After nineteen years in prison, Jean Valjean has difficulty adjusting to the outside world, which scorns and shuns him.

"So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Mise; rables cannot fail to be of use, " says Victor Hugo in the preface of his famous novel. Certainly, Les Mise; rables is French history recounted through the personal stories of its main characters. The tale offers philosophical insight on the good deeds that can happen even amidst ignorance and poverty. This handsome leather-bound volume is a beautiful addition to any...

This is a love story, the portrait of a young artist, the portrait of the young artist's myterious girlfriend, a thriller, and a comedy, all about the color blue. Now, in this book, the author takes on the Great French Masters; it is part mystery, part history (sort of), part love story, and wholly hilarious as it follows a young baker-painter as he joins the dapper Henri Toulouse-Lautrec on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the supposed "suicide"...

Nothing goes right for Eloise. The one day she wears her new suede boots, it rains cats and dogs. When the subway stops short, she's always the one thrown into some stranger's lap. Plus, she's had more than her share of misfortune in the way of love. In fact, ever since she realized romantic heroes are a thing of the past, she's decided it's time for a fresh start. Setting off for England, Eloise is determined to finish her dissertation on that...

Great Expectations is among the most masterful of Charles Dickens's novels. Displaying extraordinary tragicomic range, Dickens blends an atmosphere of brooding violence and guilt with sharp and often disturbing humor to create a drama charged with the thrilling intensity of a detective story and the poignancy of a spiritual autobiography. Much of the novel's power comes from Dickens's unequaled skill at making even the most wildly eccentric of characters...

"Eleanor Fitt flees to Europe to seek the help of the Spirit-Hunters after a villain from her past resurfaces, only to find that, in Paris, there's a new kind of evil lurking"--

"Where are the hysterics, those magnificent women of former times?" wrote Jacques Lacan. Long history's ghosts, they have been revived at last by Maud Casey in City of Incurable Women as complex, flesh-and-blood people, dispossessed and marginalized due to their gender and class but with their own stories to tell. These linked, evocative prose portraits, accompanied by period photographs and medical documents both authentic and re-imagined, poignantly...

"Paris, 1794. Revolutionary fervour has erupted into the Reign of Terror. A young man, Paul Courtney, hides in a crowd watching as the condemned are brought to the guillotine. Among them is Constance Courtney, Paul's mother. As he watches her brutal execution, he knows he must avoid the same fate and fulfil his promise to her - to survive, no matter what. He joins Napoleon's army and is taken to Egypt, but with the world at war and traitors in every...

1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D'Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in conjuring the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identities of the people who killed them, she is highly sought after by widows and investigators alike. Lenna Wickes has come to Paris to find answers about her sister's death, but to do so, she must embrace the...

A fictional tale of the life of Marie Antoinette presents the story of a teenage empress's daughter who is forced to leave her family home to marry the future king of France and who rebels against the formality and rigid protocol of court life. "Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of...