Europe is close to war and spies are everywhere. Richard Hannay the protagonist and narrator, an expatriate Scot, returns to his new home, a flat in London, after a long stay in Rhodesia, in order to begin a new life. One night he is buttonholed by a stranger, a well-travelled American, who claims to be in fear for his life. The man appears to know of an anarchist plot to destabilise Europe, beginning with a plan to assassinate the Greek Premier,...

A fat New Orleans misanthrope who constantly rebukes society, Ignatius Reilly, gets a job at his mother's urging but ends up leading a worker's revolt

Orphaned Rose Campbell finds it difficult to fit in when she goes to live with her six aunts and seven mischievous boy cousins.

The Age of Innocence centers on an upper-class couple's impending marriage, and the introduction of a woman plagued by scandal whose presence threatens their happiness. Though the novel questions the assumptions and morals of 1870's New York society, it never devolves into an outright condemnation of the institution. In fact, Wharton considered this novel an "apology" for her earlier novel, The House of Mirth, which was more brutal and critical. Not...

The Invisible Man is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. Originally serialized in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics and who invents a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light. He carries out this procedure on himself and renders himself...

The first publication of a previously unknown narrative poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the extraordinary story of the final days of England's legendary hero, King Arthur. Tolkien's only venture into the legends of Arthur, this may well be regarded as his finest and most skillful achievement in the use of Old English alliterative meter, where he brings to his transforming perceptions of the old narratives a pervasive sense of the grave and fateful...

"To the Lighthouse features the serene and maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr. Ramsay, and their children and assorted guests who are on holiday on the Isle of Skye. From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Virginia Woolf constructs a moving examination of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life and the conflicts within a marriage."--BOOK JACKET

"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", the only Holmes mystery set during the Christmas season, is the seventh story of twelve in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. During the festive season, newspapers report the theft of the near priceless jewel, The "Blue Carbuncle", from the hotel suite of the Countess of Morcar. John Horner, a plumber and a previously convicted felon, is soon arrested for the theft. When the Blue Carbuncle appears in a goose's...

Presents two classics by Jack London: "The Call of the Wild," in which a dog in the Klondike reverts to wilderness life and becomes the leader of a pack of wolves; and "White Fang," in which a wolf-dog trained to be a vicious fighter struggles to live in both the world of dogs and that of the "gods," or humans. Includes review questions.

Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch, "Scout", returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming becomes bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her.