Search

Dickens's first novel follows the comic adventures of a band of men as they journey around nineteenth-century England.Set in the early nineteenth century, The Pickwick Papers follows well-off gentleman Samuel Pickwick, who forms a club with three friends. Their goal is to travel through the English countryside by coach, observing the world beyond London and staying at inns along the way. The reader follows Pickwick and his pals—less-than-skillful sportsman Nathaniel Winkle; self-proclaimed poet Augustus Snodgrass; and obese Tracy Tupman, who fancies himself a ladies'man—as they stumble into both adventure and trouble. Joined by Pickwick's valet, a talkative coachman, and another traveler with a knack for tall tales, this merry band will entertain the reader while offering a tour of England in the 1820s, populated by an assortment of colorful characters.

The everyday insanity of life at a fictional literary reviewThe journal Belles Lettres has a long and storied history, which is what enticed young editor Frank Page over its threshold in the first place. But Frank did not anticipate the infighting, backstabbing, and utter oddity that are all business as usual at the respected magazine. Still, nothing can match Frank's thrill at discovering a new literary phenom.But the book industry seems to be on the decline. Integrity is going extinct as conglomerate giants gobble up smaller organs and trample innovation and daring into the muck of commerciality. At least Frank's position gives him a front-row seat at the publishing world's fight of the century, as deposed editorial icon Jonathan Margin takes on self-serving corporate overseer Newbold Press in an ink-splattered battle to the death.

The bon vivant takes charge of a New York magazine—and gets in a tangle with the mob—in this comic novel by the creator of Jeeves and Wooster. When Cambridge student Mike Jackson journeys to New York on a cricketing tour, his good friend Psmith comes along for a laugh. An inveterate dandy and irrepressible wit, Psmith finds New York lacking in entertainment—until he stumbles into the magazine business. Befriending the editor of Cozy Moments, Psmith talks his way onto the editorial staff and has the once-stodgy periodical printing scandalous exposés in no time. While the paper's sudden change is upsetting to its subscribers, they're no trouble at all compared to the local ruffians who've started tailing Psmith. Clearly someone doesn't like what Cozy Moments has to say about local housing conditions. Suddenly Psmith and Mike are wrapped up in a madcap adventure of mass media, gangsters, professional boxing, and lost cats. First published in 1915, Psmith, Journalist was included in the BBC's 2019 list of “100 Novels That Shaped Our World.”

The bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel delivers a “provocative, enthralling, bang up-to-the-minute” thriller (Daily Mail). It all starts with a prize. The Price family wins a holiday trip to Florida and gets their photo in the paper. They're all there, the picture-perfect family in front of their gorgeous home. But it's awkward, adolescent, seventeen-year-old Hannah who catches someone's eye. And only days later, she's gone. Val and Morris Price try not to panic when Hannah doesn't return from Camden Market on Sunday night. After all, she is a teenager. But when Hannah still hasn't shown up on Monday, they start to think the worst—then the ransom note comes with a demand for £500,000 and no police. After days of tallying assets and scrambling for money, Val makes the drop. Hannah comes home. Only what should be the end of a nightmare is just the beginning... The Prices'have lost their business and their home. Their sudden change in fortune takes its toll, and family bonds slowly begin to disintegrate. Meanwhile, the desperate couple who kidnapped Hannah embark on a life of luxury that only fuels their twisted love. But what goes up must come down... with a crash. “A neat plot... [with] dark flashes of hubris and nemesis.” —The Guardian “Moggach's subject is the rickety edifice we call the family, which she comes at armed with both a wrecking ball and an insatiable curiosity to note the particular way it collapses.” —The Independent “Deborah Moggach is a delight to read—her characters are wonderfully alive, and their stories grip us unequivocally.... The novel is enjoyable from first to last.” —The Daily Telegraph “It is characterisation at which Moggach excels. Her gift is to perceive and describe our confusions about life... and to write with feeling about the continual quest for love and happiness that is part of the human condition.” —The Sunday Times

“[A] social comedy with some brilliant people observations about ageing and a devilish plot twist” from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (The Times, London). After their elderly father's fall, Phoebe and her brother, Robert, couldn't be happier with his new caregiver, Mandy. She came to them with great recommendations and has given the brilliant, yet lonely, widower a new lease on life—though he is gossiping about the locals'love affairs instead of debating science and politics. But Phoebe and Robert soon become suspicious of Mandy—her rummaging about in their father's papers, her strange inheritance from a former client, her habit of speaking her mind no matter the consequences. Then Robert discovers that their father has changed his will. Suddenly Mandy seems more devil than angel... For the first time in years, Phoebe and Robert are bonding over something—even if it is their mutual distrust of Mandy. And what happens next will make the siblings question everything they thought they knew about their parents—and themselves. “Moggach addresses an all too common nightmare with ruthless honesty and sublime wit—The Carer is one of the funniest novels I have read for ages.” —The Times (London) “Unputdownable, fun and tender with characters that jump off the page. Perfection.” —Marian Keyes, international-bestselling author of Again, Rachel “Joyous... a sustained satire on smug middle-class mores.” —Daily Mail “The most endearing of humorists, Deborah Moggach casts a penetrating eye on our foibles and fantasies. Neither ageing, nor death—as The Carer so beautifully demonstrates—can resist her comic scrutiny.” —Lisa Appignanesi, award-winning author of Mad, Bad, and Sad

This autobiographical novel by the writer of Winesburg, Ohio recounts a young boy's childhood in the latenineteenth-century rural Midwest.Sherwood Anderson established his reputation as a great American writer with his sensitive portrayals of Midwestern life at the turn of the twentieth century. First published in 1926, Tar: A Midwest Childhood, is Anderson's reflection on the Ohio small town of his youth and the experiences that informed and inspired his most beloved works. In a series of revealing episodes, Anderson describes the developing consciousness of Edgar Moorehead from earliest childhood to adolescence. When his father arrived in Ohio from North Carolina, neighbors derisively called him a Tar-heel. Inheriting this nickname, Tar grows up as one of many children to his stoic, hard-working mother and his gregarious but unreliable father.

