(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) Lord Jim is a classic storyof one man's tragic failure and eventual redemption, told under thecircumstances of high adventure at the margins of the known worldwhich made Conrad's work so immediately popular. But it is also thebook in which its author, through a brilliant adaptation of hisstylistic apparatus to his obsessive moral, psychological andpolitical concerns, laid the groundwork for the modern novel as weknow it. With An Introduction By Norman Sherry An expert on theworks of Joseph Conrad, Professor Norman Sherry is the author ofConrad's Eastern World, Conrad's Western World and Conrad and HisWorld. He is also the editor of Conrad: The Critical Heritage, andthe official biographer of Graham Greene.

Random's Modern Library is reproducing this Hardy standard as atie-in to a Masterpiece Theater presentation and offering a qualityhardcover for a reasonable price. Copyright 1998Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out ofprint or unavailable edition of this title.

In The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy fulfills the promise of Allthe Pretty Horses and at the same time give us a work that isdarker and more visionary, a novel with the unstoppable momentum ofa classic western and the elegaic power of a lost Americanmyth. In the late 1930s, sixteen-year-old Billy Parham captures ashe-wolf that has been marauding his family's ranch. But instead ofkilling it, he decides to take it back to the mountains of Mexico.With that crossing, he begins an arduous and often dreamlikejourney into a country where men meet ghosts and violence strikesas suddenly as heat-lightning--a world where there is no order"save that which death has put there." An essential novel by any measure, The Crossing is luminous andappalling, a book that touches, stops, and starts the heart andmind at once.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) It has been said that VictorHugo has a street named after him in virtually every town inFrance. A major reason for the singular celebrity of this mostpopular and versatile of the great French writers is "LesMiserables "(1862). In this story of the trials of the peasant JeanValjean--a man unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny, and houndedby his nemesis, the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolentpolice detective Javert--Hugo achieves the sort of rare imaginativeresonance that allows a work of art to transcend its genre. "LesMiserables "is at once a tense thriller that contains one of themost compelling chase scenes in all literature, an epic portrayalof the nineteenth-century French citizenry, and a vitaldrama--highly particularized and poetic in its rendition butuniversal in its implications--of the redemption of one humanbeing.

Jane Austen chronicles the subtleties and nuances of- and theaspirations and machinations at work in - her own social milieu.Through the stories of her spirited heroines and their circles,their interactions and rituals, their movements from ballrooms todrawing rooms, from London and Bath to parklands and gardens, sherecreates the life of The English gentry that she observed in thelate eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Each of her novels is a love story and a story about marriage -marriage for love, for financial security, for social status. Butthey are not romances; ironic, comic, wise and penetrating, theyare brilliant portrayals of the society Jane Austen knew.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) The most perfect of Jane Austen'sperfect novels begins with twenty-one-year-old Emma Woodhousecomfortably dominating the social order in the village of Highbury,convinced that she has both the understanding and the right tomanage other people's lives-for their own good, of course. Herwell-meant interfering centers on the aloof Jane Fairfax, thedangerously attractive Frank Churchill, the foolish if appealingHarriet Smith, and the ambitious young vicar Mr. Elton-and endswith her complacency shattered, her mind awakened to some of life'smore intractable dilemmas, and her happiness assured. Jane Austen'scomic imagination was so deft and beautifully fluent that she coulduse it to probe the deepest human ironies while setting before us adazzling gallery of characters-some pretentious or ridiculous, someadmirable and moving, all utterly true.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Of all Jane Austen's great anddelightful novels, "Persuasion" is widely regarded as the mostmoving. It is the story of a second chance. Anne Elliot, daughterof the snobbish, spendthrift Sir Walter Elliot, is a woman of quietcharm and deep feelings. When she was nineteen, she fell in lovewith-and was engaged to-a naval officer, the fearless andheadstrong Captain Wentworth. But the young man had no fortune, andAnne allowed herself to be persuaded, against her profoundestinstinct, to give him up.Now, at twenty-seven, and believing thatshe has lost her bloom, Anne is startled to learn that CaptainWentworth has returned to the neighborhood, a rich man and stillunwed. Her never-diminished love is muffled by her pride. He seemscold and unforgiving. Even worse, he appears to be infatuated bythe flighty and pretty Louisa Musgrove. What happens as Anne andWentworth are thrown together in the social world of Bath-and as aneager new suitor appears for Anne-is touchingly and wittily told in

The Jungle Book meets Not Wanted On the Voyage in a triumph of storytelling and originality: a novel, as onecharacter puts it, to make you believe in God. Piscine Molitor Patel, nicknamed Pi, lives in Pondicherry, India,where his family runs a zoo. Little Pi is a great reader. Hedevours books on Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, and to thesurprise of his secular parents, becomes devoted to all threereligions. When the parents decide to emigrate to Canada, thefamily boards a cargo ship with many of the animals that are goingto new zoological homes in North America, and bravely sets sail forthe New World. Alas, the ship sinks. A solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on thesurface of the wild blue Pacific. In it are five survivors: Pi, ahyena, a zebra, an orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengaltiger. With intelligence, daring and inexpressible fear, Pi manages tokeep his wits about him as the animals begin to assert their placesin the foodchain; it is the tiger, Richard Parker, with whom hemust develop an inviol

WHEN ALEXANDRA RAFFERTY was a girl,something unspeakably cruel happened to her on a summer afternoon.Only her father knew about it-or so she thought.Now a forensic photographer for the Miami P.D.,Alexandra remains haunted by that horrible day,and it colors all of her relationships.Stan,her emotionally estranged and loutish husband,drives a Brinks armored car and has his own mind-bending agenda.Her now-aging,not-altogether-there father is growing mire dependent and less dependable.And her work photographing crime scenes has become a life-consuming obsession. Now Alexandra is about to get caught up in a gruesome series of rape-muredrs that seem to speak to her long-hidden past.But before she can understand the killer's mes-sage,her life spins out of control,sending her on the run-from her husband,from the crooks after him,from a surprisingly persistent boyfriend,and from a killer who's bent on making sure Alexandra won't live long enough to translate his words.

