The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romanticexpressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and redroses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful incommunicating mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in thefoster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and heronly connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.Now eighteen and emancipated from the system with nowhere to go,Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through theflowers she chooses for them. But an unexpected encounter with amysterious stranger has her questioning what’s been missing in herlife. And when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from herpast, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for asecond chance at happiness.

In his widely acclaimed new collection of stories, JulianBarnes addresses what is perhaps the most poignant aspect of thehuman condition: growing old. The characters in The Lemon Table are facing the ends of theirlives–some with bitter regret, others with resignation, and othersstill with defiant rage. Their circumstances are just as varied astheir responses. In 19th-century Sweden, three brief conversationsprovide the basis for a lifetime of longing. In today’s England, aretired army major heads into the city for his regimentaldinner–and his annual appointment with a professional lady namedBabs. Somewhere nearby, a devoted wife calms (or perhaps torments)her ailing husband by reading him recipes. In stories brimming with life and our desire to hang on to it oneway or another, Barnes proves himself by turns wise, funny, clever,and profound–a writer of astonishing powers of empathy andinvention.

Filled with adventure, passion, and intrigue, The Narrow Corneris a classic tale of the sea by one of the twentieth-century'sfinest writers. Island hoping across the South Pacific, theesteemed Dr. Saunders is offered passage by Captain Nichols and hiscompanion Fred Blake, two men who appear unsavory, yet any means oftransportation is hard to resist. The trip turns turbulent,however, when a vicious storm forces them to seek shelter on theremote island of Kanda. There these three men fall under the spellof the sultry and stunningly beautiful Louise, and their storyspirals into a wicked tale of love, murder, jealousy, andsuicide.

Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute.The progress of his spiritual odyssey involves him with some ofMaugham's most brilliant characters - his fiance e Isabel whosechoice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, andElliott Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob.Maugham himself wanders in and out of the story, to observe hischaracters struggling with their fates.

Book De*ion Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, "The Painted Veil" isthe story of the beautiful but love-starved Kitty Fane. When herhusband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompanyhim to the heart of a cholera epidemic, where she is compelled byher awakening conscience to reassess her life and to learn how tolove.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) One of the most swiftly movingand unified of Charles Dickens's great novels, "Oliver Twist" isalso famous for its re-creation-through the splendidly realizedfigures of Fagin, Nancy, the Artful Dodger, and the evil BillSikes-of the vast London underworld of pickpockets, thieves,prostitutes, and abandoned children. Victorian critics took Dickensto task for rendering this world in such a compelling, believableway, but readers over the last 150 years have delivered analternative judgment by making this story of the orphaned OliverTwist one of its author's most loved works. This edition reprintsthe original Everyman's introduction by G. K. Chesterton andincludes twenty-four illustrations by George Cruikshank.

Set in late 1980s Europe at the time of the fall of the BerlinWall, Black Dogs is the intimate story of the crumbling of amarriage, as witnessed by an outsider. Jeremy is the son-in-law ofBernard and June Tremaine, whose union and estrangement beganalmost simultaneously. Seeking to comprehend how their deep lovecould be defeated by ideological differences Bernard and Junecannot reconcile, Jeremy undertakes writing June's memoirs, only tobe led back again and again to one terrifying encouner forty yearsearlier--a moment that, for June, was as devastating andirreversible in its consequences as the changes sweeping Europe inJeremy's own time. In a finely crafted, compelling examination ofevil and grace, Ian McEwan weaves the sinister reality ofciviliation's darkest moods--its black dogs--with the tensions thatboth create love and destroy it.

Booker Prize Finalist "Wickedly funny." --"The New York Times"Imagine an England where all the pubs are quaint, where theWindsors behave themselves (mostly), where the cliffs of Dover areactually white, and where Robin Hood and his merry men really aremerry. This is precisely what visionary tycoon, Sir Jack Pitman,seeks to accomplish on the Isle of Wight, a "destination" wheretourists can find replicas of Big Ben (half size), Princess Di'sgrave, and even Harrod's (conveniently located inside the tower ofLondon). Martha Cochrane, hired as one of Sir Jack's resident"no-people," ably assists him in realizing his dream. But when thisland of make-believe gradually gets horribly and hilariously out ofhand, Martha develops her own vision of the perfect England. JulianBarnes delights us with a novel that is at once a philosophicalinquiry, a burst of mischief, and a moving elegy about authenticityand nationality.

