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Unique Elements • About the Author • Historical Context • A Charming Story of Romance and Love by JANE AUSTEN. Persuasion by BRITISH author JANE AUSTEN is a classic romance novel first published in 1817, posthumously, in the UNITED KINGDOM. A young Englishwoman gets a SECOND CHANCE at love and marriage, amidst the social whirl of England's fashionable resort city, Bath. Sneak Peak 'More than seven years were gone since this...

Referred to by Tolstoy as his first true novel, "Anna Karenina" (1877) is widely considered to be one of the greatest literary works ever produced. Originally released as a serial between 1873 and 1877 in "The Russian Messenger", this fantastically intricate novel in eight parts chronicles the lives and relationships of over a dozen characters and deals with such themes as marriage, faith, fidelity, betrayal, Russian society, and desire. The story...

Sense and Sensibility is a captivating tale that unfolds amidst the picturesque landscapes of early 19th-century England. At its core, the story revolves around the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, whose lives take unexpected turns as they navigate the complexities of love, societal expectations, and personal resilience. Upon the death of their father, the Dashwood sisters find themselves thrust into a world of financial uncertainty, as the...

Margaret Hale moves from the South to the industrialized North of the U.S. and is shocked by the noise, the dirt, and the independence of the workers. Friendship with the daughter of a union leader finally gets Margaret interested in local concerns. Thrown together by danger in a violent strike, Margaret and her father's patron continue to misunderstand each other.

In biting criticism of Victorian utilitarian factories, Dickens created the Northern industrial town of Coketown, home of the soulless Thomas Gradgrind and factory owner Josiah Bounderby. Joy is brought to the citizens of Coketown by Mr. Sleary's Horse-Riding Circus, a drunken but affectionate troup who act as an antidote to the misery that the citizens of the town exist in.

John Ridd, a farmer, is desperately in love with Lorna, a member of the Doone clan betrothed to the clan heir, Carver Doone. Ridd helps Lorna evade Carver's clutches, but the revelation of her true birthright takes her far from Exmoor, and John, to the city of London. Part romance and part pastoral novel, Richard Doddridge Blackmore's Lorna Doone incorporated real events and places of the author's experience. The novel has been adapted multiple...

Describes the geography and culture of Italy, including information on such topics as the land, wildlife, people, food, and holidays of the country.

Jude the Obscure, the semi-autobiographical final novel from Thomas Hardy explores notions of surprising candor; within the eponymous protagonist lies the tragic truth of failed ambitions and relationships. In a fierce exploration of the darkness of love and the intellect, this is one of the great tragic novels of English literature. Jude Fawley, an earnest boy from a rural English village, dreams of a life of academia despite his working-class background....

Walden is a personal declaration of independence, a social experiment, and a voyage of spiritual discovery, set within the seasonal cycle of a year's "Life in the Woods." "Simplify, simplify" is the beat of its "more distant drummer"--to abandon waste and illusion, to get to the bottom of life's essential needs, and to practice a new economy for humane living. Its witty and pointed rhetoric brings together language and nature, the human and nonhuman...

A moving and vivid recollection of the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors childhood in Pittsburgh in the 1950s conveys the keen mind and sense of adventure with which she experienced relatives, neighbors, nature, friends, and changes