Far From the Madding Crowd was Thomas Hardy's first major literary success. Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy, and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community.

One of his first works set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex, Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships. This edition, based on Hardy's original 1874 manuscript, is the complete novel he never saw published, and restores its full candor and innovation. Rosemarie Morgan's introduction discusses the history of its publication, as well as the biblical and classical allusions that permeate the novel.

King Henry IV, Part 1 is a remarkable play that delves into the complexities of history and fiction. While it is conventionally regarded as a history play, much of it is a conspicuously invented fiction. This duality raises questions about the very nature of history and how it is represented.

The play's language is rich with an economic vocabulary that provides a texture reflecting the social concerns of the time. The central relationship between value and political authority is a key focus, along with the recurring theme of honor and the role of women in the narrative.

The Arden Shakespeare edition offers an exceptional scholarly experience, with comprehensive introductions that contextualize the play within the historical and cultural backdrop of Shakespeare's era. It includes detailed appendices that address challenges such as dating, casting, and analyzing the differing Quarto and Folio sources.

This edition provides a full commentary by leading contemporary scholars, illuminating the text by glossing unfamiliar terms and explaining allusions and significant background information. It is highly informative, making it the fullest experience of Shakespeare available to readers.

El Arte de la Guerra, traducido por primera vez por un jesuita en 1772 con el título de Los Trece Capítulos, que lo dio a conocer en Europa, se convirtió rápidamente en un texto fundacional de estrategia militar para las distintas cortes y estados mayores europeos.

Pocas veces un libro antiguo (escrito entre los siglos VI y III a.C.) se ha mantenido tan moderno, porque esta filosofía de la guerra y la política basada en la astucia y el fingimiento, más que en la fuerza bruta, que describe, sigue siendo actual. Incluso fuera de lo "militar", Sun Tzu sigue siendo una gran referencia para descifrar la estrategia de empresa y la política. La formulación precisa y pictórica de Sun Tzu añade al interés del texto un toque de sabiduría milenaria.

The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy is Isaac Newton's monumental work, originally published in 1687. Known familiarly as the Principia, this text laid out in mathematical terms the principles of time, force, and motion that have guided the development of modern physical science.

Even after more than three centuries and the revolutions of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics continues to account for many of the phenomena of the observed world. Newtonian celestial dynamics is still used to determine the orbits of our space vehicles.

This edition is a completely new translation, the first in 270 years, based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton. It includes extracts from earlier editions, corrects errors found in previous versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms.

Newton's principles describe acceleration, deceleration, and inertial movement; fluid dynamics; and the motions of the earth, moon, planets, and comets. A great work in itself, the Principia also revolutionized the methods of scientific investigation. It set forth the fundamental three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity, the physical principles that account for the Copernican system of the world as emended by Kepler, thus effectively ending controversy concerning the Copernican planetary system.

The illuminating Guide to the Principia by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, makes this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.

Historias de cronopios y de famas es uno de los libros legendarios de Julio Cortázar. Postulación de una mirada poética capaz de enfrentar las miserias de la rutina y del sentido común, el escritor argentino toma aquí partido por la imaginación creadora y el humor corrosivo de los surrealistas. Esta colección de cuentos y viñetas entrañables es una introducción privilegiada al mundo inagotable de uno de los más grandes escritores de este siglo y un antídoto seguro contra la solemnidad y el aburrimiento.

Sin duda, Cortázar sella un pacto de complicidad definitiva e incondicional con sus lectores.

Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a man whose job it is to range through past and present Centuries, monitoring and, where necessary, altering Time's myriad cause-and-effect relationships. But when Harlan meets and falls for a non-Eternal woman, he seeks to use the awesome powers and techniques of the Eternals to twist time for his own purposes, so that he and his love can survive together.

HMS Ulysses is the novel that launched the astonishing career of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers of action and suspense. It is an acclaimed classic of heroism and the sea during World War II, now reissued in a new cover style.

The story follows men who rise to heroism, and then to something even greater. HMS Ulysses takes its place alongside The Caine Mutiny and The Cruel Sea as one of the classic novels of the navy at war.

