Marlow, the story's narrator, tells his friends of an experience in the British Congo where he once ran a river steamer for a trading company. He tells of the ivory traders' cruel exploitation of the natives there. Chief among these is a greedy and treacherous European named Kurtz, a man who has used savagery to obtain semi-divine power over the natives. While Marlow tries to get Kurtz back down the river, Kurtz tries to justify his actions and motions,...

Delve into the turbulent roots of race relations in the United States with this inspirational account from Booker T. Washington, a one-time slave who became an important advocate for African-American education and founded several well-known institutions of higher learning, including the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

In early 20th-century London, Kate Croy is secretly engaged to Merton Denscher, a journalist possessing all the qualities of an ideal husband except money. By chance, Kate befriends American heiress Milly Theale, whom she learns is suffering from a mysterious fatal illness. Kate, who truly cares for Milly, devises a scheme to maximize their combined assets: she encourages Merton to take an interest in Milly, to seduce her, and finally, to marry her....

Called "the first and greatest of English detective novels" by T.S.Eliot, The Moonstone is a masterpiece of suspense. A fabulous yellow diamond becomes the dangerous inheritance of Rachel Verinder. Outside her Yorkshire country house watch the Hindu priests who have waited for many years to reclaim their ancient talisman, looted from the holy city of Somnauth. When the Moonstone disappears the case looks simple, but in mid-Victorian England no one...

"The Prince" is the most controversial book about winning power - and holding on to it - ever written. Machiavelli's tough-minded, pragmatic argument that sometimes it is necessary to abandon ethics to succeed made his name notorious. Yet his book has been read by strategists, politicians and business people ever since as the ultimate guide to realpolitik. How can a leader be strong and decisive, yet still inspire loyalty in his followers? How do...

Depicts the journey of Christian and his companions through mortal life to their entrance into the Celestial City.

Originally written as a political satire and now read as an adventure story, the travels of Gulliver include adventures in a land where people were only inches tall, in a land of giants, on an island that floated in the air, and in a country ruled by horses.

The Morel family, who live on the Nottinghamshire coalfields, are beset with conflict. Gertrude has become disillusioned with her inarticulate working-class husband and devotes her energies to her sons. Son Paul falls in love and seeks to escape his family ties.

This updated authoritative edition of the classic Hardy novel, which was published anonymously and first attributed to George Eliot, is set from Hardy's revised, unedited final draft of 1912 and features a new Introduction and Afterword. There is in England no more real or typical district than Thomas Hardy's imaginary Wessex, the scattered fields and farms of which were first discovered in Far from the Madding Crowd. It is here that Gabriel Oak observes...

Based closely on the life of the painter Paul Gaugin, this book relates the life of Charles Strickland, a London stockbroker who abandons his home and career in mid-life to live as an artist in Tahiti.