The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett, is an 1896 novella and early example of the regionalism genre with its sketches of the fictional fishing village of Dunnet Landing in Maine. The narrator is a woman from Boston who returns to the small coastal town after a brief earlier visit, in order to finish writing her book. She rents an empty schoolhouse with a panoramic view of Dunnet Landing, which serves as a focus of narrative consciousness....

The first volume of Marcel Proust's seven-part masterpiece In Search of Lost Time, Swann's Way introduces the novel's major themes and its narrator, then turns its focus to Charles Swann, a wealthy connoisseur who moves in high-society circles in nineteenth-century Paris, and a victim of an agonizing romance.

"Winn Van Meter is heading for his family's retreat on the pristine New England island of Waskeke. Normally a haven of calm, for the next three days this sanctuary will be overrun by tipsy revelers as Winn prepares for the marriage of his daughter Daphne to the affable young scion Greyson Duff. Winn's wife, Biddy, has planned the wedding with military precision, but arrangements are sideswept by a storm of salacious misbehavior and intractable lust:...

Thérèse Raquin (1867) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. Initially serialized in L'Artiste, a popular French literary magazine, Thérèse Raquin, Zola's third novel, earned the author widespread fame and critical condemnation for its scandalous content and unsparing vision of human sexuality and violence. Thérèse Raquin effectively launched Zola's career as a leading practitioner of literary naturalism, and has since been adapted countless...

Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" is a timeless comedic masterpiece that combines witty satire, social commentary, and farcical humor in a delightful theatrical concoction. Set in the elegant drawing rooms of Victorian-era London, the play revolves around the hilarious deceptions of its characters, particularly Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing. These dashing young men each maintain a fictitious persona-Algernon has invented a friend...

The death of Sir Edward Crick has unleashed a torrent of gossip through the seedy taverns and elegant ballrooms of Oxfordshire. Few mourn the dissolute young man -- except his sister, the beautiful Lady Lydia Farrell. When her husband comes under suspicion of murder, she seeks expert help from Dr. Thomas Silkstone, a young anatomist from Philadelphia.

Introduces an array of characters, from the sinister to the comic, and moves to a haunting climax in an atmospheric murder mystery that features the seemingly benevolent John Jasper, a secret opium addict, and his relationship with his newly engaged nephew, Edwin Drood.

When Mr. Dashwood dies, he leaves his second wife and her three daughters at the mercy of his son and heir, John. John's wife convinces him to turn his step-mother and half-sisters out, and they move to a country cottage, rented to them by a distant relative. In their newly reduced circumstances Elinor and Marianne, the two eldest daughters, wrestle with ideas of romance and reality and their apparent opposition to each other. Elinor struggles in...

John Harmon returns from exile expecting to receive an inheritance, but knows that he must marry a stranger, Bella Wilfer, in order to collect. He fakes his own death and takes on a new identity in order to observe her first. Some of the memorable characters in this, the last completed Dickens novel, include Bella who, unllike other Dickens heroines, cannot be accused of unnatural virtue; the insolent barrister Eugene Wrayburn; the amiable Boffin;...

A dark and thrilling novel from the author of The Secret Garden sees a strong-willed heroine defy conformity, lunging head first into a world filled with violence, manipulation, passion, and murderSet in late 17th-century England, amid the ribbons and romance of courtship, this gothic tale tackles violence and manipulation, blackmail, and even murder. When Clorinda is born, the odds seem stacked against her. First and foremost, she is a girl like...