Two compelling works of fiction from a feminist literary icon hailed as “Virginia Woolf without the evasive prettifying” (The New York Times).Chamber Music: Caroline Maclaren, the widow of a prominent composer, is finally going to tell her own life story. Taking pen to paper, she relives her sheltered youth, her chilly marriage to a brilliant man, and the melancholy solitude she experienced until she found loving companionship with her ill husband's caretaker, Anna. This masterful tale of passion late in life is widely considered Grumbach's finest work. The Ladies: In 1778, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby left Ireland to live together in Wales as a married couple. Well-born and highly educated, the Ladies of Llangollen—as they came to be known—defied social convention, spending half a century in a devoted relationship. In this fictionalized account, Grumbach breathes vivid life into this fascinating story that is “a true classic on that rarest of relationships, companions of the heart” (San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle). A truly groundbreaking talent whose writing “depicts lesbianism as a positive, life-giving force in women's lives,” Doris Grumbach's words continue to move the hearts and minds of a new generation of readers (Ann Cothran).

Three touching contemporary British novels of love, loss, and humor from the international bestselling “virtuoso” (The Times, London). Jumping the Queue: This masterpiece of wit, humor, and psychological suspense tells the story of a middle-aged widow who has had it with life. She puts her papers in order, gives away her pet goose, packs a picnic lunch, and heads to the beach to drown herself—only to meet a criminal on the run who has the same idea. Together they set out on adventure in this novel about the hidden costs of love and death. The Camomile Lawn: In this international bestseller, several cousins reunite after forty years to lay one of their own to rest. Together they recall their last carefree summer—and one hot August night in 1939 before the war began. They also reflect on the chaos that followed... and how it changed their lives forever. Harnessing Peacocks: Single mother Hebe juggles numerous lovers while working as a manor house chef to pay for her son's schooling. When her two worlds collide, a secret from the past leads to a final showdown with a man who's in search for his lost love in this captivating and sensual novel.

A spirited collection of stories revealing the extremes of the human experience from the author of The Ice Storm In his first story collection, Rick Moody provides readers with a poignant, brazenly honest glimpse into the lives of a wide array of characters, from a paranoid husband obsessively listening in on his wife's phone calls to the junkies and sex addicts of New York City's underworld. Whether they're grasping for connection or struggling to survive in a dismal and indifferent environment, these individuals'haunting voices and the evocative worlds they inhabit make for a diverse and powerful volume. Experimenting with form—one story is told as a term paper, another as an annotated bibliography—Moody demonstrates the vast range of his fascinations and talents, as well as his arresting command of language. Candid depictions of contemporary society and the inner-workings of distinctive characters'minds bring these inquisitive, heartrending, and at times undeniably funny accounts to life. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Rick Moody including rare images from the author's personal collection.

Rudyard Kipling's classic tale of an orphaned boy, a lama on a powerful quest, and two imperialist nations butting heads over one magical country Set in the former Lahore, India, against the backdrop of an imperialist war between Russia and Great Britain, Kim is the coming-of-age story of Kimball O'Hara, a low-caste orphan boy roaming the streets with a “magic” talisman around his neck. The pendant contains three magic parchments sewn into a leather amulet case—papers that could whisk him away from the world he knows and trusts. One afternoon, Kim takes pity on an elderly lama who declares he is searching for wisdom and enlightenment at the River of the Arrow, and becomes the old man's guide, savior, and friend. Together, the odd pair travels the Grand Trunk Road, dodging cutpurses and road agents until the “Little Friend of all the World” becomes a little disciple to the wise old lama. But when Kim's father's old regimental chaplain runs into the lama and his young chela on their travels, a big change threatens to disrupt the friends'plans to find enlightenment and happiness on their shared quest. Widely considered to be Rudyard Kipling's masterpiece, Kim combines sweeping adventure with a brilliant coming-of-age story. Part children's tale, part spy thriller, part examination of the twilight of the Victorian empire, Kim is a classic page-turner. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

A boy returns home from seminary to a family on the verge of collapse For almost seven years, Mrs. Fury has done nothing but think of Peter. Of her five children, he is the youngest, her darling boy whose future she planned out long ago. It was for Peter that she took one child out of college and married another off—for Peter that she sent a third to work at sea. She has sacrificed everything so that Peter could return to Ireland to study for the priesthood. He is to be the family's salvation—but after seven years in seminary, Peter has failed. Mrs. Fury receives two telegrams: One telling her that Peter is coming home, the other bearing the news that her eldest son, Anthony, has fallen from his ship's mast and is in a hospital in New York. With two slips of paper, Mrs. Fury's hopes for the future are dashed. But this Irishwoman is strong as iron, and she will do whatever it takes to keep her family together—if only for Peter's sake. The Furys is the first book of James Hanley's acclaimed Furys Saga.

A powerful exploration of the way AIDS reshapes relationships and livesAfterlife is a haunting and unforgettable story of men facing loss and seeking love, movingly capturing the moment in the 1980s when the AIDS epidemic was completely devastating the American gay community. Here, National Book Award winner Paul Monette depicts three men of various economic and social backgrounds, all with one thing in common: They are widowers, in a way, and all of their lovers died of AIDS in an LA hospital within a week of one another. Steven, Sonny, and Dell meet weekly to discuss how to go on with their lives despite the hanging sword of being HIV positive. One tries to find a semblance of normalcy; one rebels openly against the disease, choosing to treat his body as a temple that he can consecrate and desecrate at will; and one throws himself into fierce political activism. No matter what path each one takes, they are all searching for one thing: a way to live and love again.Afterlife finds Paul Monette at his most autobiographical, portraying men in a situation that he himself experienced, and one that he described to critical acclaim in the award-winning Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Paul Monette including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the Paul Monette papers of the UCLA Library Special Collections.

