Hard Times (originally Hard Times—For These Times) was published in 1854, and is the shortest novel Charles Dickens ever published. It’s set in Coketown, a fictional mill-town set in the north of England. One of the major themes of the book is the miserable treatment of workers in the mills, and the resistance to their unionization by the mill owners, typified by

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"So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Mise;rables cannot fail to be of use," says Victor Hugo in the preface of his famous novel. Certainly, Les Mise;rables is French history recounted through the personal stories of its main characters. The tale offers philosophical insight on the good deeds that can happen even amidst ignorance and poverty. This handsome leather-bound volume is a beautiful addition to any classic...

"Translated, edited, and with an Introduction by Stanley Corngold Featuring essays by Philip Roth, W.H Auden, and Walter Benjamin "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin." With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Franz Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike...

"Called a "magnificently crafted story ... brimming with wisdom" by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into...

Sherlock Holmes is asked to investigate the tale of a hound that haunts the lonely moors around the Baskervilles' ancestral home.

Presents the complete collection of Robert Louis Stevenson's short stories, including "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "The Beach of Falesa."