Elizabeth Bennet is at first determined to dislike Mr. Darcy, who is handsome and eligible. This misjudgment only matched in folly by Darcy's arrogant pride. Their first impressions give way to truer feelings in a comedy concerned with happiness and how it might be achieved. Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775. Her father, the Reverend George Austen, was rector of Steventon, where she spent her first twenty-five years, along with her six brothers (two of them later naval officers in the Napoleonic wars) and her adored sister, Cassandra. She read voraciously from an early age, counting among her favorites the novels of Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, and Fanny Burney, and the poetry of William Cowper and George Crabbe. Her family was lively and affectionate and they encouraged her precocious literary efforts, the earliest dating from age twelve, which already displayed the beginnings of her comic style. Her first novels, Elinor and Marianne (1796) and First Impressions (1

The House of Mirth tells the story of Lily Bart, aged 29, beautiful, impoverished and in need of a rich husband to safeguard her place in the social elite, and to support her expensive habits - her clothes, her charities and her gambling. Unwilling to marry without both love and money, Lily becomes vulnerable to the kind of gossip and slander which attach to a girl who has been on the marriage market for too long. Wharton charts the course of Lily’s life, providing, along the way, a wider picture of a society in transition, a rapidly changing New York where the old certainties of manners, morals and family have disappeared and the individual has become an expendable commodity. The House of Mirth was Published in October 1950 to widespread critical aclaim.it became an instant best-seller and is regarded today as one of Edith Wharton's most accomplished and compelling social satires.

The latest "New York Times" bestseller by "America's mostpopular suspense novelist" ("Rolling Stone") is the story ofHollywood's most dazzling star whose perfectly ordered life isunder siege by an insidious killer.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeares greatest tragedies: a drama of crime and punishment, of temptation, guilt, remorse and retribution. The portrayals of Macbeth himself and his wife are memorably persuasive in the rendition of the psychology of ambition,rationalised treachery and eventual disillusionment. Repeatedly the rich and often sinuously complex verse gives general resonance to the particular situation, so that some of the speechesprovide enduring epitomes of states of being which many of us,intermittently, may experience. Inner division, pangs of conscience, the sense of being ambushed by events, and desperatedefiance: they are there; but so too is a vitality of expression and enactment which offsets the plays sombre atmosphere.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, better known as Fanny Hill, is one of the most notorious texts in English literature. As recently as 1963 an unexpurgated edition was the subject of a trial, yet in the eighteenth century John Cleland's open celebration of sexual enjoyment was a best selling novel. Fanny's story, as she falls into prostitution and then rises to respectability, takes the form of a confession that is vividly coloured by copious and explicit physiological details of her carnal adventures. The moral outrage that this has always provoked has only recently been countered by serious critical appraisal.

Set against the turbulent years of the Napoleonic era, Alexandre Dumas' thrilling adventure story is one of the most widely read novels of all time. In it the dashing young hero, Edmond Dantes, is betrayed by his enemies and thrown in a secret dungeon in the Chateau d'Lf -- doomed to spend his life in a dark prison cell. The story of his long, intolerable years in captivity, his miraculous escape, and his carefully wrought revenge creates a dramatic tale of mystery and intrigue, and paints a vision of France -- a dazzling, dueling, exuberant France -- that has become immortal. 作者简介 Alexandre Dumas was born in a small town in France in 1802.His father was a general and a companion of Napoleon.Later Dumas used Napoleon and his friends as characters in his novels.Dumas grew up to be a huge man like his father.He loved to eat,spend money,be with friend——and write. The most famous of all Dumas' books are The Three Musketeers,The Man in the Iron Mask,and The Count of Monte Cristo.The

Set in the mid-nineteenth century and written from the author's first-hand experience, North and South follows thestory of the heroine's movement from the tranquil but moribund ways of southern England to the vital but turbulent north. Elizabeth Gaskell's skilful narrative uses an unusuallove story to show how personal and public I ves were woven together in a newly industrial society. This is a taleof hard-won triumphs - of rational thought over prejudice and of humane care over blind deference to the market.Readers in the twenty-first century will find themselvesabsorbed as this Victorian novel traces the origins of problems and possibilities which are still challenging a hundredand fifty years later: the complex relationships, public andprivate, between men and women of different classes.

Folger Shakespeare Library The world's leading center for Shakespeare studies Each edition includes: Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play Scene-by-scene plot summaries A key to famous lines and phrases An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books Essay by Alexander Leggatt The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs.

