then, having perfectly bewildered the poor old gentleman, who was always sleepy of a Monday morning, Mother Magpie would take a peep into Mrs. Oriole's nest, sit chattering on a bough above, and pour forth floods of advice, which, poor little Mrs. Oriole used to say to her husband, bewildered her more than a hard north-east storm.