This compelling story of Convoy FR77 to Murmansk is a voyage that pushes men to the limits of human endurance, crippled by enemy attack and the bitter cold of the Arctic.

Thomas Pynchon's classic post-modern satire, which tells the wonderfully unusual story of Oedipa Maas, first published in 1965. When her ex-lover, wealthy real-estate tycoon Pierce Inverarity dies and designates her the co-executor of his estate, California housewife Oedipa Mass is thrust into a paranoid mystery of metaphors, symbols, and the United States Postal Service. Traveling across Southern California, she meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not-inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge.

First published in French as a serial in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera is a riveting story that revolves around the young, Swedish Christine Daaé. Her father, a famous musician, dies, and she is raised in the Paris Opera House with his dying promise of a protective angel of music to guide her. After a time at the opera house, she begins hearing a voice, which eventually teaches her how to sing beautifully.

All goes well until Christine's childhood friend Raoul comes to visit his parents, who are patrons of the opera, and he sees Christine when she begins successfully singing on the stage. The voice, who is the deformed, murderous 'ghost' of the opera house named Erik, however, grows violent in his terrible jealousy, until Christine suddenly disappears.

The phantom is in love, but it can only spell disaster. Gaston Leroux's work, with characters ranging from the spoiled prima donna Carlotta to the mysterious Persian from Erik's past, has been immortalized by memorable adaptations. Despite this, it remains a remarkable piece of Gothic horror literature in and of itself, deeper and darker than any version that follows.

The Metamorphosis is a novella written by Franz Kafka, which was first published in 1915. It tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect and subsequently struggles to adjust to this new condition.

The novella has been widely discussed among literary critics, with differing interpretations being offered. The text was first published in the October issue of the journal Die weißen Blätter under the editorship of René Schickele. The first edition in book form appeared in December 1915 in the series Der jüngste Tag, edited by Kurt Wolff.

With a length of about 70 printed pages over three chapters, it is the longest of the stories Kafka considered complete and published during his lifetime. In popular culture and adaptations of the novella, the insect is commonly depicted as a cockroach.

A timeless American classic and one of the most beloved children’s books ever written, Old Yeller is a Newbery Honor Book that explores the poignant and unforgettable bond between a boy and the stray dog who becomes his loyal friend.

When his father sets out on a cattle drive toward Kansas for the summer, fourteen-year-old Travis Coates is left to take care of his family and their farm. Living in Texas Hill Country during the 1860s, Travis comes to face new, unanticipated, and often perilous responsibilities in the frontier wilderness. A particular nuisance is a stray yellow dog that shows up one day and steals food from the family. But the big canine who Travis calls “Old Yeller” proves his worth by defending the family from danger. And Travis ultimately finds help and comfort in the courage and unwavering love of the dog who comes to be his very best friend.

Fred Gipson’s novel is an eloquently simple story that is both exciting and deeply moving. It stands alongside works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Where The Red Fern Grows, and Shiloh as a beloved and enduring classic of literature. Originally published in 1956 to instant acclaim, Old Yeller later inspired a hit film from Walt Disney. Just as Old Yeller inevitably makes his way into the Coates family’s hearts, this book will find its own special place in readers’ hearts.

Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton, is madly in love with the beautiful Julia Oversley. But he has returned from the Peninsular War to find his family on the brink of ruin and his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. He has little choice when he is introduced to Mr. Jonathan Chawleigh, a City man of apparently unlimited wealth and no social ambitions for himself-but with his eyes firmly fixed on a suitable match for his only daughter, the quiet and decidedly plain Jenny Chawleigh.

Adam desperately needs money to keep his fatherless family together, and a marriage to Jenny would solve all his problems. And Jenny's father, a man of great wealth and ambition for his daughter, is only too happy to arrange a suitable match with a title for her. Adam chafes under Mr. Chawleigh's generosity, and Julia's jealous behavior upon hearing of the betrothal nearly brings them all into a scandal. But Adam didn't reckon with the Jenny nobody knew, or the unknown quality that lay hidden behind her demure and plain facade, who bring him comfort and eventually more....

