A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens's great historical novel, set against the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author's novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores...

Published in 1880, Ben-Hur is a fictionalization of the events of Christ's life, beginning with the Nativity and ending with the Crucifixion. The story uses a parallel structure to simultaneously explore the life of Judah Ben-Hur, a Hebrew prince who lived in the time of Christ. This remarkable work of historical fiction reshaped the landscape of American popular literature and prompted millions of readers to reevaluate their personal views of Christianity....

First Published in 1860, "The Marble Faun" is the last of the four major romances written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Published shortly before the beginning of the American Civil War, it is a romantic and fantastical tale set in an imagined Italy and revolves around the love lives of the four main characters: Miriam, a beautiful and mysterious painter, Hilda, an innocent and morally upright copyist, Kenyon, a gifted sculptor, and Donatello,...

Two decades have passed since the musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and strategems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, and in England, Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. The quartet of musketeers come out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But...

Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and demonic money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens's portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made The Old Curiosity Shop an instant...

Jane Austen's first published novel, sparkling with wit and artistry, captures the inequities of birth, class, and marriage faced by the sisters Dashwood. Published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility has delighted generations of readers with its masterfully crafted portrait of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Forced to leave their home after their father's death, Elinor and Marianne must rely on making good marriages as their means of support....

Set in the years leading up to and culminating in Napoleon's disastrous Russian invasion, this novel focuses upon an entire society torn by conflict and change. Here is humanity in all its innocence and corruption, its wisdom and folly.

When a mysterious seafarer puts up at the Admiral Benbow, young Jim Hawkins is haunted by his frightening tales; the sailor's sudden death is the beginning of one of the most exciting adventure stories in literature. The discovery of a treasure map sets Jim and his companions in search of buried gold, and they are soon on board the Hispaniola with a crew of buccaneers recruited by the one-legged sea cook, Long John Silver. As they near their destination,...

Kate Croy and her lover scheme to extort money from a naive and trusting American heiress who is dying.

Mormon elders in the town of Cottonwoods pressure the widow Jane Withersteen to remarry so that her lands and herds will remain in their control. Gradually they frighten away most of her cowboys, and rustlers steal away her cattle, but the gunfighter Lassiter stands by her as the inevitable confrontation draws near.