This brilliant satire of the women's rights movement in America is the story of the ravishing inspirational speaker Verena Tarrant and the bitter struggle between two distant cousins who seek to control her. Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena's heart and remove her from the limelight?...

E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, essayist, painter, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous paintings and drawings. He is remembered as an unsurpassed voice of 20th century poetry, as well as one of the most popular, even today. Cummings attended Harvard, receiving both his bachelor's and master's by 1916. A year later, he enlisted in the...

This Eliot novel tells the story of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, a pair of siblings who grow up together on a river in early nineteenth century England. While Tom’s reserved nature and Maggie’s idealism produce differences that strain their love in times of hardship, the two ultimately reconcile when confronted with certain death. A powerful work on individual tenacity in the face of oppressive circumstance, The Mill on the Floss remains one of Eliot’s...

The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903) is a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Written during a period of increased interest in Egyptology across Europe, The Jewel of Seven Stars helped to establish the Irish master of Gothic horror's reputation as a leading writer of the early twentieth-century. In the middle of the night, a young lawyer is roused from sleep by Margaret Trelawny. At her urgent request, he accompanies her to the house of her father, Abel...

A New Englander of humble origins, Charity Royall is swept into a torrid love affair with an artistically inclined young man from New York City, but her dreams of a future with him are thwarted. A bold, provocative work, SUMMER was an immediate sensation when first published in 1917 and still stands as one of Wharton's greatest achievements.

The Professor (1857) is English writer Charlotte Brontë's first novel. Rejected by several publishing houses, Brontë shelved the novel in order to write her masterpiece Jane Eyre (1847). After her death, The Professor was edited by Brontë's widower, Arthur Bell Nichols, who saw that the novel was published posthumously. Based on Brontë's experience as a student and teacher in Brussels-which similarly inspired her novel Villette-The Professor is...

A Girl of the Limberlost (1909) is a novel by Gene Stratton-Porter. An immediate bestseller, A Girl of the Limberlost-her fourth novel-established Stratton-Porter's reputation as a leading naturalist and writer of the American Midwest. Written for children and adults alike, A Girl of the Limberlost is a classic tale of struggle and survival set in one of Indiana's iconic wilderness regions. Elnora Comstock has always felt different. Raised on the...

From the author of The Jungle Book and Kim, Just So Stories is the perfect combination of education and fun to get kids to love reading. It is considered not only a quintessential children's book, but one of Kipling's best works. How did the elephant get its trunk? How did the leopard get its spots? And how was the alphabet made? Rudyard Kipling's classic collection of fables answers the great questions of animal and humankind in a fun, eloquent...

After the tragic death of his son, Allan Quatermain's grief is inconsolable. Feeling that the only possible way to ease his pain is through an expedition, Quatermain seeks out Captain Good, Sir Henry Curtis, and the Zulu chief Umslopogaas, who all previously journeyed with him to King Solomon's Mine. After explaining his predicament, Quatermain persuades them to accompany him on one last journey-a search mission to find a lost city. Together they...

The breathtaking love story of an illegitimate girl and the young noble who would choose her above all. Gender issues and economic hardships are dealt with deftly in Doctor Thorne, the third novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire, and arguably the saga's finest love story. Set in rural England in the fictitious county of Barsetshire, this Victorian novel is one of Anthony Trollope's most optimistic and engaging works. When Henry Thorne seduces local...