When it was first published in 1917, Growth of the Soil was immediately recognized as a masterpiece. Ninety years later it remains a transporting literary experience. In the story of Isak, who leaves his village to clear a homestead and raise a family amid the untilled tracts of the Norwegian back country, Knut Hamsun evokes the elemental bond between humans and the land. Newly translated by the acclaimed Hamsun scholar Sverre Lyngstad, Hamsun's novel is a work of preternatural calm, stern beauty, and biblical power—and the crowning achievement of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.

Beat movement icon and visionary poet, Allen Ginsberg broke boundaries with his fearless, pyrotechnic verse. This collection brings together the famous poems that made his name as a defining figure of the counterculture.

They include the apocalyptic 'Howl', which became the subject of an obscenity trial when it was first published in 1956; the moving lament for his dead mother, 'Kaddish'; the searing indictment of his homeland, 'America'; and the confessional 'Mescaline'.

Dark, ecstatic, and rhapsodic, these works show why Ginsberg was one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience is an illustrated collection of poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.

Set in the rural Midlands of England, The Rainbow (1915) revolves around three generations of the Brangwens, a strong, vigorous family, deeply involved with the land. When Tom Brangwen marries a Polish widow, Lydia Lensky, and adopts her daughter Anna as his own, he is unprepared for the conflict and passion that erupts between them. All are seeking individual fulfilment, but it is Ursula, Anna's spirited daughter, who, in search for self-knowledge, rejects the conventional role of womanhood.

This visionary novel, considered to be one of Lawrence’s finest, explores the complex sexual and psychological relationships between men and women in an increasingly industrialized world.

Everyone knows the cumulative rhyme “This Is the House That Jack Built,” but The Napping House is close on its heels in the race for posterity:

“And on that granny
there is a child
a dreaming child
on a snoring granny
on a cozy bed
in a napping house,
where everyone is sleeping.”

Included in the napping house menagerie is a dozing dog, a snoozing cat, a slumbering mouse, and a wakeful flea who ends up toppling the whole sleep heap with one chomp!

Don Wood’s delightfully detailed comical illustrations are bathed in moonlight blues until the sun comes up, then all is color and rainbows and a very awake household.

The Temptation of St. Antony is a profound work that deeply influenced the young Freud and served as an inspiration for many artists. This book was Flaubert's lifelong endeavor, taking thirty years to complete.

Based on the story of the third-century saint who lived on an isolated mountaintop in the Egyptian desert, it presents a fantastical narrative of one night during which Anthony is besieged by carnal temptations and philosophical doubt.

Letters from the Earth is one of Mark Twain's posthumously published works, written during a difficult time in his life. Twain was deep in debt and had lost his wife and one of his daughters. The book consists of a series of short stories, many of which deal with God and Christianity. Twain penned a series of letters from the point-of-view of a dejected angel on Earth.

This title story consists of letters written by the archangel Satan to archangels, Gabriel and Michael, about his observations on the curious proceedings of earthly life and the nature of man's religions. By analyzing the idea of heaven and God that is widely accepted by believers, Twain is able to take the silliness that is present and study it with the common sense that is absent. It's not so much an attack as a cold dissection.

Other short stories in the book include a bedtime story about a family of cats Twain wrote for his daughters, and an essay explaining why an anaconda is morally superior to Man. Twain's writings in Letters From the Earth find him at perhaps his most quizzical and questioning state ever.

Manfred contains supernatural elements, reflecting the popularity of ghost stories in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Romantic closet drama.

Friedrich Nietzsche was impressed by the poem's depiction of a super-human being and even wrote some music for it. Byron described this as a "metaphysical drama," written after his marriage failed amidst scandalous charges.

Attacked by the press and ostracized by society, Byron fled England for Switzerland in 1816 and never returned. Manfred was written immediately after this, and its main character is tortured by his own sense of guilt for an unmentionable offense, leading some critics to consider it autobiographical.

The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta. The supernatural references are clear throughout the poem. In one scene (Act III, Scene IV, Interior of the Tower), Manfred recalls traveling through time to Caesar's palace, "and fill'd up, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries..."

Dana, a modern Black woman, is celebrating her 26th birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him.

Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

Boy: Tales of Childhood is a delightful autobiography by the world-renowned storyteller, Roald Dahl. In this captivating memoir, Dahl takes us on a journey through his early years in England.

