In 1811, Jane Austen's first published work, Sense and Sensibility," " marked the debut of England's premier novelist of manners. Believing that "3 or 4 families in a country village is the very thing to work on," she created a brilliant tragicomedy of flirtation and folly. Romantic walks through lush Devonshire and genteel dinner parties at a stately manor draw two pretty sisters into the schemes and manipulations of landed gentry determined to marry...

Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking,...

After a cyclone transports her to the land of Oz, Dorothy must seek out the great wizard in order to return to Kansas.

While Hank Morgan, Twain's time-displaced Yankee traveller, keeps up a steady stream of flippancies, founding the first tabloid, the Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano, and organizing a game of baseball between armour-clad knights, he also keeps up a steady commentary on the social mores of King Arthur's court, criticizing the hereditary social classes and state church still strong in the Victorian England of Twain's own day, and championing...

The adventures of a mischievous young boy and his friends growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth century. It's a lazy Mississippi River town, a place where a boy can learn magical cures for warts, turn a fence-painting job into a leisurely con game, get lost in a cave, escape to an island, or attend his own funeral. It's a time when hooky is punished with a simple swatting and pockets bulge with firecrackers and dead rats; a time...

As a detachment of Union soldiers trains and prepares for their first Civil War battle, a young private worries about his ability to endure the horror of the battlefield. His fellow soldiers seem to him to be fearless in the face of the coming conflict. He does indeed lose his courage in his first action and flees in panic, only to recover himself and return to his regiment to fight bravely.

H.G. Wells' "scientific romance," published first in serial form and then as a book in 1898, attained perhaps its greatest fame in another form, the infamous realistic 1939 radio broadcast "Invasion from Mars" by Orson Welles. It was also made into an early 1950s science fiction adventure movie. Stover (emeritus, Illinois Institute of Technology) describes Wells' story as "a prophecy of startling originality foreseeing the coming of totalitarianism...

From the Publisher: Frankenstein: Using parts from corpses, Victor Frankenstein creates a large, man-like creature. Rejected and abused by humans, the creature takes revenge by committing murder. Frankenstein then pursues the creature, determined to kill him or die in the attempt. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: When Dr. Henry Jekyll begins to look ill and isolates himself from his friends, they fear for his life. A mysterious, evil man...

Jane comes to Thornfield Hall as a governess to the young ward of Edward Rochester. Denied love all her life, Jane can't help but be attracted to the intelligent, vibrant, energetic Mr. Rochester, a man twice her age. But just when Mr. Rochester seems to be returning the attention, he invites the beautiful and wealthy Blanche Ingram and her party to stay at his estates. Meanwhile, the secret of Thornfield Hall could ruin all their chances for happiness....

'Tis the season to be jolly, but Charlie Brown, feeling that the Christmas message is lost amid all the seasonal glitter, has the blues. Join the Peanuts gang as they discover for themselves the true meaning of Christmas.