The final volume in the Everyman's Library Charles Dickenscollection: the timeless story of everyone's favorite misanthrope,Ebenezer Scrooge, together with four more of Dickens's Christmastales and with Arthur Rackham's classic illustrations. No holidayseason is complete without the story of tightfisted Mr. Scrooge, ofhis long-suffering and mild-mannered clerk, Bob Cratchit, of Bob'skindhearted lame son, Tiny Tim, and of the Ghosts of ChristmasPast, Present, and Future. First published in 1843, "A ChristmasCarol "was republished in 1852 in a new edition with four otherChristmas stories--"The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, TheBattle of Life, " and "The Haunted Man." These beloved talesrevived the notion of the Christmas "spirit"--and have kept italive ever since.

The literary event of the season: a new novel from Ian McEwan,as surprising as it is masterful. Michael Beard is a Nobel prize–winning physicist whose best workis behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormousfees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientificinstitutions, and half-heartedly heads a government-backedinitiative tackling global warming. While he coasts along in hisprofessional life, Michael’s personal life is another matterentirely. His fifth marriage is crumbling under the weight of hisinfidelities. But this time the tables are turned: His wife ishaving an affair, and Michael realizes he is still in love withher. When Michael’s personal and professional lives begin to intersectin unexpected ways, an opportunity presents itself in the guise ofan invitation to travel to New Mexico. Here is a chance for him toextricate himself from his marital problems, reinvigorate hiscareer, and very possibly save the world from environmentaldisaster. Can a man

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) By 1854, when Hard Times waspublished, Charles Dickens' magisterial progress as a writer hadcome to incorporate a many-sided, coherent vision of Englishsociety, both as it was and as he wished it to be. Hard Times. aclassic Dickensian story of redemption set in a North of Englandtown beset by industrialism, everywhere benefits from this vision -in the trenchancy of its satire, in its sweeping indignation atsocial injustice, and in the persistent humanity with which itsauthor enlivens his largest and smallest incidents.

On a windy spring day in the Chilterns, the calm, organizedlife of science writer Joe Rose is shattered when he witnesses atragic accident: a hot-air balloon with a boy trapped in its basketis being tossed by the wind, and in the attempt to save the child,a man is killed. A stranger named Jed Parry joins Rose in helpingto bring the balloon to safety. But unknown to Rose, somethingpasses between Parry and himself on that day--something that givesbirth to an obsession in Parry so powerful that it will test thelimits of Rose's beloved rationalism, threaten the love of hiswife, Clarissa, and drive him to the brink of murder and madness.Brilliant and compassionate, this is a novel of love, faith, andsuspense, and of how life can change in an instant.

In the tradition of Philippa Gregory's smart, transportingfiction comes this tale of dark suspense, love, and betrayal,featuring two star-crossed sisters, one lost and the othersearching. Bright and inquisitive, Hannah Powers was raised by afather who treated her as if she were his son. While her beautifuland reckless sister, May, pushes the limits of propriety in theirsmall English town, Hannah harbors her own secret: their father hasgiven her an education forbidden to women. But Hannah's secretserves her well when she journeys to colonial Maryland to reunitewith May, who has been married off to a distant cousin after hersexual misadventures ruined her marriage prospects in England. AsHannah searches for May, who has disappeared, she finds herselffalling in love with her brother-in-law. Alone in a wild,uncultivated land where the old rules no longer apply, Hannah isfreed from the constraints of the society that judged both her andMay as dangerous--too smart, too fearless, and too hungry for life.But Hannah

In this bestselling compilation of essays, written in theclear-eyed, uncompromising language for which he is famous, Orwelldiscusses with vigor such diverse subjects as his boyhoodschooling, the Spanish Civil War, Henry Miller, Britishimperialism, and the profession of writing.

In the "brilliant novel" ("The New York Times") V.S. Naipaultakes us deeply into the life of one man--an Indian who, uprootedby the bloody tides of Third World history, has come to live in anisolated town at the bend of a great river in a newly independentAfrican nation. Naipaul gives us the most convincing and disturbingvision yet of what happens in a place caught between thedangerously alluring modern world and its own tenacious past andtraditions.

