When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy Aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. She then finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond, who, beneath his veneer of charm and cultivation, is cruelty itself.

Marco Polo’s account of his journey throughout the East in the thirteenth century was one of the earliest European travel narratives, and it remains the most important. The merchant-traveler from Venice, the first to cross the entire continent of Asia, provided us with accurate descriptions of life in China, Tibet, India, and a hundred other lands, and recorded customs, natural history, strange sights, historical legends, and much more. From...

The Land of Little Rain (1903) is a collection of essays and short stories by Mary Hunter Austin. Originally published with photographs taken by acclaimed American photographer Ansel Adams, The Land of Little Rain is a classic work of nature writing. Austin is now recognized as an early feminist and conservationist who understood the intricacy and fragility of ecosystems as well as the extent to which human civilization threatens their continued existence. In...

Fielding's classic novel chronicles the adventures of Tom Jones, who was abandoned as an infant and grows into a lusty, imprudent young man. Promising to mend his ways, Tom competes with an abusive rival for the affections of a wealthy squire's daughter, and eventually learns the truth about his identity.

A Timeless Classic of Societal Customs, Cultural Disputes, and The Cost of Non-Conformity Henry James' novella Daisy Miller, features one of his greatest heroines. At first glance it seems to be a simple story of a lovely young, independent American girl traveling through Europe. But her flouting of social conventions has the potential to lead to catastrophe as she disrupts the rigid social rules of the Old World, attracting and scandalizing all...

For almost a century and a half, Bulfinch's Mythology has been the text by which the great tales of the gods and goddesses, Greek and Roman antiquity; Scandinavian, Celtic, and Oriental fables and myths; and the age of chivalry have been known. The stories are divided into three sections: The Age of Fable or Stories of Gods and Heroes (first published in 1855); The Age of Chivalry (1858), which contains King Arthur and His Knights, The Mabinogeon,...

Ivan Turgenev's nineteenth-century Russian novel of generational conflict during a period of social revolution.

Absalom! Absalom! is William Faulkner’s major work—his most important and ambitious contribution to American literature. In the dramatic texture of this story of the founding, flourishing and decay of the plantation of Sutpen's Hundred, and of the family that demonic Stephen Sutpen brought into the world a generation before the Civil War, there rises the lament of the South for its own vanished splendor. From its magnificent and bold...

Part of the Timeless Classics series, The Complete Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe contains every know tale written by the famous gothic American writer. His often macabre and dark works, which span the years from 1827 to his death in 1849, include "The Raven," "The Black Cat," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "Annabelle Lee." For Poe fans worldwide, this elegant collector's edition includes over 70 of Poe's short stories, more than 40 melodious poems,...