From his mischievous days at boarding school, where he was quite the prankster, to his enviable role as a chocolate tester for Cadbury's, Dahl's childhood was full of excitement and surprises. His boyhood tales are packed with anecdotes—some funny, some painful, all interesting—that are sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

Experience the hilarious and sometimes painful memories of Dahl's youth, vividly shared in this timeless classic.

Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the fates of three men and three women. It was Pushkin's own favourite work, and this new translation conveys the literal sense and the poetic music of the original.

Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it contains a large cast of characters and offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein. Eugene Onegin was Pushkin's own favourite work, and this new translation seeks to retain both the literal sense and the poetic music of the original, and capture the poem's spontaneity and wit.

Three Days To See is a remarkable essay by the renowned author and activist, Helen Keller. This work invites readers into the imaginative and perceptive world of Keller, who, despite being blind and deaf, offers an inspiring perspective on experiencing life.

In this essay, Keller imagines what she would do if she were given just three days to see the world. She shares her desires to witness the beauty of nature, the faces of loved ones, and the vibrant life of a bustling city. Her reflections are both profound and heartfelt, encouraging readers to appreciate the simple joys and wonders of the world around them.

This essay not only highlights Keller's incredible insight but also serves as a powerful reminder of the value of sight and the richness of human experience. It is a timeless piece that continues to inspire and move readers across generations.

Resurrection (1899) is the last of Tolstoy's major novels. It tells the story of a nobleman's attempt to redeem the suffering his youthful philandering inflicted on a peasant girl who ends up a prisoner in Siberia. Tolstoy's vision of redemption, achieved through loving forgiveness and his condemnation of violence, dominate the novel. An intimate, psychological tale of guilt, anger, and forgiveness, Resurrection is at the same time a panoramic description of social life in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century, reflecting its author's outrage at the social injustices of the world in which he lived.

This edition, which updates a classic translation, has explanatory notes, and a substantial introduction based on the most recent scholarship in the field.

The Jungle Books can be regarded as classic stories told by an adult to children. But they also constitute a complex literary work of art in which the whole of Kipling's philosophy of life is expressed in miniature. They are best known for the 'Mowgli' stories; the tale of a baby abandoned and brought up by wolves, educated in the ways and secrets of the jungle by Kaa the python, Baloo the bear, and Bagheera the black panther. The stories, a mixture of fantasy, myth, and magic, are underpinned by Kipling's abiding preoccupation with the theme of self-discovery, and the nature of the 'Law'.

Wielki uczony - wciąż spragniony wiedzy o sensie istnienia - zawiera pakt z diabłem. Chce absolutnego poznania i doskonałego szczęścia - jeśli zazna chwili, o której powie „trwaj, jesteś piękna!” szatan będzie mógł wziąć jego duszę do piekła. Mefistofeles ochoczo zgadza się na to - wszak sprawdzić wiarę Fausta pozwolił mu sam Bóg.

Faust to dzieło życia Goethego, dramat o możliwościach ludzkiego poznania i sensie istnienia świata.

Bestiario is a collection of eight captivating stories by Julio Cortázar, where the ordinary seamlessly transitions into the extraordinary. Each tale unveils a world where nightmares and revelations lurk just beneath the surface of everyday life.

These stories are crafted with precision and perfection, devoid of any youthful undertones or stumbling. As you delve into each narrative, you'll encounter a sense of surprise and unease, mingled with the indescribable pleasure of reading.

From the haunting "Casa Tomada" ("House Taken Over") to the enigmatic "Carta a una señorita en París" ("Letter to a Young Lady in Paris"), each story challenges your perception of reality and invites you to see the world through a different lens.

After experiencing these classics, your view of the world may never be the same. Enter a dimension where stories gaze back at you, waiting for something in return.

Ben, Penny, and Nick are on an exhilarating adventure, running away from everything they know.
Everywhere in Florida, from Ben's uncle to the Coast Guard, is on their trail, determined to find them.
Will they succeed in their daring escape? And will they discover the mysterious Lion's Paw?

