Barnes & Noble classics | Main Natrona County Library

1) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court

Author

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

Earliest Publication Date

1901

Summary

"The book relates the tale of Hank Morgan, an engineer from 19th century Hartford Connecticut, who is inexplicably transported to the early medieval England of King Arthur. While there he uses his knowledge of modern technology to appear as though he is a magician. Despite his best intentions, Hank?s attempts to modernize the past bring about a tragic end. A bittersweet depiction of the Arthurian legend through the eyes of a 19th century American..."...

2) Aesop's fables

Earliest Publication Date

2003

3) Alice's adventures in Wonderland & through the looking glass and what Alice found there

Author

Carroll, Lewis, 1832-1898

Earliest Publication Date

2004

Summary

When Alice tumbles down, down, down a rabbit-hole one hot summer's afternoon in pursuit of a White Rabbit she finds herself in Wonderland. And there begin the fantastical adventures that will see her experiencing extraordinary changes in size, swimming in a pool of her own tears and attending the very maddest of tea parties. For Wonderland is no ordinary place and the characters that populate it are quite unlike anybody young Alice has ever met before....

4) Anna Karenina

Author

Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910

Earliest Publication Date

1939

Summary

"Tolstoy produced many drafts of Anna Karenina. Crafting and recrafting each sentence with careful intent, he was anything but casual in his use of language. His project, translator Marian Schwartz observes, "was to bend language to his will, as an instrument of his aesthetic and moral convictions." In her magnificent new translation, Schwartz embraces Tolstoy's unusual style - she is the first English language translator ever to do so. Previous translations...

5) A room with a view

Author

Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970

Earliest Publication Date

1922

Summary

This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England. A charming young English woman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson--who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist--Lucy is soon at war with the...

6) A tale of two cities

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1859

Summary

A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens's great historical novel, set against the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author's novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores...

7) Candide ; or, Optimism

Author

Voltaire, 1694-1778

Earliest Publication Date

1939

Summary

"With Candide, Voltaire bumptiously skewered the fashionable misinterpretation of the doctrine of philosophical optimism, unerringly offending kings, scientists, fanaticals, publishers, journalists, and even priests; composed in a mere three days, Candide's capacity to amuse, disgust, and surprise endures today, roughly ninety thousand days later. Theo Cuffe's new translation is invaluable for those English-speaking readers who cannot understand French,...

8) Crime and punishment

Author

Dostoyesky, Fyodor, 1821-1881

Earliest Publication Date

1994

9) David Copperfield

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1907

Summary

David Copperfield enjoys an idyllic life with his gentle, widowed mother and his loving nurse, Peggotty. Then tragedy strikes when Mr. Murdstone weds David's mother and drives her to an early grave. Despised by his stepfather, the boy is forced to live in misery and poverty until he runs away to throw himself upon the mercy of his eccentric aunt. Charles Dickens's classic tale of growing up.

10) Emma

Author

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

Earliest Publication Date

1948

Summary

"The culmination of Jane Austen's genius, a sparkling comedy of love and marriage--now in a stunning 200th-anniversary Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Beautiful, clever, rich--and single--Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to...

11) Essays and poems

Author

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882

Earliest Publication Date

2004

Summary

Essays and Poems, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: \\New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars \Biographies of the authors \Chronologies of contemporary...

12) Essential dialogues of Plato

Author

Earliest Publication Date

2005

Summary

Thirteen of Plato's most well-known dialogues are included in the collection "Essential Dialogues of Plato." Plato was a learned student of the early philosopher Socrates. Because Socrates did not write any works before his untimely death, Pluto took Socrates' beliefs and expressed them through imagined dialogues between the philosopher and his students. It was the first time in Western history that a philosophical dialectic between the teacher and...

13) Fairy Tales

Author

Andersen, Hans Christian

Earliest Publication Date

2009

Summary

Fairy Tales, by Hans Christian Andersen, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars

Biographies of the authors

Chronologies

...

14) Far from the madding crowd

Author

Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928

Earliest Publication Date

1895

Summary

'I hate to be thought men's property in that way'. Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her confident presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and when tragedy ensues,...

15) Frankenstein

Author

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851

Earliest Publication Date

1921

Summary

Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils...

16) Great expectations

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1939

Summary

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...

17) Gulliver's travels

Author

Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745

Earliest Publication Date

1912

Summary

Presents Jonathan Swift's satire in which a shipwrecked Englishman encounters bizarre populations in unheard-of lands, including an enlightened race of horses that makes him see his fellow humans in a different light; and includes explanatory notes and a note on the text, which is based on the 1726 edition.

18) Heart of darkness ; and, The secret sharer

Author

Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924

Earliest Publication Date

1910

Summary

A guide to reading "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Sharer" with a critical and appreciative mind. Includes background on the author's life and times, sample tests, term paper suggestions, and a reading list.

19) Heart of darkness and selected short fiction

Author

Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924

Earliest Publication Date

2003

20) Howard's End

Author

Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970

Earliest Publication Date

1910

Summary

An enduring classic by E.M. Forster about human connection, society, and legacy. Set in Edwardian England, Howards End delves into the intricate relationships between three families with contrasting values and aspirations: the idealistic and intellectual Schlegels, the wealthy and pragmatic Wilcoxes, and the struggling, working-class Basts. At the heart of the story lies Howards End, a quaint country house symbolizing heritage, connection, and...

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