The classic story collection by a great American masterSherwood Anderson's unforgettable story cycle has long been considered one of the finest works of American literature. The central character is George Willard, a youngartist coming of age in a quiet town in the heart of the Midwest, but his story is no more extraordinary than those of friends and neighbors such as Kate Swift, a lonely schoolteacher whose beauty inspires lust and confusion; Wing Biddlebaum, a recluse whose restless hands are the source of both his new name and the terrible secret that led him to abandon the old one; and Doctor Reefy, who hides his personal suffering by pouring it onto scraps of paper. With its uncompromising realism and unique narrative structure—twenty-two short tales linked by their setting and by a large cast of recurring characters—Winesburg, Ohio inspired an entire generation of writers, including William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and forever changed the depiction of small-town life in popular American culture.This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

The classic tale of existential despair A Wall Street lawyer specializing in bonds and mortgages hires a respectable young man to copy legal documents by hand. At first, the new scrivener approaches his duties with a calm efficiency. Then comes the day when his response to a new assignment is, “I would prefer not to.” The mysterious phrase soon becomes Bartleby's reply to everything asked of him, and his surrender to inertia is both maddening and inexorable. Torn between frustration and pity, anger and sorrow, his employer desperately tries to save Bartleby, but the cause is as doomed to disappointment as life itself. A strange and haunting fable that continues to resonate a century and a half after it was first published, Bartleby, the Scrivener is a masterpiece of American literature. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

A Haitian émigré's exposure to shallow suburbanites is “social satire at its slyest and best” from the New York Times–bestselling author (Kirkus Reviews). When the heartbroken Simone flees her native Haiti, her best option to start a new life is a quick paper marriage to a Brooklyn cab driver and a job as an underpaid caregiver to two spoiled young children in the small community of Hudson Landing, New York. But her new boss is nothing like what she's been led to expect. The self-absorbed amateur sculptor Rosemary Porter and her morose, eccentric children George and Maisie—deserted by their philandering husband and father—rattle aimlessly around their crumbling suburban mansion. The people of Hudson Landing seem welcoming at first, but as Simone settles into this new home, her sense of unease grows. Rosemary's sarcastic best friend, Shelly, seems as suspicious of her as her shallow boyfriend, Kenny, a children's hair salon owner who appears eager to befriend the new au pair. A neighbor known only as “The Count” strings dead animals from trees for no reason anyone can understand. As the local community roils with secrets and attempts to outdo each other with self-importance, Simone begins to wonder just where on earth she has fled to—and if it's any better than the violence and betrayal she left behind. As always, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose “has a wickedly sharp ear for pretentious American idiom, and no telling detail escapes her observation” as Simone struggles to make sense of these odd people and this strange, new world (The New York Times Book Review).

A scientist is lured into a dark conspiracy in “the most frightening book since 1984,” by the New York Times–bestselling author of Man in the Woods (Library Journal). Paul Galambos is an ordinary professor of psychology, struggling to glean any degree of satisfaction or success from his family and his career—until one day he is recruited by a top-secret organization and given carte blanche to pursue experiments and studies as he sees fit, no longer confined to lab rats. This is the life that Paul was destined for, replete with money and respect, if only he can ignore the incessant pull of his conscience.Alternately funny and chilling, Last Night at the Brain Thieves Ball delves into the ethical issues surrounding science and the perils of ambition, and exposes the narcissistic tendencies of humankind. From a National Book Award finalist known for such novels as Endless Love and A Ship Made of Paper, this is a thoughtful, suspenseful tale of “a mad scientist's dream hovering tantalizingly close to reality” (The New York Times). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Scott Spencer, including rare photos from the author's personal collection.

A charismatic businessman casts a dark spell over others in this psychologically suspenseful novel by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Black Prince. Mischa Fox's name is known throughout London, though he himself is rarely seen. Enigmatic and desired, vicious yet sympathetic, he is a model of success, wealth, and charisma. When Fox turns his entrepreneurial gaze on a small feminist magazine known as the Artemis, his intoxicating influence quickly begins to affect the lives of those involved with the paper: the fragile editor, Hunter; generous Rosa, who splits her time and affections between her brother and two other men; innocent Annette, whose journey from school to the real world ends up being more fraught than she could have foreseen; and their circle of friends and acquaintances, all of whom find themselves both drawn to and repulsed by Fox. Told with dark humor, keen wit, and intense insight into the seductive nature of power, The Flight from the Enchanter is an intricate and dazzling work of fiction from the author of The Sea, The Sea and Under the Net, “one of the most significant novelists of her generation” (The Guardian).

“Her writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness,[and] dislike of fuss.... Light, witty, easygoing books.” —The New YorkerAs 1951 draws to a close, Christmas approaches—but the conservative upper class of Barsetshire have already received the gift they really wanted: Winston Churchill's re-election as prime minister. Nevertheless, their individual struggles carry on. A member of the House of Lords worries that marriage is not in the cards for him due to an insufficient fortune, while another man does manage to get engaged—but frets that his betrothed doesn't truly love him. The widow Lady Lufton misses her husband—as well as the money she's lost to taxes. And an aspiring scholar falls madly in love, but must choose between Oxford and the object of his affections... “[This] characteristically witty, nostalgic... novel in the beloved Barsetshire series describes the lingering effects of WWII on the fictional village that Thirkell adapted from its Victorian inventor and chronicler, Anthony Trollope.” —Publishers Weekly

