Geoffrey Giuliano

In The Secret Agent, a Soho shopkeeper is a member of a terrorist cell, supported by a foreign power, plotting to undermine the English state by means of a bomb plot. Published in 1907, it is considered to be among Conrad's finest novels, written at a time when he was moving away from the seafaring themes which he was known for. Prescient in its depictions of terrorism and political instability, it has become mandatory reading for anyone wishing to...

Set in a topsy-turvy world like a holiday revel, this comedy devises a romantic plot around separated twins, misplaced passions, and mistaken identity. Juxtaposed to it is the satirical story of a self-deluded steward who dreams of becoming "Count Malvolio" only to receive his comeuppance at the hands of the merrymakers he wishes to suppress. The two plots combine to create a farce touched with melancholy, mixed throughout with seductively beautiful...

A beautiful, golden, jewel-studded statue and a little swallow give all they have to help the poor.

A retelling of the tale, set in medieval Paris, of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, and his struggles to save the beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda from being unjustly executed.

A retelling of the tale in which a kind and well-respected doctor is transformed into a murderous madman by taking a secret drug of his own creation. Illustrated notes throughout the text explain the historical background of the story.

"Nothing so coarsely indecent as the whole history of Jude in his relations with his wife Arabella has ever been put in English print," asserted M. O. W. Oliphant, the Scottish humorist. Hardy's "Jude the Obscure--the ill-received novel that was to be his last--is a strikingly modern portrait of provincial, workaday life, frank sexuality, and the desire to transcend the mire of prosaic living. Amy M. King is Assistant Professor of Literature at the...

When Elizabeth Bennet meets Fitzwilliam Darcy for the first time at a ball, she writes him off as an arrogant and obnoxious man. He not only acts like an insufferable snob, but she also overhears him rejecting the very idea of asking her for a dance! As life pits them against each other again and again, Darcy begins to fall for Elizabeth's wit and intelligence and Elizabeth begins to question her feelings about Darcy. But when Darcy saves her youngest...

Chronicles the fleeting fame of a villainous financier of obscure origin who briefly captivates London society while a writer's son seeks marriage and financial security with the financier's daughter.

Love and marriage and coming to terms with the mate one has chosen are examined in this comedy of cross purposes when a father stipulates that his elder, and shrewish daughter, must be married before the younger.

Christopher Robin had a friend named Edward Bear. One day Edward Bear said he would like an exciting name all to himself. Without stopping to think about it, Christopher Robin said that he was Winnie-the-Pooh. To follow are stories of wonderful times with characters who live in the same woods.