A gripping tale set against the backdrop of South Florida, this story follows three children as they navigate the challenges of sailing and survival. Join them as they embark on an unforgettable journey!

Originally written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, H. P. Lovecraft's astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmology that are as powerful today as they were when first published.

This tome presents original versions of many of his most harrowing stories, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, in order of publication.

A Death in the Family is a classic American novel, re-published for the 100th anniversary of James Agee's birth. Published in 1957, two years after its author's death at the age of forty-five, this novel remains a near-perfect work of art. It is an autobiographical novel that contains one of the most evocative depictions of loss and grief ever written.

As Jay Follet hurries back to his home in Knoxville, Tennessee, he is killed in a car accident—a tragedy that destroys not only a life but also the domestic happiness and contentment of a young family. This is a novel of great courage, lyric force, and powerful emotion, truly a masterpiece of American literature.

The thirteenth novel in Émile Zola’s great Les Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity’s capacity for compassion and hope. Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Forced to take a back-breaking job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry, in debt, and unable to feed and clothe their families. When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean starvation or salvation for all.

New translation
Includes introduction, suggestions for further reading, filmography, chronology, explanatory notes, and glossary

Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer encapsulate Joseph Conrad's literary achievements and his haunting portrayal of the dark side of man. In these two masterful works, Conrad delves into the inner self with chilling, disturbing, and noteworthy pieces of fiction of the twentieth century.

Heart of Darkness is a devastating commentary on the corruptibility of humanity, based on Conrad's own 1890 trip up the Congo River. The story, told by Marlow, Conrad's alter ego, is a journey into darkness and horror—both literally, as the narrator descends into a sinister jungle landscape, and metaphorically, as he encounters the morally depraved Mr. Kurtz.

The Secret Sharer tells the tale of a young sea captain's first command as he sails into the Gulf of Siam—and into an encounter with his mysterious “double,” the shadow self of the unconscious mind. Joseph Conrad boldly experimented with the novella and novel forms, filled his writing with the exotic places he himself had traveled, and concerned himself with honor, guilt, moral alienation, and sin.

With an Introduction by Joyce Carol Oates and an Afterword by Vince Passaro, these works offer a deep exploration of the complexities of the human soul.

In Monterey, on the California coast, Sweet Thursday is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday, which is one of those days that are just naturally bad.

Returning to the scene of Cannery Row—the weedy lots and junk heaps and flophouses of Monterey, John Steinbeck once more brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears—from Fauna, the new headmistress of the local brothel, to Hazel, a bum whose mother must have wanted a daughter.

This story captures the essence of humanity with humor and poignancy, painting a vivid picture of post-World War II life.

How can anyone describe this book? It isn't a parable, a fairy story, or a poem, but rather a mixture of all three. It is beautiful and it is comic. It is philosophical and it is cheery.

What we suppose we are trying fumblingly to say is, in a word, that it is Thurber. There are only a few reasons why everybody has always wanted to read this kind of story: if you have always wanted to love a Princess; if you always wanted to be a Prince; if you always wanted the wicked Duke to be punished; or if you always wanted to live happily ever after.

Too little of this kind of thing is going on in the world today. But all of it is going on valorously in The 13 Clocks.

Felipe Montero is employed in the house of an aged widow to edit her deceased husband's memoirs. There, Felipe meets her beautiful green-eyed niece, Aura. His passion for Aura and his gradual discovery of the true relationship between the young woman and her aunt propel the story to its extraordinary conclusion.

When Betty MacDonald married a marine and moved to a small chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, she was largely unprepared for the rigors of life in the wild. With no running water, no electricity, a house in need of constant repair, and days that ran from four in the morning to nine at night, the MacDonalds had barely a moment to put their feet up and relax. And then came the children.

Yet, through every trial and pitfall—through chaos and catastrophe—this indomitable family somehow, mercifully, never lost its sense of humor. It is an immortal, hilarious, and heartwarming classic about working a chicken farm in the Northwest.

No one could reach her. Twelve-year-old Helen Keller lived in a prison of silence and darkness. Born deaf, blind, and mute, with no way to express herself or comprehend those around her, she flew into primal rages against anyone who tried to help her, fighting tooth and nail with a strength born of furious, unknowing desperation.