Two Bronx boys take radically different paths in this novel about the limits of genius and the loss of home, by a “terrifically gifted” author (Anita Shreve, New York Times–bestselling author). Ralph Silverman was a foreign film buff, a victim of bullies, and a boy genius. He held long conversations with his pet parakeet and spent countless hours on a computer, creating mesmerizing music and solving problems in philosophy. He was a friend of great scholars and the son of a wealthy outer-borough businessman with shady associates and a secret second family. And, as he begins to take over the story from the narrator, Ralph finds himself in South Florida, physically abused and expelled into a frightening world of the unhoused—with a broken pair of glasses, no money, and no shoes. From the celebrated author of Searching for Bobby Fischer, Anything Is Good is a hypnotically compelling tale of a man haunted by the fate of his childhood buddy, and of that friend's pleasures and misfortunes as he navigates an unhoused life—a life more complex and dramatic than a bypasser might ever imagine. “Anything Is Good... offers a deeply affecting dive into the lives of the unhoused. Its shifting perspective and changing narrative voice builds to a clarion call for greater empathy and understanding.” —Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March “Anything Is Good is the best portrait of homelessness I've read since George Orwell's Down and Out in London and Paris.... Superbly written.” —Gabriel Byrne Praise for Fred Waitzkin's previous books “Very few writers can deliver a story with this much heart... A great novel.” —Sebastian Junger “I've seldom been so captivated by a book.” —Tom Stoppard “A gem of a book.” —The New York Times

Barsetshire gathers to celebrate a milestone birthday at the Old Bank House in this conclusion to the much-loved, long-running series.A home is saved from destruction, a budding romance takes steps toward the altar, a doctor experiences the return of a former love—and the fine people of Barsetshire make plans for a festive extravaganza to mark Mrs. Morland's seventieth birthday... “Triumphantly completed” by Angela Thirkell's close friend C. A. Lejeune after Thirkell's death, Three Score and Ten features a host of new and old friends from the author's acclaimed series spanning decades of English country life (The New York Times). “Her writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness, dislike of fuss, and low-key irony.... Light, witty, easygoing books.” —The New Yorker“Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

A teenager moves to a remote farm in the Catskill Mountains in 1931 to raise her late aunt's baby in this novel from “a writer of talent and vision” (San Francisco Chronicle). Leenie is a precocious fifteen-year-old, but her hopes of going to college depend on her mother's scheme after a family tragedy. Leenie must travel to her late aunt's home and take care of her newborn cousin, lending support to the baby's grief-stricken father, Digger. As Leenie gradually, and with difficulty, grows into her new role, she and Digger form a surprising bond of affection. But the new love and community she's discovered are now at risk from New York City, which considers their remote, fertile valley a promising site for a future reservoir, and the ground under Leenie's feet could soon be swept away...Praise for Same Blood “Remarkable... Impressive.” —Publishers Weekly “The Catskill Mountains are full of myth and mystery in this striking first novel.” —The New York Times Book Review “Scenes that leap from the page and either wrench your heart or twist your guts.” —Chicago Tribune

The eighty-year anniversary edition of the once-banned, #1 New York Times–bestselling novel of interracial romance and discrimination in Georgia. Alice Walker said it best: “The South can hardly be said to recognize itself without this book.” Igniting controversy upon its publication in 1944, Strange Fruit was banned in Boston and Detroit and the US Postal Service refused to send it through the mail until Eleanor Roosevelt intervened—all because of its portrayal of a town divided along racial lines and the forbidden love that dared to cross them... Despite having left Maxwell, Georgia, to attend college, Nonnie Anderson returned to her hometown to work for a prominent white family—and to rejoin the man she had always loved, Tracy Deen. Tracy, the directionless son of the town's doctor, has come back from war and is being pressured to finally get his life in order. Across the street, his high school sweetheart desperately waits for a marriage proposal. On the other side of town, Nonnie offers him a safe place to land, asking nothing in return. But now, she's pregnant. As a Christian revival inspires the locals to cease their sinful ways, a heady and dangerous mix of passion, religion, and racism takes hold. And when a white man is killed in a Black part of town, the event exposes the evil simmering just below the town's placid surface—an inferno waiting to erupt...“A very moving book and an extraordinary one.” —Eleanor Roosevelt“Strange Fruit is so wide in its human understanding... [its] tragedy becomes the tragedy of anyone who lives in a world in which minorities suffer.” —The Nation“An absorbing novel, of high literary merit, terrific and tender.” —The Boston Globe

Cultural shifts of the late twentieth century reveal dark secrets at an elite prep school, in this posthumously discovered novel by the author of “Our Crowd.” Located in bucolic Connecticut, the Crittenden School has long held a venerable reputation as one of New England's premier preparatory schools. However, times are changing, and that change is coming to Crittenden. In the midst of social upheaval, the headmaster's wife, Clarissa Spotswood, is thrust into faculty and student intrigues—a role for which she is woefully unprepared. Clarissa has spent the past thirty years quietly standing by her husband, Headmaster Hobart Spotswood, projecting the image of the model society wife. But this meticulous façade is shattered when Clarissa uncovers horrific events within the school's insular community. And interspersed with the drama is Clarissa's own journal entries revealing a secret history of her own. Previously unpublished, The Headmaster's Wife was written by the late Stephen Birmingham, author of notable works such as Real Lace and Life at the Dakota. Discovered after Birmingham's death, the manuscript was transcribed and edited by his son, Carey Birmingham.

This modernist, experimental, and controversial novel examines gender politics in the lives of an American family. Lesbian poet, journalist, and illustrator Djuna Barnes's debut novel was a sensation when it was originally published in 1928. A bawdy parody of patriarchal repression, the book was heavily censored upon its release in America. An exploration of sexuality that is thought to be based on Barnes's own life, the novel depicts a family headed by polygamist Wendell Ryder through the eyes of his daughter, Julia. Employing a variety of literary styles, from parable, poetry, sentimental fiction, and drama, Barnes satirizes masculinity and femininity in one of modern literature's first and best examinations of gender and power dynamics.

