A collection of twenty-four stories, all but two of which are in verse, supposed to be related by members of a company of thirty-one pilgrims who are on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury.

The Island of Doctor Moreau is a classic work of early science fiction and one of H. G. Wells' most visionary novels. It recounts the harrowing ordeal of Edward Prendick, an Englishman who survives a shipwreck in the southern Pacific Ocean. Rescued by a man named Montgomery, Prendick finds himself on an island belonging to Dr. Moreau, formerly an eminent physiologist in London who was expelled from his homeland for his cruel vivisection experiments. Prendick...

On title page: With her letters (18871901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan by John Albert Macy.

The History of Tom Jones is Henry Fielding's greatest work and one of literature's earliest examples of a fully realized protagonist, with both virtues and vices on abundant display. The picaresque story of the orphan Tom, his exile, then subsequent adventures and loves is bristling with the spirit of mid-18th century Britain yet remains a deeply ambitious novel. The frank portrayal of human nature and innovative narrative structure of this classic...

Virgil's epic poem describing the fall of Troy, in English blank verse by Robert Fitzgerald.

Freckles (1904) is a novel by Gene Stratton-Porter. An immediate bestseller, Freckles-her second novel-established Stratton-Porter's reputation as a leading naturalist and writer of the American Midwest. Written for children and adults alike, Freckles is a classic tale of struggle and survival set in one of Indiana's iconic wilderness regions. Raised in an orphanage, targeted for his red hair, accent, and missing right hand, Freckles grew accustomed...

The Phantom of the Opera (1910) is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. Originally serialized in Le Galois, the novel was inspired by legends revolving around the Paris Opera from the early nineteenth century. Originally, a journalist, Leroux turned to fiction after reading the works of Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. Despite its lack of success relative to Leroux's other novels, The Phantom of the Opera has become legendary through several...

A dazzling exploration of social currency, love, and hypocrisy among the Gilded Age's upper crust, The House of Mirth is a classic novel that remains essential reading. Beautiful Lily Bart is a young New York socialite who enjoys everything that high society in the late 19th-century has to offer. She receives plenty of interest from men, but has not yet felt compelled to marry. Although her strictly traditional Aunt Julia provides Lily with a fashionable...

A deliciously satirical attack on a money-mad society, Vanity Fair, which first appeared in 1847, is an immensely moral novel, and an immensely witty one. Called in its subtitle A Novel Without a Hero, Vanity Fair has instead two heroines: the faithful, loyal Amelia Sedley and the beautiful and scheming social climber Becky Sharp. It also engages a huge cast of wonderful supporting characters as the novel spins from Miss Pinkerton's academy for young...

Utopia (1516) is a work of political satire by Thomas More. Published in Latin while More was serving as Privy Counsellor under King Henry VIII, the text is stylized as a true account of a new civilization discovered in the New World by traveler Raphael Hythlodaeus. While there have been varying interpretations of Utopia over the centuries, it is most consistently regarded as a work of political philosophy in the tradition of Plato's Republic that...