'Miss Dashwood had a delicate complexion, regular features, and a remarkably pretty figure. Marianne was still handsomer. Her form, though not so correct as her sister's ... was more striking' As the title of Jane Austen's first published novel suggests, the difference between two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, lies not only in their appearance but also in their temperament. Yet Sense and Sensibility not only contrasts Elinor's good sense,...

"Jane Eyre recounts the story of a governess who, having suffered during childhood both at her aunt's house and then at school, finds herself falling for her new employer, Mr Rochester. But Mr Rochester and his home are not all they seem and when secrets come to light, Jane is forced to abandon all her hopes and dreams."--Amazon.

The Scarlet Letter is the story of three New England settlers at odds with the Puritan society in which they live. Roger Chillingworth, an ageing scholar, arrives in New England after two years separation from his wife Hester to find her on trial for adultery. For refusing to reveal her lover's identity, she is condemned to wear a letter °' sewn onto her clothes. Roger resolves to discover and destroy the man who has stolen his honor. For the next...

Looking for adventure and a new life, Ishmael, the story's narrator, decides to find work on a whaling boat. On arriving at the Massachusetts harbour to begin his search, the only bed available is already half occupied by a "cannibal" named Queequeg. Although Queequeg has limited English, a friendship forms and the two men sign up for work together aboard the Pequod under the infamous Captain Ahab. Consumed by an insane rage, Captain Ahab has but...

Presents Charles Darwin's 1859 text in which he defines his theory of evolution, arguing that species change over time, evolving or dying out entirely, through the process of natural selection.

'War and Peace' has been described as the Illiad and the Odyssey of the Russian people, with just cause. This is a work that speaks to the meaning and hope of life. Tolstoy's realism forced him to strip away much of the glorification of war and show the realities. Yet Tolstoy presents the events of 1812 as a moral crusade, and that the Russians won against the Napoleonic onslaught because of their adherence to simple, good and true virtues (as much...

One ill-fated evening at the Reform Club, Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions that he can travel around the entire globe in just eighty days -- and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman immediately sets off for Dover, accompaned by his hot-blooded manservant Passepartout. Traveling by train, steamship, sailboat, sledge, and even elephant, they must overcome storms, kidnappings,...

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...