This is the first edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature." Published anonymously in 1836, it is his first essay and is considered to be the foundation text for the American Transcendentalist movement. Emerson puts forth the concept that the divine spirit is universally present within all things and all aspects of nature. He believes that through nature, humans acquire all of their physical and spiritual needs. He divides his essay into several different...

But strange as the journey may be, it's nowhere near as strange as what they will find waiting at its end. One of the lesser known novels by Jules Verne, but certainly a novel that is worth reading, An Antarctic Mystery or The Sphinx of the Ice Fields is a fictional travelogue that describes the narrator's adventures as he travels from Kerguelen Islands, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean, towards the South Pole. The novel is the account of the...

Rachel Ray is the younger daughter of a lawyer's widow. She lives with her mother and her widowed sister, Dorothea Prime, in a cottage near Exeter in Devon. Mrs. Ray is amiable but weak, unable to make decisions on her own and ruled by her older daughter. Mrs. Prime is a strict and gloomy Evangelical, persuaded that all worldly joys are impediments to salvation. Rachel is courted by Luke Rowan, a young man from London who has inherited an interest...

A Modern Utopia is a novel by H. G. Wells. Because of the complexity and sophistication of its narrative structure A Modern Utopia has been called "not so much a modern as a postmodern utopia." The novel is best known for its notion that a voluntary order of nobility known as the Samurai could effectively rule a "kinetic and not static" world state so as to solve "the problem of combining progress with political stability." To this planet "out beyond...

"Lady Anna" was written in 1871 and first published in 1874. It tells the story of Lady Lovel, whose ambitious marriage to the ill-reputed Earl Lovel left her with a child of questionable legitimacy. When her daughter, Lady Anna, is nearly twenty one, the Earl dies and his fortune is left to a distant nephew. Lady Anna must now decide to marry the young Frederick Lovel for money, or to disregard her mother's vicious meddling and marry her true love...

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 in Dublin Ireland. The son of Dublin intellectuals Oscar proved himself an outstanding classicist at Dublin, then at Oxford. With his education complete Wilde moved to London and its fashionable cultural and social circles. With his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the most well-known personalities of his day. His only novel, The Picture...

This vintage book contains Alexandre Dumas's 1849 historical novel, "Louise De La Valliere". The Third instalment of the final episode in the D'Artagnan Romances, it continues the narrative that started with "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" and "Ten Years Later". Louis XIV is desperate to solidify his position as absolute ruler of France. Impending turmoil forces the Musketeers and d'Artagnan to come out of retirement, but is it for the right reasons?...

Relates the adventures of Ben Brown, his performing poodle Sancho, and the two young girls who feed and care for them after the boy and dog run away from the circus.

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. 'From that hour we had no further occasion for the exercise of reason, or judgment, or skill, or contrivance. We were henceforth to be hurled along, the playthings of the fierce elements of the deep.' In Verne's science-fiction classic, Professor Lidenbrock chances upon an ancient manuscript and pledges to solve the mysterious coded message that lies within it. Eventually...

The Piazza Tales (1856) is a collection of short stories by American writer Herman Melville. Before publication, five of its six stories appeared in Putnam's Monthly during a period of productivity with which Melville sought to achieve popular success as a writer of literary fiction. After the failure of his novels Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852), Melville struggled to find a publisher who would accept his work, and contemporary...