"In the figure of the half-starved Oliver in the workhouse asking for 'more', Dickens created the nineteenth century's most famous image of protest against cruelty. Yet Oliver Twist develops from a topical satire on the inhumanity of the New Poor Law into something greater. What unfolds is a powerful and violent struggle between Good and Evil, as Oliver becomes ensnared in the labyrinth of London and the nightmare world of Fagin. With its macabre...

In New England in the late nineteenth-century, a fatherless family, happy in spite of its impoverished condition, is befriended by a very rich gentleman and his young son.

A mill-owner, Robert Moore, is determined to introduce new machinery despite fierce opposition from his workers. He sees marriage to the wealthy Shirley Keeldar as the solution to his difficulties, but he loves his cousin Caroline who suffers misery and frustration.

This imaginative retelling of the classic Arthurian legends recounts the story of Arthur's formation of the Knights of the Round Table, his securing of the enchanted sword Excalibur and his wooing of the Lady Guinevere. Included as well are the legends of Sir Pelleas, the story of Sir Gawaine's pursuit of the White Hart and tales of Merlin the magician, Morgana Le Fay, the Lady of the Lake and many others. One of the best-loved classics of children's...

In this classic adventure novel, first published in 1873, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a ?20,000 wager set by his friends at the Reform Club - and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman and his manservant immediately set off.

A masterpiece of storytelling, this epic saga pits Ahab, a brooding and fanatical sea captain, against the great white whale that crippled him. In telling the tale of Ahab's passion for revenge and the fateful voyage that ensued, Melville produced far more than the narrative of a hair-raising journey; Moby-Dick is a tale for the ages that sounds the deepest depths of the human soul. Interspersed with graphic sketches of life aboard a whaling vessel,...

As soon as Anne Shirley arrived at the snug, white farmhouse called Green Gables, she knew she wanted to stay forever. But would the Cuthberts send her back to the orphanage? Anne knows she's not what they expected -- a skinny girl with decidedly red hair and a temper to match. If only she could convince them to let her stay, she'd try very hard not to keep rushing headlong into scrapes or blurt out the very first thing she had to say. Anne was...

The enchanting story of a shipwrecked family --a minister, his wife, and four sons-- who are cast up on a desert island, build a wonderful house in a tree, and survive so cleverly and happily apart from the world that they never want to be rescued.

A Newbery Medal Winner. "All that I have written so far about Doctor Dolittle I heard long after it happened from those who had known him- indeed a great deal of the happenings in The Story of Doctor Dolittle took place before I was born. But I now come to set down that part of the great man's life which I myself saw and took part in." When his colleague Long Arrow disappears, Dr. Dolittle sets off with his assistant, Tommy Stubbins, his dog, Jip,...

Contemporary fiction. 'I walk'd about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the contemplation of my deliverance . . . reflecting upon all my comrades that were drown'd, and that there should not be one soul sav'd but my self . . . ' Who has not dreamed of life on an exotic isle, far away from civilization? Here is the novel which has inspired countless imitations by lesser writers, none of which equal the...