In this short story collection, the acclaimed author of Our Crowd offers fourteen darkly funny and poignant tales of the human heart. Stephen Birmingham is renowned for his penetrating examinations of America's upper classes. Here, he proves himself an equally deft hand at fiction, bringing the same knowing wit and piercing insight to the short stories in this collection. In “She Ate Grass?,” a boy navigates coming of age while buying whiskey for his mother's cocktail party. In “Race Day,” a shy woman endures her husband's ambition to join the board of an exclusive yacht club. In these and other stories, Birmingham peels back the layers of middle-class life in the late twentieth century.

A parade of people in need of solace find a mysterious sympathizer, in this uniquely moving classic by a New York Times–bestselling author. They come day and night to confess their troubles to an anonymous listener positioned behind a curtain. Could it be a priest, a psychiatrist, a friend, or a judge? Each person draws a different conclusion. From a businessman who feels betrayed by someone he trusted, to a society woman with contempt for her husband, to a scientist troubled by what his work has wrought, the visitors'situations vary widely as they struggle with grief, denial, prejudice, and fear. But in this small sanctuary, there are no office hours, the listener is always listening, and the visitors'lives are forever changed. This inspiring and inventive work of fiction comes from the award-winning author of Captains and the Kings, Testimony of Two Men, and many other bestsellers. “The gift of narration and characterization which Taylor Caldwell brings to each of her books is here in strong measure.” —Kirkus Reviews “I believe [Caldwell] wanted to instill hope, renew faith, and foster love in what she saw as a society on the decline. The year was 1960. But the issues can be universally applied today.” —The Book Cafe

In this comic novel by a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a bachelor on a transatlantic cruise meets a group of runaway children who change his life forever. Martin Boyne is a cautious man of forty-six. The bachelor has been nursing a relationship with a widow for five years, and now he is crossing the Atlantic to be with her. He laments that he never meets interesting people in his travels, but that is about to change... The seven precocious Wheater siblings, traveling with their nanny, are running away from their parents. Their mother and father are always breaking up and reconciling, shuffling the children back and forth, and they have had enough. They simply want to be together... Moved by the children's plight and knowing of their parents, Boyne decides to help them as best he can. It is time to throw caution to the wind, and everyone, including Boyne, just may be better for it...

This collection of supernatural, fantasy, and sci-fi stories from the Nobel Prize–nominated author “presents a new side of a distinguished writer” (The New York Times). Novelist, essayist, and acclaimed author of A Room with a View and A Passage to India, E. M. Forster explores themes of the human spirit, social isolation, and technology in this unique book of short fiction. Written between 1903 and 1914, notable works included are the dystopian “The Machine Stops” as well as “The Point of It,” “Mr. Andrews,” “Coordination,” and “The Story of the Siren.” All are profound and prescient narratives revealing a futuristic world that will look remarkably and eerily familiar to modern readers. “E. M. Forster is for me the only living novelist who can be read again and again and who, after each reading, gives me what few writers can give us after our first days of novel-reading, the sensation of having learned something.” —Lionel Trilling

New York Times Bestseller: In Victorian Britain, an affluent woman hosts a group of Catholic priests in her home—and listens as they tell their stories. Rose, a young girl visiting her grandmother, sits among eleven priests from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. As each guest shares the most challenging moments of their vocations, tests of faith that have brought them face-to-face with the miseries, temptations, and evils that lurk beyond the peaceful confines of the rectory, their worldly, wealthy hostess and her granddaughter come to learn the struggles and outcomes of these confrontations with the human condition. “The priests themselves represent a mixed lot—men of exalted backgrounds, culture, worldly experience, who have found their hardest task bringing themselves down to the humble people of their flocks; men who understand only the intellectual, realistic aspects of their faith—and must learn to accept the mystical as well; men who hide their saintliness under uncouth exteriors, who learn the hard way to love their fellow men, who encounter devils as well as saints, murderers, sinners.... Lively reading.” —Kirkus Reviews

The story of a Boston heiress who wishes for nothing—except happiness—by a New York Times–bestselling author who “never falters when it comes to storytelling” (Publishers Weekly). Caroline Ames is rich beyond imagining. But after a childhood with a cold, rejecting father, she is irrationally terrified of poverty, seething with hostility, and incapable of giving or receiving love. Those who cross her path tend to find themselves at the very least suffering, if not thoroughly broken.A Prologue to Love introduces three generations of the Ames family during the Gilded Age and the early twentieth century—painting a compassionate portrait of a difficult woman, those who have hurt her, and those she has hurt. It is a vivid, profoundly moving novel that explores the damage that everyday evil can do—and what it takes to overcome it.

Following WWI, an English aristocrat struggles to find peace as he attempts to rebuild his life in this conclusion to the Parade's End Tetralogy. The Great War is over. The ancestral home of Christopher Tietjens has been sold to an American. Christopher and Valentine Wannop now share a cottage with his brother and sister-in-law. A mathematician before the war, Christopher now earns a living selling antique furniture. It seems his world will be forever changed... Set over the course of one summer day, The Last Post follows its characters as they amble through a disorientating new world. Tensions arise for the inhabitants of the cottage. Valentine is pregnant and worried about her unmarried status as well as Christopher's money troubles. Then Christopher's estranged wife schemes to make their lives miserable. With the past haunting their present, the future seems uncertain for Christopher and Valentine. Praise for Parade's End “The finest English novel about the Great War.” —Malcolm Bradbury “There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.” —W. H. Auden “The best novel by a British writer.... It is also the finest novel about the First World War. It is also the finest novel about the nature of British society.” —Anthony Burgess “The English prose masterpiece of the time.” —William Carlos Williams