The complexity and range of Robert Louis Stevenson's shortfiction reveals his genius perhaps more than any other medium.Here, leading Stevenson scholar Barry Menikoff arranges andintroduces the complete selection of Stevenson's brilliant stories,including the famed masterpiece "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde," as well as "The Beach of Falesa" and Stevenson's previouslyuncollected stories. Arthur Conan Doyle has written that "Stevenson's] short stories are certain to retain their position inEnglish literature. His serious rivals are few indeed." This ModernLibrary Paperback Classics edition includes explanatory notes, aScots' Glossary, and a unique appendix dedicated to Stevenson'sinfluence on the "Oxford English Dictionary."

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Introduction by NicholasRance

The best-known novellas and stories of one of the seminalwriters of the twentieth century. Included are "The Judgment, " "ACountry Doctor, " and "A Hunger Artist." New Foreword by AnneRice.

As a young man in the summer of 1897, Jack London joined theKlondike gold rush. From that seminal experience emerged thesegripping, inimitable wilderness tales, which have endured as someof London' s best and most defining work. With remarkable insightand unflinching realism, London describes the punishing adversitythat awaited men in the brutal, frozen expanses of the Yukon, andthe extreme tactics these adventurers and travelers adopted tosurvive. As Van Wyck Brooks observed, " One felt that the storieshad been somehow lived- that they were not merely observed- thatthe author was not telling tales but telling his life." Thisedition is unique to the Modern Library, featuring twenty-threecarefully chosen stories from London' s three collected Northlandvolumes and his later Klondike tales. It also includes two maps ofthe region, and notes on the text.

A satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money,"Our Mutual Friend" revolves around the inheritance of a dust-heapwhere the rich throw their trash. When the body of John Harmon, thedust-heap's expected heir, is found in the Thames, fortunes changehands surprisingly, raising to new heights "Noddy" Boffin, alow-born but kindly clerk who becomes "the Golden Dustman." CharlesDickens's last complete novel, "Our Mutual Friend" encompasses thegreat themes of his earlier works: the pretensions of the nouveauxriches, the ingenuousness of the aspiring poor, and the unfailingpower of wealth to corrupt all who crave it. With its flavorfulcast of characters and numerous subplots, "Our Mutual Friend" isone of Dickens's most complex--and satisfying--novels.

Renaissance England’s great tragedy of intellectual overreaching is as relevant and unsettling today as it was when first performed at the end of the sixteenth century. This edition provides newly edited texts of both the 1604 (A-Text) and 1616 (B-Text) versions of the play, each with detailed explanatory annotations. "Sources and Contexts" includes a generous selection from Marlowe’s main source, The Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus, along with contemporary writings on magic and religion (including texts by Agrippa, Calvin, and Perkins) that establish the play’s intellectual background. This volume also reprints early documents relating to the writing and publication of the play and to its first performances, along with contemporary comments on Marlowe’s scandalous reputation. Twenty-five carefully chosen interpretations—written from the eighteenth century to the present—allow students to enrich their critical understanding of the play. These diverse critical essays in

The two Alice books--Lewis Carroll's masterpieces--are rankedby many as peers of the great adult works of English literature.And despite their riches of andquot; untranslatableandquot; puns,nonsense, and parody, they have been happily translated around theworld. The matchless original illustrations by Tenniel share withCarroll's text the glory of making Alice immortal.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Evelyn Waugh's 1934 novel is abitingly funny vision of aristocratic decadence in England betweenthe wars. It tells the story of Tony Last, who, to the irritationof his wife, is inordinately obsessed with his Victorian Gothiccountry house and life. When Lady Brenda Last embarks on an affairwith the worthless John Beaver out of boredom with her husband, shesets in motion a sequence of tragicomic disasters that reveal Waughat his most scathing. The action is set in the brittle social worldrecognizable from Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies, darkened anddeepened by Waugh's own experience of sexual betrayal. As Tony isdriven by the urbane savagery of this world to seek solace in thewilds of the Brazilian jungle, "A Handful of Dust " demonstratesthe incomparably brilliant and wicked wit of one of the twentiethcentury's most accomplished novelists.