"In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville social circuit is electrified with parties and dances, where the music plays late into the night and the liquor flows freely. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English -- the envy of friends and strangers alike. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction"--P. [4] of cover....

Presents John Milton's epic poem, which chronicles man's fall from grace and Satan's rebellion against God, with extensive notes, a chronology of events in Milton's life, a scholarly essay, and a 1694 biography of Milton.

Published to great acclaim and fierce controversy in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment has left an indelible mark on global literature and our modern world, and is still known worldwide as the quintessential Russian novel. Readers of all backgrounds have debated its historical, cultural, and spiritual dimensions, probing the moral and ethical dilemmas that Dostoevsky so brilliantly stages throughout his narrative. Yet, at its heart, this...

"They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they...

The last and greatest of Dostoevsky's novels, The Brothers Karamazov is a towering masterpiece of literature, philosophy, psychology, and religion. It tells the story of intellectual Ivan, sensual Dmitri, and idealistic Alyosha Karamazov, who collide in the wake of their despicable father's brutal murder. Into the framework of the story Dostoevsky poured all of his deepest concerns -- the origin of evil, the nature of freedom, the craving for meaning...

"Since its original publication in 1847, the tempestuous relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine has long echoed on the moors. After being spurned by his lover and degraded by his adoptive family, Heathcliff leaves his home in Yorkshire, only to return wealthy, educated, and seeking retribution. Obsession, vengeance, and jealousy will pour from this tangle of lovers in Emily Bronte’s only published novel, a story of unrequited love."--

"A towering classic of dystopian satire, BRAVE NEW WORLD is a brilliant and terrifying vision of a soulless society-and of one man who discovers the human costs of mindless conformity. Hundreds of years in the future, the World Controllers have created an ideal civilization. Its members, shaped by genetic engineering and behavioral conditioning, are productive and content in roles they have been assigned at conception. Government-sanctioned drugs...

We meet young free-spirited Rachel Vinrace aboard her father's ship, the Euphrosyne, departing London for South America. Surrounded by a clutch of genteel companions -- among them her aunt Helen, who judges Rachel to be "vacillating," "emotional," and "more than normally incompetent for her years" -- Rachel displays a startling maturity when she finds her engagement to the writer Terence Hewet listing toward disaster.

"Conrad's pessimistic worldview colors this novel depicting the brutality of Latin American politics and the tragedies that inevitably ensue."

Young Henry Fleming had always dreamt of performing heroic deeds in battle. But as a raw recruit in the American Civil War, the reality if one of mental and physical torment. Throughout his first ordeal in action, Henry experiences both fear and self-doubt, and has no idea whether war will make him a coward - or a hero.