The final novel of “a social satire of epic proportions and one that does not suffer by comparison with Thackeray's Vanity Fair” (The New York Times). From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932 Set against the backdrop of a post–World War I Britain, now rocked by a general strike, Swan Song captures the staunch resilience—and ridiculousness—of the British upper middle class, who view this new national crisis as just a minor inconvenience. As the ever-so-steadfast Winifred Dartie says, “If they could get this little fuss over, the coming season would be most enjoyable.” Especially since Jon Forsyte and his American wife have visited from France. Though eager to pitch in to help his homeland, Jon never expects his return will have such an effect on his former love, Fleur Mont, now married to a member of Parliament and a mother. Even when the strike abates, their reunion sends ripples through their friends and family, including Fleur's father. He knows his daughter wants nothing more than what she doesn't have—and to save her from herself—he sets out to stay one step ahead of her duplicitous heart... “It is such a joy to read a book which is unquestionably a good piece of work, that tells you on the first page that it is going to tell its story gracefully, with technical skill, and with that rare quality of fineness. Swan Song has quite literally greatness—to say more about it would be to spill gilt paint over a calla.” —Chicago Tribune

From the acclaimed Harlem Renaissance author of Passing, a novel of one mixed-race woman's far-reaching quest to discover identity and happiness. At twenty-three, Helga Crane teaches in 1920s Georgia at one of the country's finest colleges for African Americans, and she's engaged to a fellow teacher. Yet happiness eludes her. And when she can't take the snobbish, conformist atmosphere one second more, she breaks off her relationship with her fiancé and leaves for Illinois. Thus begins a pattern that will define her life, as Helga runs from her hometown of Chicago—where she faces rejection by the Scandinavian half of her family—to Harlem, where she finds understanding and friendship... for a while. Falling prey once again to restlessness and insecurity, Helga flees to Europe, where she is accepted with open arms by a wealthy aunt in Copenhagen. There she finds a physical freedom that she never knew existed, only to desperately hunger for the spiritual freedom that she left behind on Harlem's bustling streets. Quicksand captures both the strength and fragility of a woman who longs to be herself, and not defined by her race, yet who cannot escape the countless perceptions and expectations of people both Black and White. “Fine, thoughtful and courageous. It is, on the whole, the best piece of fiction that [Black] America has produced since the heyday of Chesnutt.” —W. E. B. Du Bois “Quicksand and Passing are novels that I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating and indispensable.” —Alice Walker, National Book Award–winning author of The Color Purple

The Harlem Renaissance sociologist explores early-twentieth-century attitudes toward race in this tale of romance, politics, and justice. Matthew Towns is a hardworking medical student with dreams of becoming an obstetrician, but his race prevents him from completing his required courses at a white hospital. Frustrated with America, he exiles himself to Germany. In Berlin, he meets the daughter of a maharaja, Princess Kautilya, of Bwodpur, India. She introduces him to a vibrant new world, inviting him to join her international coalition for people of color united for self-liberation while dismantling white imperialism. Soon the love between Matthew and Kautilya is undeniable, but their struggles in a whites-only world threaten to tear them apart... Originally published in 1928, Dark Princess blends a young man's journey with a tale of romance and Du Bois's own sociological theories.

An African American woman lives life on her own terms in the early-twentieth-century South Carolina Lowcountry from the Pultizer Prize–winning author. In this once-banned classic of 1928, Julia Peterkin introduces readers to a Black community in the post-slavery South—and to a woman who follows her own path in the close-knit world in which she's born. Mary is just fifteen and already used to the hard work of surviving off the land that used to be a plantation. She is strong, in love, about to be married—and already pregnant. It is this “sin” that marks her, an excuse for everything that goes wrong in her life, especially the failure of her marriage and the children who she continues to have out of wedlock. But Mary doesn't see it that way. She has learned to give her heart when and to whom she wants to—without apology. Though the portrayal of an unrepentant Black woman was shocking to some upon initial publication, the Chicago Tribune called it, “a rich, colorful, passionate panorama of a person who took life as she found it and achieved, despite everything, a personal peace of spirit,” and the New York Times said it “all but cries with color, scent, sound, in a style that is a happy combination of solidity, brilliance, and pure beauty.” “Reading Scarlet Sister Mary one should keep a pencil near at hand. Sentences in the text leap out to be marked, to be read again and again and held in memory for all time. Mrs. Peterkin's prose has a beauty and a richness which is balm to a distracted world.” —Boston Evening Transcript

Matches are being made among the cream of postwar English society in this novel of “warmth, whimsy, quirks, and vinegar with a dash of vitriol”(The New York Times).The England of old may be fading away (it's so hard to find good help these days!)—but that doesn't stop the prominent families of Barsetshire from producing a new generation of genteel brides and grooms in this funny, entertaining portrait of stubbornly cherished traditions in a changing world. “It is difficult not to become charmed, amused and engrossed. [Thirkell's] sense of the ludicrous is enchanting. Perhaps, above all, it is her basic human kindness and her remarkable insight into the delicate relationship between parents and adolescent and grown children, that endear her books to so many people.” —The New York Times“Thirkell writes with an asperity and wit and glorious clowning that are all her own.” —San Francisco Chronicle

A picturesque community in postwar England comes together when it counts in this witty, moving novel in the “beloved” Barsetshire series (Publishers Weekly).Edith Graham is still single when she returns from America to visit Mrs. Morland, and there's no shortage of interested men—until three suitors find each other such good company that they start socializing together and ignoring her. Meanwhile, Mrs. Morland has received a marriage proposal herself and needs to let the dear man down gently. But while these day-to-day problems preoccupy the two women and their Barsetshire neighbors, they will soon be united by a poignant loss... “Here are the familiar cross-county conversations, the disentangling of relationships, the good pieces of meddling and the criticisms and comments that embroider this ever-unfolding panorama of English life.” —Kirkus Reviews“Thirkell writes in a charmingly easy and intimate style.” —The New York Times“Her writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness, dislike of fuss, and low-key irony.... Light, witty, easygoing books.” —The New Yorker