George Eliot's last and most unconventional novel isconsidered by many to be her greatest. First published ininstallments in 1874-76, "Daniel Deronda" is a richly imagined epicwith a mysterious hero at its heart. Deronda, a high-minded youngman searching for his path in life, finds himself drawn by a seriesof dramatic encounters into two contrasting worlds: the Englishcountry-house life of Gwendolen Harleth, a high-spirited beautytrapped in an oppressive marriage, and the very different lives ofa poor Jewish girl, Mirah, and her family. As Deronda uncovers thelong-hidden secret of his own parentage, Eliot's moving andsuspenseful narrative opens up a world of Jewish experiencepreviously unknown to the Victorian novel.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Introduction by CatherinePeters A panoramic satire of English society during the NapoleonicWars, Vanity Fair is William Makepeace Thackeray's masterpiece. Atits center is one of the most unforgettable characters innineteenth-century literature: the enthralling Becky Sharp, acharmingly ruthless social climber who is determined to leavebehind her humble origins, no matter the cost. Her more gentlefriend Amelia, by contrast, only cares for Captain George Osborne,despite his selfishness and her family's disapproval. As both womenmove within the flamboyant milieu of Regency England, the politicalturmoil of the era is matched by the scheming Becky's sensationalrise--and its unforeseen aftermath. Based in part upon Thackeray'sown love for the wife of a friend, Vanity Fair portrays thehypocrisy and corruption of high society and the dangers ofunrestrained ambition with epic brilliance and scathing wit.

(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) Introduction by JohnBayley

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Naguib Mahfouz's magnificentepic trilogy of colonial Egypt appears here in one volume for thefirst time. The Nobel Prize--winning writer's masterwork is theengrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain'soccupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century.The novels of "The Cairo Trilogy" trace three generations of thefamily of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, whorules his household with a strict hand while living a secret lifeof self-indulgence. "Palace Walk" introduces us to his gentle,oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija,and his three sons-the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolutehedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal.Al-Sayyid Ahmad's rebellious children struggle to move beyond hisdomination in "Palace of Desire," as the world around them opens tothe currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoilbrought by the 1920s. "Sugar Street" brings Mahfouz's vividtapestr

Gathered together in one hardcover volume: three timeless novelsfrom the founding father of science fiction. The first great novelto imagine time travel, "The Time Machine" (1895) follows itsscientist narrator on an incredible journey that takes him finallyto Earth's last moments--and perhaps his own. The scientist whodiscovers how to transform himself in "The Invisible Man" (1897)will also discover, too late, that he has become unmoored fromsociety and from his own sanity. "The War of the Worlds"(1898)--the seminal masterpiece of alien invasion adapted by OrsonWelles for his notorious 1938 radio drama, and subsequently byseveral filmmakers--imagines a fierce race of Martians whodevastate Earth and feed on their human victims while theirvoracious vegetation, the red weed, spreads over the ruined planet.Here are three classic science fiction novels that, more than acentury after their original publication, show no sign of losingtheir grip on readers' imaginations.

Mild, harmless and ugly to behold, the impoverished Pons is anageing musician whose brief fame has fallen to nothing. Living aplacid Parisian life as a bachelor in a shared apartment with hisfriend Schmucke, he maintains only two passions: a devotion to finedining in the company of wealthy but disdainful relatives, and adedication to the collection of antiques. When these relativesbecome aware of the true value of his art collection, however,their sneering contempt for the parasitic Pons rapidly falls awayas they struggle to obtain a piece of the weakening man'sinheritance. Taking its place in the Human Comedy as a companion toCousin Bette, the darkly humorous "Cousin Pons" is among of thelast and greatest of Balzac's novels concerning French urbansociety: a cynical, pessimistic but never despairing considerationof human nature.

Dumas's most popular novel has long been a favorite withchildren, and its swashbuckling heroes are well known from many afilm and TV adaptation. Set in 17th-century France, this tale ofthe adventures of D'Artagnan and the three musketeers is the finestexample of its author's brilliantly inventive storytellinggenius.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Though James Joyce began thesestories of Dublin life in 1904 when he was twenty-two and completedthem in 1907, their unconventional themes and language led torepeated rejections by publishers and delayed publication until1914. In the century since, his story "The Dead" has come to beseen as one of the most powerful evocations of human loss andlonging that the English language possesses; all the other storiesin "Dubliners" are as beautifully turned and as greatly admired.They remind us once again that James Joyce was not only modernism'schief innovator but also one of its most intimate and poeticwriters. In this edition the text has been revised in keeping withJoyce's wishes, and the original versions of "The Sisters,""Eveline," and "After the Race" have been made available in anappendix, along with Joyce's suppressed preface to the 1914 editionof "Dubliners."

The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his nativeRussian and the crowning achievement of that period in his literarycareer. It is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the worksof Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative: thestory of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished e migre poetliving in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write--abook very much like The Gift itself.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Britain's three-hundred-yearrelationship with the Indian subcontinent produced much fiction ofinterest but only one indisputable masterpiece: E. M. Forster's "APassage to India," published in 1924, at the height of the Indianindependence movement. Centering on an ambiguous incident between ayoung Englishwoman of uncertain stability and an Indian doctoreager to know his conquerors better, Forster's book explores, withunexampled profundity, both the historical chasm between races andthe eternal one between individuals struggling to ease theirisolation and make sense of their humanity.