When it appeared in 1874 "Lady Anna" met with little success, and positively outraged readers, but Trollope staunchly defended the novel. It is a tightly constructed and passionate study of enforced marriage in the world of Radical politics and social inequality. "Lady Anna" records the lifelong attempt of Countess Lovel to justify her claim to her title, and her daughter Anna's legitimacy, after her husband announces that he already has a wife. Anna...

Notes from the Underground is Fyodor Dostoevsky's ninth novel, and considered to be one of the first examples of the existential novel. In this radically inventive work, an alienated former minor administrator in nineteenth-century Russia has broken away from society and withdrawn into an underground identity. With its piercing insight into political, social, and moral issues, this classic is one of the most provocative work of literature ever written. In...

In the picaresque series of sketches in Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens wrote one of the masterpieces of comic fiction, and presented readers with some of the most colorful and beloved characters of all time. In Dickens' first novel, initially based on a series of illustrations, members of the eponymous club recount their various experiences and encounters as they travel around England. Without the dark themes that dominated so many of his novels,...

Joris-Karl Huysmans's cult classic of deviance and decadence that inspired Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray, now in a new translation by Theo Cuffe A celebration of deviance, vanity, sensual abandon, and the aesthetics of artifice, Against Nature brings us the nineteenth-century rebel Jean des Esseintes-disaffected, degenerate, and art-obsessed. The last of a proud and noble family, des Esseintes retreats from the world in disgust at bourgeois...

"The Kalevala" is a collection of Finnish and Karelian poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from oral folklore and mythology. Lönnrot was a physician, botanist, and linguist, who in 1828 began collecting folk songs and poetry of Finland, traveling extensively in order to obtain his sources. "The Kalevala", first published in 1835, is considered to be one of the most important works of Finnish literature, and regarded as the national epic of Finland....

Will an unlikely friendship be enough to save them? After escaping a train bound for a death camp with a trusty German Shepherd dog, a girl wakes to find that she has no memory of her former life. Lily is fostered by the kind RAF pilot who found her and his wife, Meg. It is not long before their lives are disrupted once again by the war and, with their home in ruins, they are forced to flee to the country. In the Somerset countryside, Lily is reunited...

If at all possible, send or take your household animals into the country in advance of an emergency. If you cannot place them in the care of neighbours, it really is kindest to have them destroyed." Joanna Ryan's father has gone off to war, leaving her i

Let me ask you this question: what does an exiled king, a thief with morals, a young sorcerer off on his own, a high elven wizard with secrets, an unlucky sell-sword, a somewhat clueless child, a man with gambling issues and a sewer needing cleaning have in common? The answer is: not a whole lot. But when the king is a three-meter-tall polar bear man, the thief one of the capital's most wanted, the sorcerer unlucky, the wizard too prideful, the...

Presents a collection of Viking "sagas" to commemorate the adventures of the people who first settled Iceland, and then explored Greenland and North America.

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...