Samuel Butler was an individualistic Victorian era writer who published a variety of works. He is also known for examining Christian orthodoxy, considerable studies of evolutionary thought, studies of Italian art, and works of literary history as well as criticism. Butler even made prose translations of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" which remain some of the most popular to this day. His authority on literature came through his posthumous novel, "The...

It is the story of Sterne's fictional travel through both countries, particularly France. Sterne made two trips within the continent, in 1762-64 and 1765-66, but the book is not about his errands, but those of parson Yorick's (a character in "Tristram Shandy"). With a less acid and outrageous humor than in his previous work, Sterne anyway mixes the picaresque with an ironic and, frequently, hilarious philosophical irony. Yorick begins by trying to...

Overview: Alexandre Dumas's novel of justice, retribution, and self-discovery - one of the most enduringly popular adventure tales ever written - appears here in a newly revised translation. "This novel tells the story of Edmond Dantes, wrongfully imprisoned for life in the supposedly impregnable sea fortress the Chateau d'If. After a daring escape, and after unearthing a hidden treasure revealed to him by a fellow prisoner, he devotes the rest...

Emma's opening sentence, which describes the titular heroine's many advantages, is loaded with foreboding. Discomfort and vexation lie on the horizon, triggered by her penchant for matchmaking. Emma's latest scheme involves finding a suitable husband for ingenue Harriet Smith, and to that end she persuades the latter to reject good-natured farmer Robert Martin, despite a mutual attraction. Harriet must set her sights higher, she exhorts, fixing on...

Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...

A married woman falls blindly in love with a handsome military officer. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. States Leo Tolstoy in his great modern novel of an adulterous affair set against the backdrop of Moscow and St. Petersburg high society in the later half of the nineteenth century. A sophisticated woman who is respectably married to a government bureaucrat, Anna begins a passionate, all-consuming involvement...

An elegant portrait of desire and betrayal in Old New York. In the highest circle of New York social life during the 1870's, Newland Archer, a young lawyer, prepares to marry the docile May Welland. Before their engagement is announced, he meets May's cousin, the mysterious, nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned to New York after a long absence--Novelist.

Separated into four parts, Tales of a Traveler features twenty-seven works of short fiction, all catering to a sense of adventure and interest in the macabre. The first part, titled Strange Stories by a Nervous Gentleman explores the odd escapades of its protagonists. In The Adventure of a German Student, a young man meets a strange woman on a stormy night, looking for shelter. The student allows the woman to stay in his apartment for the night, but...

Is love a matter of the head or the heart? Money and marriage are the two subjects of this first Jane Austen novel. For Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, it is a time of great change: their father has just died and the heir to the estate where they live, the son of their father's first marriage, leaves them with little to support themselves. For good reason, Elinor helps her mother find a new home they can afford on the other side of England, in Devon....

"Deep within the peaceful heart of Amish country, a life-or-death emergency shatters a quiet world to its core.Number-oneNew York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs delivers a riveting story that challenges our deepest-held beliefs. Caught between two worlds, Caleb Stoltz is bound by a deathbed promise to raise his orphaned niece and nephew in Middle Grove, where life revolves around family, farm, faith--and long-held suspicions about outsiders....