A “charming troupe” of Barsetshire inhabitants celebrate a spate of marriages—while one young woman bemoans her prospects—in this novel of 1950s English life (The New York Times).The locals are all talking about the upcoming wedding of the vicar of Hatch End to the much-loved Miss Merriman—in fact, the couple's friends and neighbors seem even more excited than the bride- and groom-to-be. But that's to be expected when a couple of a certain age tie the knot, because it reminds everyone that it's never too late for love. And though Edith Graham is increasingly gloomy about landing a husband, the romantic spirit of the event just might be contagious... “Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews“[Thirkell's] talent for easy, light characterization does not seem to be flagging.” —The Times Literary Supplement

The missing lord of the manor looms large in this quirky novel by an author who offers “a fresh, original, witty interpretation of England's social history” (The New York Times).Lady Graham is anticipating the long-awaited appearance of Sir Robert, finally retiring from his glorious military career and globetrotting adventures a decade after the end of World War II. In the meantime, life at Holdings goes on and Lady Graham's youngest, eighteen-year-old Edith, has her pick of suitors. It is unclear, however, if she will make up her mind about them any time soon—and if she will exit Holdings before her father enters... “Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

Amid food shortages and grumbling, Barsetshire is unsettled by the arrival of a pretty war widow in this “delicately humorous [and] entertaining” novel (The New York Times).World War II may be over, but its effects linger in the English countryside as the local ladies trade ration coupons for a paltry selection of provisions. It's feeling like a bleak summer—but it won't be a boring one, now that flirtatious young widow Peggy Arbuthnot and her sister-in-law, Effie, are on the scene. Peggy has quite a few admirers—including Noel Merton, which is rather unfortunate for his wife. Suspense reigns over who might win Peggy's hand—and whether the Merton marriage will survive... “Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

A widow goes house-hunting in Barsetshire in this witty, moving novel by an author of “graceful stories of upper-class English life” (The New York Times).One rainy summer, amid the social and cultural changes of postwar England, Mrs. Macfadyen wrestles with the loss of her beloved husband after just five years of happiness. Life has left her uprooted—but where can she replant herself? The hunt for a new house (preferably not too close to her mother's) will involve everyone from friends and neighbors to an old suitor and the local clergy, but ultimately the decision—and her future—is up to her... Recreating Anthony Trollope's fictional county and bringing it into the mid-twentieth century, Angela Thirkell tells a tale filled with heartache, humor, and sharp social observation.“It is in [Mrs. Macfadyen's] fitful remembrance, quiet loneliness and gentle acceptance, that one realizes her author's sense of the poetry in life, and her sympathetic ear for the nuances of pain.” —The New York Times

From a starry-eyed teenager to an elderly clergyman, it seems no one is immune to romance in the county of Barsetshire... In the long-running and beloved series that brings Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire into the mid-twentieth century and offers “a fresh, original, witty interpretation of England's social history,” the quirky inhabitants and well-bred families of the county find themselves navigating the delights and uncertainties of love (The New York Times). Lady Gwendolyn Harcourt, no spring chicken, is courted by the aging Reverend Oriel of Harefield. And on the other end of the generational spectrum, fresh-faced sixteen-year-old Lavinia Merton may have a future marriage prospect in her singing partner Ludovic, Lord Mellings... “Thirkell's gently meandering account of the diversions of Barsetshire society leaves nothing to be desired.” —New York Herald Tribune“To read [Thirkell] is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

As Elizabeth II's coronation draws near, the gentry of Barsetshire engage in preparations, committee meetings, and “their perennially amusing antics” (The New York Times).A new queen is about to be crowned, and the prominent families of Barsetshire intend to make a good impression amid the festivities. Fortunately, the highly capable Lydia Merton takes the helm of the local committee planning for the big event. All she needs to do is keep calm and carry on through the squabbling, the petty jealousies, and the occasional disaster... “The Thirkell wit presides with tongue-rolling malice.” —The New York Times“Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

In 1930s England, a beleaguered mother frets over her twelve-year-old's “skirmishes with the grown-up world and his schoolmasters... amusingly told” (Kirkus Reviews).Laura Morland loves her son, Tony, unconditionally... even when he's talking everyone's ear off, accidentally breaking a window, shelling peas in the bathtub, or desperately trying to convince her to buy him a bicycle—the thought of which terrifies her. And of course Laura cherishes their time together when Tony's home on break, while secretly counting the minutes until he goes back to school... This twentieth-century tale set in Anthony Trollope's beloved Barsetshire is a lighthearted and sharp-witted look at the life of the upper class in prewar England, and a funny portrait of the fraught relationship between a long-suffering mother and a demanding, rambunctious, and occasionally infuriating twelve-year-old boy. Praise for Angela Thirkell and the Barsetshire novels“Thirkell writes in a charmingly easy and intimate style.” —The New York Times“[Thirkell's] writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness, dislike of fuss, and low-key irony.... Light, witty, easygoing books.” —The New Yorker

Short stories from the acclaimed British novelist who “writes unflinchingly about family life, divorce, children, and the ups and downs of relationships” (The Independent). Witty, insightful, and keenly observant, the stories in Fool for Love revel in the complexities of modern relationships. From the joys and trials of marriage to the thrill of escaping into an illicit affair to mothers managing recalcitrant teens—or worse, adult children who unexpectedly return to the nest at mid-life—each revelatory tale is told in the wise and darkly humorous voice that is Deborah Moggach's trademark. Containing stories previously unpublished in book form, this collection confirms Moggach's place as one of our finest observers of human life. “Quirky, sassy, well-crafted... Moggach at her best.” —Times Literary Supplement “What informs Moggach's excellent stories is not just the exactness of her observation, but the quality of warmth and affection.” —Sunday Times