Then Annie Sullivan came. Half-blind herself, but possessing an almost fanatical determination, she would begin a frightening and incredibly moving struggle to tame the wild girl no one could reach, and bring Helen into the world at last.

By P.L. Travers, the author featured in the major motion picture, Saving Mr. Banks. From the moment Mary Poppins arrives at Number Seventeen Cherry-Tree Lane, everyday life at the Banks house is forever changed. It all starts when Mary Poppins is blown by the east wind onto the doorstep of the Banks house. She becomes a most unusual nanny to Jane, Michael, and the twins. Who else but Mary Poppins can slide up banisters, pull an entire armchair out of an empty carpetbag, and make a dose of medicine taste like delicious lime-juice cordial? A day with Mary Poppins is a day of magic and make-believe come to life!

Although Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) created a wide range of poetry, essays, and fairy tales (and one novel) in his brief, tragic life, he is perhaps best known as a dramatist. His witty, clever drama, populated by brilliant talkers skilled in the art of riposte and paradox, are still staples of the theatrical repertoire. An Ideal Husband revolves around a blackmail scheme that forces a married couple to reexamine their moral standards — providing, along the way, a wry commentary on the rarity of politicians who can claim to be ethically pure. A supporting cast of young lovers, society matrons, an overbearing father, and a formidable femme fatale continually exchange sparkling repartee, keeping the play moving at a lively pace.

Like most of Wilde's plays, this scintillating drawing-room comedy is wise, well-constructed, and deeply satisfying. An instant success at its 1895 debut, the play continues to delight audiences over one hundred years later. An Ideal Husband is a must-read for Wilde fans, students of English literature, and anyone delighted by wit, urbanity, and timeless sophistication.

Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, this classic text is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation, other questions are raised: what is goodness?; what is reality?; and what is knowledge? The Republic also addresses the purpose of education and the role of both women and men as guardians of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by philosopher kings.

Anne Brontë's second novel is a passionate and courageous challenge to the conventions supposedly upheld by Victorian society and reflected in circulating-library fiction. The heroine, Helen Huntingdon, after a short period of initial happiness, leaves her dissolute husband, and must earn her own living to rescue her son from his influence. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is compelling in its imaginative power, the realism and range of its dialogue, and its psychological insight into the characters involved in a marital battle.

Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaire is a masterwork that scandalized society with its portrayals of sex, same-sex love, death, the corrupting and oppressive power of the modern city, and lost innocence. The book remains powerful and relevant for our time.

In Spleen et idéal, Baudelaire dramatizes the erotic cycle of ecstasy and anguish of sexual and romantic love. Tableaux Parisiens condemns the crushing effects of urban planning on a city's soul and praises the city's anti-heroes, including the deranged and derelict. Le Vin centers on the search for oblivion in drink and drugs. The book explores the many kinds of love that lie outside traditional morality in Fleurs du Mal and rebellion is at the heart of Révolte.

It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard's assignment--find them and then retire them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn't want to be found!

By 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They've even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive androids so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans can wreak, the government bans them from Earth. Driven into hiding, unauthorized androids live among human beings, undetected.

Rick Deckard, an officially sanctioned bounty hunter, is commissioned to find rogue androids and retire them. But when cornered, androids fight back--with lethal force.

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Their Eyes Were Watching God is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known—and feared—as the man christened Muad’Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremen, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne—and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family’s dynasty...

Favorites for nearly 100 years, these classic novels follow the adventures of the spirited redhead Anne Shirley, who comes to stay at Green Gables and wins the hearts of everyone she meets.

Includes Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne's House of Dreams, Anne of Ingleside, Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside - the whole collection. Each book includes: The original, unabridged text; a specially commissioned biography of L.M. Montgomery; a map of Prince Edward Island.

As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, Suetonius gained access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eye-witness accounts) to produce one of the most colorful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome, from the foundation of the empire under Julius Caesar and Augustus, to the decline into depravity and civil war under Nero, and the recovery that came with his successors.

A masterpiece of anecdote, wry observation and detailed physical description, The Twelve Caesars presents us with a gallery of vividly drawn — and all too human — individuals.