Swann's Way tells two related stories, the first of which revolves around Marcel, a younger version of the narrator, and his experiences in, and memories of, the French town Combray. Inspired by the "gusts of memory" that rise up within him as he dips a Madeleine into hot tea, the narrator discusses his fear of going to bed at night. He is a creature of habit and dislikes waking up in the middle of the night not knowing where he is. He claims that...

"One of the most important works of the Modernist era, James Joyce's "Ulysses" was originally published serially in the American journal "The Little Review" from March 1918 to December 1920. Subsequently published as a book in 1922, "Ulysses" chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, June 16, 1904. While the novel appears largely unstructured at first glance it is in fact very closely paralleled to Homer's "Odyssey,"...

"The people of Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, are in the grip of a deadly plague that condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. The plague begins with a series of unheeded warnings: panic, isolation, and claustrophobia soon follow, as the townspeople are force into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr. Rieux, resist the terror."--Provided by publisher. "The...

"In these four plays, Jean-Paul Sartre, the great existentialist novelist and philosopher, displays his mastery of the drama. No Exit is an unforgettable portrayal of hell. The Flies is a modern reworking of the Electra-Orestes story. Dirty Hands is about a young intellectual torn between theory and praxis. The Respectful Prostitute is a scathing attack on American racism." --

First published in 1915, this novel marks the end of an era and presents one of literary modernism's greatest achievements. Set in prewar Germany, the story concerns Edward Ashburnham, a first-rate soldier and a perfect English gentleman whose single and fatal flaw is his blind ruthlessness in affairs of love.

NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR • One of the most widely read novels of all time—from one of the best-known writers of all time—about a lawyer from Paris who brilliantly illuminates the human condition. 
Elegantly styled, Camus' profoundly disturbing novel of a Parisian lawyer's confessions is a searing study of modern amorality.

First published in 1910, Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is one the first great modernist novels, the account of poet-aspirant Brigge in his exploration of poetic individuality and his reflections on the experience of time as death approaches. This translation by Burton Pike is a reaction to overly stylized previous translations, and aims to capture not only the beauty but also the strangeness, the spirit, of Rilke's German.

"An ingeniously constructed parody of detective fiction and learned commentary, 'Pale Fire' offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures, at the center of which is a 999-line poem written by the literary genius John Shade just before his death. Surrounding the poem is a foreward and commentary by the demented scholar Charles Kinbote, who interweaves adoring literary analysis with the fantastical tale of an assassin from the land of Zembla in pursuit...

As a young boy, Luzhin was unattractive, distracted, withdrawn, sullen--an enigma to his parents and an object of ridicule to his classmates. He takes up chess as a refuge from the anxiety of his everyday life. His talent is prodigious and he rises to the rank of grandmaster--but at a cost: in Luzhin' s obsessive mind, the game of chess gradually supplants the world of reality. His own world falls apart during a crucial championship match, when...