The Turn of the Screw is a fireside tale of evil and mystery. Filled with extraordinary drama, Henry James' story has been widely popular ever since its publication in 1898. It also inspired a film, a play, and an opera. A governess has been hired to care for two orphaned young children in their uncle' s English country home. But soon after she meets the boy and his sister, the governess begins to see fearful apparitions. With growing alarm, she must...

"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott is an enchanting exploration of sisterhood, dreams, and resilience set against the backdrop of the Civil War. The narrative follows the four March sisters-Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy-on their captivating journey from adolescence to adulthood. Meg, the responsible eldest, Jo, the fiercely independent aspiring writer, Beth, the gentle musician, and Amy, the artistic dreamer, each bring a unique flavor to the story. As...

Talkative, ten-year-old Rebecca goes to live with her spinster aunts, one harsh and demanding, the other soft and sentimental, with whom she spends seven difficult but rewarding years growing up.

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Then, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. But the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information. Unfortunately, before he could finish reading the letter, he was stabbed to death.

The year is 1984; the scene is London, largest population center of Airstrip One. Airstrip One is part of the vast political entity Oceania, which is eternally at war with one of two other vast entities, Eurasia and Eastasia. At any moment, depending upon current alignments, all existing records show either that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or that it has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia....

Gwendoline, Lady Muir, has seen her share of tragedy, especially since a freak accident took her husband much too soon. Content in a quiet life with friends and family, the young widow has no desire to marry again. But when Hugo, Lord Trentham, scoops her up in his arms after a fall, she feels a sensation that both shocks and emboldens her. Hugo never intends to kiss Lady Muir, and frankly, he judges her to be a spoiled, frivolous, if beautiful, aristocrat....

Thomas Gradgrind, a practical man, brings up his two children, Louisa and Tom, accordingly, thoroughly suppressing the imaginative and emotional sides of their natures with devastating consequences.

Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is the story of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, who struggle to achieve respectability, each in their own way in the face of the strict social conventions of early eighteenth-century England. The carefree childhood of the two young sisters comes to an abrupt end upon their father's death which leaves the family penniless and pushed out of the estate upon which they grew up. They move to a modest cottage...

The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his patriotic footsteps, volunteering to serve her country as a nurse during the Great War. In 1916, she promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his dying request to a brother. When the hospital ship is sunk by a mine and she is sent home to England to recover from her wounds, Bess is determined to fulfill her promise at last. There the enigmatic message is treated with...

"The book in which Charles Dickens most fully unleashed his indignation at the fallen state of mid-Victorian society"--Prelim.