This “jewel at the heart of English comic literature” chronicles the daily fortunes and misfortunes of a middle-age, middle-class clerk (William Trevor, The Mail on Sunday). Since its original publication in 1892, The Diary of a Nobody has become a much-loved classic. It is a fictional man's dissection of the everyday drama of his life as an office worker in a London firm. With dry wit, the authors step into the character of Charles Pooter as he navigates work life with not-so-respectful young coworkers and family life with his charming wife, Carrie, and impetuous son, Lupin. From home repairs gone wrong (painting the tub red), to the comings and goings of his friends Cummings and Gowings, Pooter painstakingly shares intimate details of his existence, with the (not completely absurd) hope of maybe someday having his memoir published. An ongoing tally of the good jokes he makes shares space with descriptions of grievous insults to his person, party mishaps, the annoying behavior of everyone around him, and Lupin's on-again off-again employment and engagement status. The Diary of a Nobody gives everyone a reason to laugh—and recognize themselves in Pooter's droll prose. “The funniest book in the world.” —Evelyn Waugh, author of Brideshead Revisited “There's a universality about Pooter that touches everybody... [he] fits into the tradition of absurd humour that the British do well, which started with Jonathan Swift and runs through Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear to Monty Python.” —Jasper Fforde, Time Out “Pooter himself is as gentle as you could wish, a wonderful character, genuinely lovable. The book is beautifully constructed.” —Andrew Davies, The Herald

The semiautobiographical prison account of convict Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov, from the author of Crime and Punishment. Originally published in 1862, The House of the Dead is based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's own four-year imprisonment in Siberia for his involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This masterpiece of Russian literature begins with a nameless narrator coming upon former convict Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov in a remote Siberian town. Previously a nobleman and landowner, Goryanchikov had been given a ten-year sentence of hard labor for the murder of his wife, a crime of passion sparked by jealousy. After Goryanchikov's death, the narrator finds a handwritten record of his decade of penal servitude. From his first days in the barracks, friendless and broken in spirit, to the removal of his shackles and freedom, Goryanchikov portrays the experiences of a “lost tribe of men,” and the horrors and degradation they experienced. “Episodic, rambling, full of keen and deliberately stretched-out character sketches, the book is the drama of a person working out how to reproduce prison life in prose: its longueurs, its diversions, its pleasures, traumas, and inurements... If Dostoyevsky's captors had found the ribald, cacophonous commonplace book he assembled out of overheard insults and tossed-off sayings during his time in prison, they would have recognized that they were dealing with a spirit not easily suppressed.” —The Paris Review “I know no better book in all modern literature.” —Leo Tolstoy

A man at one with nature finds himself enchanted by a vision in this classic Midwestern romance from the naturalist and author of The Keeper of the Bees. David Langston, the Harvester, allows his dog to decide his fate every year—to join the money-making scramble in the noise and grime of the city, or continue harvesting the goldenseal, mullein, and ginseng in the woods around their country home. Every year, his dog Bel chooses correctly—for they are both creatures of the woods. But this year, there is another matter to ponder. Should Langston remain alone—or should he go courting? There are pros and cons of course—mostly cons—that bang around in Langston's mind. That is, until he sees a ghostly vision near the lake, a slender dark-haired woman wrapped in robes of white, lovelier than any he has ever seen in his twenty-six years. And then one day he sees her crying in the woods. Ruth Jameson is a girl caught in a bad situation, and Langston finds himself willing to do anything to help her and make her every wish come true. Praise for the writing of Gene Stratton-Porter “As famous in the early 1900s as J.K. Rowling is now... Her natural settings, wholesome themes and strong lead characters fulfilled the public's desires to connect with nature and give children positive role models.” —Smithsonian Magazine “Her narrative is entertaining, her enthusiasm catching.” —The New York Times

A collection of short fiction from one of nineteenth-century Russia's greatest novelists, the author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. These short stories offer a dazzling glimpse of life in the Russian Empire and penetrating portraits of unforgettable characters. In the titular story, a lonely man has a chance meeting with a sad young woman. Learning that she is in love with another, the man vows to help them reunite, while secretly hoping she'll realize they are meant to be together. “Polzunkov” is a man who doesn't mind playing the buffoon, and when he tells the story of how one of his April Fools'jokes backfired—robbing him of the woman he hoped to marry—he gets the biggest laugh of all. In “A Christmas Tree and a Wedding,” a holiday party gives one guest the chance to compliment his host and hostess on their charming daughter, who just happens to be a future heiress. Five years later, his investment pays off. Fyodor Dostoyevsky's skill at depicting the madcap, desperate, and malicious motivations of his characters is on full display in this remarkable collection of stories.

Three novellas that brilliantly portray English country and clergy life at the turn of the nineteenth century from the author of Middlemarch. Initially appearing in Blackwood's Magazine, this trio of linked stories comprises George Eliot's first published work. Together they form a portrait of small-town life in Midlands, England, where changes are affecting both society at large and religious beliefs and institutions. In “The Sad Fortunes of Reverend Amos Barton,” the clergyman struggles to raise funds for church repairs and perform his parochial duties, while a target of gossip—both good and bad. Meanwhile, few in Shepperton can find fault with his shy and hardworking wife, who cares for their six children, stretching Barton's meager salary—and herself—to the limit. Set before the arrival of Amos Barton, “Mr. Gilfil's Love Story” features well-liked parish priest Maynard Gifil, who is known for smoking long pipes and preaching short sermons. Shockingly tumultuous events lead up to his marriage—including a love triangle, deception, and a murder plot. An argument over religious doctrine splits the market town of Milby into two factions in “Janet's Repentance.” With the arrival of Reverend Tryan, a rumor spreads that Evangelicalism has invaded the parish, angering local lawyer Robert Dempster. But his long-suffering wife finds in Tryan a kindred spirit, leading her to embark on a new life. “The exquisite truth and delicacy, both of the humour and the pathos of those stories, I have never seen the like of.” —Charles Dickens “A first-rate novel, and its author takes rank at once among the masters of the art.” —The Times