When Mr. Dashwood dies, he leaves his second wife and her three daughters at the mercy of his son and heir, John. John's wife convinces him to turn his step-mother and half-sisters out, and they move to a country cottage, rented to them by a distant relative. In their newly reduced circumstances Elinor and Marianne, the two eldest daughters, wrestle with ideas of romance and reality and their apparent opposition to each other. Elinor struggles

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Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage. She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. All of which circumscribe her life and position when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious,...

        
"        Like so many fond parents I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child," wrote Charles Dickens. "And his name is David Copperfield."
        Of all of Dickens's novels, David Copperfield most closely reflects the events of his own life. The story of an abandoned waif who discovers life...

"Charles Dickens’s tale begins with young, orphaned Philip Pirrip, “Pip,” running afoul of an escaped convict in a cemetery. This terrifying personage bullies Pip into stealing food and a file to remove his ankle shackle. The boy does as he’s asked, but the convict is captured anyway and transported to the penal colonies in Australia. Having started his novel in a cemetery, Dickens then ups the stakes and introduces his hero into the decaying...

Relegated to the role of servant by her stepmother, Sophie Beckett must sneak her way into Lady Bridgerton's famed masquerade ball, where she has a chance encounter with the debonair and devastatingly handsome Benedict Bridgerton.

A widower and father Sir Phillip Crane proposes to his pen-pal, Eloise Bridgerton, believing her to be a homely spinster, so he is surprised to discover the beautiful, lively woman who appears on his doorstep.

Author's memoir of growing up black in the 1930's and 1940's.

In common with much of his other writing, this work by the eminent English novelist and essayist E. M. Forster (1879-1970) displays an unusually perceptive view of British society in the early 20th century. Written in 1908, A Room with a View is a social comedy set in Florence, Italy, and Surrey, England. Its heroine, Lucy Honeychurch, struggling against straitlaced Victorian attitudes of arrogance, narrow-mindedness and snobbery, falls in love-while...

Far From the Maddening Crowd, by Thomas Hardy, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

International bestselling author Ken Follett has enthralled millions of readers with The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, two stories of the Middle Ages set in the fictional city of Kingsbridge. The saga now continues with Follett's magnificent new epic, A Column of Fire. In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and...