Penned by American philosopher and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience examines the role of the individual's conscience in governmental rule. Thoreau argues that individual citizens must not simply be subject to the decisions of government, but should question every political act to ensure that the system remains a tool for justice and morality-a message that continues to resonate powerfully in modern times. ...

"Considered "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century", it became a best-selling American novel. Blessed by Pope Leo XIII, the novel was the first work of fiction to be so honored. The story recounts in descriptive detail the adventures of Judah Ben-Hur, a fictional Jewish prince from Jerusalem, who is enslaved by the Romans at the beginning of the 1st century and becomes a charioteer and a Christian. Running in parallel with...

Alice is a bored schoolgirl who yearns for a more exciting life. Things get "curiouser and curiouser" after she follows the frantic White Rabbit down the rabbit hole and has a series of surreal misadventures in the madcap world of Wonderland, where "nothing's impossible." In Wonderland, Alice meets extraordinary characters such as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat.

Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of To the Lighthouse is secondary to its philosophical introspection. Cited as a key example of the literary technique of multiple focalization, the novel includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls childhood emotions and highlights adult relationships. Among the book's many...

From the Publisher: In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning Orwellian vision of the near future. This is the story of Offred, one of the unfortunate "Handmaids" under the new social order who have only one purpose: to breed. In Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships, Offred's persistent memories of life in the "time before" and her will to survive are acts...

This collection contains Jane Austen's six best-loved titles: Emma, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park.

The adventures of the puppet boy created by an old Italian woodcarver from a piece of wood that talked. Includes vocabulary notes in the margin, a brief biography of the author, and instructions for making a hand puppet.

Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking,...

In England during World War II, an American writer and the bored wife of a British civil servant fall in love, then she mysteriously ends the affair.

With their estate entangled in an interminable legal case, the young wards of the court Richard Carstone and Ada Clare are taken into the benevolent care of the kindly John Jarndyce. Ada's companion, the gentle and good-hearted Esther Summerson, is devoted to the old man and, although she loves another, becomes betrothed to him. But behind Esther's supposed orphan past lies a dark secret that leads tragically to deceit, blackmail and murder. And as...