A famous legend surrounding the creation of Anna Karenina tells us that Tolstoy began writing a cautionary tale about adultery and ended up by falling in love with his magnificent heroine. It is rare to find a reader of the book who doesn't experience the same kind of emotional upheaval: Anna Karenina is filled with major and minor characters who exist in their own right and fully embody their mid-nineteenth-century Russian milieu, but it still belongs...

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...

It was the time of the French Revolution - a time of great change and great danger. It was a time when injustice was met by a lust for vengeance, and rarely was a distinction made between the innocent and the guilty. Against this tumultuous historical backdrop, Dickens' great story of unsurpassed adventure and courage unfolds.Unjustly imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastille, Dr. Alexandre Manette is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, and safely transported...

A uge sea monster has attacked and wrecked several ships from beneath the sea. Professor Aronnax bravely joins a mission to hunt down the beast. He goes aboard the Nautilus, a secret submarine helmed by the mysterious Captain Nemo. At first, the mission is exciting, as Nemo takes Aronnax on a voyage around the underwater world. But when things start to go wrong, Aronnax finds there's no escape from the Nautilus. He is now Captain Nemo's captive -...

Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1888) is the first of four of the original Sherlock Holmes novels and introduced the world to the most famous detective duo in literature. From the initial discovery of a corpse in a deserted house in London, to the wild west of the pioneer days of Utah, this is transatlantic crime adventure steeped in mystery, romance and delectable revenge. A Study in Scarlet was initially published in the magazine Beeton's...