Charles Dickens was an English short story writer, dramatist, essayist, and the most popular novelist to come out of the Victorian era. Many of his novels, with their frequent concern for social reform, were first published in magazines in serial form under the pseudonym, Boz. Unlike authors who completed entire novels before serialization, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialized. The continuing popularity of his novels and...

John Harmon returns to England as his father's heir. Believed drowned under suspicious circumstances--a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity--John evaluates Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colorful Victorian characters and incidents -- the faded aristocrats and parvenus gathered at the Veneering's dinner table, Betty Higden and her terror of the workhouse and the greedy plottings of Silas...

In "The Battle of Life: A Love Story", two sisters live with their father near the site of a historic battle. The betrothed of the younger sister left disconsolate when she disappears with a suitor, marries the older sister. Six years later, the younger sister reappears with a shocking explanation. This is the fourth of the famous Christmas books of Charles Dickens that begins with "A Christmas Carol."

"A mysterious gentleman named Phileas Fogg wagers his fortune that he can travel around the world in just eighty days. Accompanied by his hapless servant Passepartout, Fogg sets out on a journey through jungles, deserts and mountains, across oceans and into great dangers"--

Thackeray's best-loved work, "Vanity Fair, is a satire of epic proportions, and proves that deep-seated cynicism and heartfelt morality don't have to get in the way of a good story. Filled with exceptionally drawn characters, biting social humor, and Thackeray's own illustrations, "Vanity Fair is not only one of the great English novels of the nineteenth century, its title has become synonymous with the follies of high society. Nicholas Dames is Assistant...

A Book that Transformed America Civil Disobedience was Thoreau's first published book and continues to transform American discourse. It is unusual for its symbolism and structure, its criticism of Christian institutions, and its many-layered storytelling. The ideas presented in this essay have influenced some of the most powerful and influential people in history, including Martin Luther King Jnr, Leo Tolstoy, President John F. Kennedy and Ernest...

A retelling of the tale in which a kind and well-respected doctor is transformed into a murderous madman by taking a secret drug of his own creation. Illustrated notes throughout the text explain the historical background of the story.

In Baroness Emma Orczy's 1905 novel "The Scarlet Pimpernel", the year is 1792 and the French Revolution is complete. People die by the guillotine every day, often unjustly. Stepping in to right these wrongs and rescue the innocent is the elusive "Scarlet Pimpernel", a mysterious agent named for the red flower that is his signature. Meanwhile, foppish Sir Percy Blakeney and his French actress wife Marguerite are having marital difficulties when Marguerite...

Clement Clarke Moore's popular ode to Christmas Eve comes to life through the illustrations of Jon Goodell and Accord Publishing's exclusive AniMotion treatment, adding movement and depth to this beloved tale--from a locomotive circling the Christmas tree to the flickering flame of a candle.

The enchanting story of a shipwrecked family --a minister, his wife, and four sons-- who are cast up on a desert island, build a wonderful house in a tree, and survive so cleverly and happily apart from the world that they never want to be rescued.