Daisy Miller is one of Henry James's most attractive heroines: she represents youth and frivolity. As a tourist in Italy, her American freedom and freshness of spirit come up against the corruption and hypocrisy of European manners. From its first publication, readers on both sides of the Atlantic have quarrelled about her, defending or attacking the liberties that Daisy takes and the conventions that she ignores. All three tales in this collection, Daisy Miller, An International Episode and Lady Barbarina, express James's most notable subject, 'the international theme', the encounters, romantic and cultural, between Americans and Europeans. His heroes and heroines approach each other on unfamiliar ground with new freedoms, yet find themselves unexpectedly hampered by old constraints. In An International Episode, an English lord visiting Newport, Rhode Island, falls in love with an American girl, but their relationship becomes more complicated when she travels to London. In the light-hearted comedy

William Shakespeare:Pericles Cymbeline The Winter's Tale The Tempest edited by David Bevington with a Foreword by Joseph Papp Bantam Classics

Filled with exciting tales of the frontier, the chronicle ofthe Sackett family is perhaps the crowning achievement of one ofour greatest storytellers. In Treasure Mountain Louis L’Amourdelivers a robust story of two brothers searching to learn the fateof their missing father — and finding themselves in a struggle justto stay alive. Orrin and Tell Sackett had come to exotic New Orleans looking foranswers to their father’s disappearance twenty years before. Touncover the truth, the brothers enlisted the aid of a trailwisegypsy and a mysterious voodoo priest as they sought to re-createtheir father’s last trek. But Louisiana is a dangerous land, and with one misstep thebrothers could disappear in the bayous before they even set foot onthe trail that led to whatever legacy their father had left behind... and a secret worth killing for.

This Mill on the Floss, based on George Eliot's own experiences of provincial life, is a masterpiece of ambiguity in which moral choice is subjected to the hypocrisy of the Victorian age. As the headstrong Maggie Tulliver grows into womanhood, the deep love which she has for her brother Tom turns into conflict, because she cannot reconcile his bourgeois standards with her own lively intelligence. Maggie is unable to adapt to her community or break free from it, and the result, on more than one level, is tragedy.

With an Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts University of Kent at Canterbury 'Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your immediate feelings...' Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot's first full-length novel, marked the emergence of an artist to rank with Scott and Dickens. Set in the English Midlands of farmers and village craftsmen at the turn of the eighteenth century, the book relates a story of seduction issuing in 'the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis'. But it is also a rich and pioneering record - drawing on intimate knowledge and affectionate memory - of a rural world that we have lost. The movement of the narration between social realism and reflection on its own processes, the exploration of motives, and the constant authorial presence all bespeak an art that strives to connect the fictional with the actual.

Black Beauty had a fine, soft black coat, one white foot and a silver star on his forehead. This tale tells of the horse's adventures and tjoys is perhaps the most famous animal story of all time.Tens of millions of copies have been sold,and it remains as pupular now as when it was first published over a century ago.

The #1 New York Times betseller #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts takesreaders deep into the rugged Black Hills of South Dakota, where theshadows keep secrets, hunters stalk the land, and a childhoodfriendship matures into an adult passion.

Perhaps the most haunting and tragic love story ever written, Wuthering Heights is the tale of Heathcliff, a brooding, troubled orphan, and his doomed love for Catherine Earnshaw. His desire for her leads him to madness, however, when Catherine is made to marry a wealthy lord, sending Heathcliff on a life-long quest to avenge himself upon those who stole his only love and his life. In this gripping chronicle of the never-ending conflict between the heart and the mind -- and the pain and passion of true romance -- Emily Bront created an unforgettable classic saga of love, desperation, vengeance, and forgiveness. Published just one year before Bront 's death in 1848 at the age of thirty, Wuthering Heights endures as one of the world's greatest love stories and a classic of English literature. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

The talented Alex Jennings creates an atmosphere of gripping psychological tension and brings a variety of characters to life in this new audio edition of a crime classic。 When the student Raskolnikov puts his philosophical theory to the ultimate test of murder， a tragic tale of suffering and redemption unfolds in the dismal setting of the slums of czarist， prerevolutionary St。 Petersburg。 While Jennings’s adept repertoire of British accents works to demonstrate the varying classes of characters， it occasionally distracts the listener from the Russian setting。 However， Dostoyevsky’s rendering of 18th-century Russia emerges unscathed， bringing the dark pathos (such as wretched poverty and rampant suffering) to life。 （Running time：315 minutes； 4 cassettes）——This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title。

A true masterwork of storytelling, Dracula has transcended generation, language, and culture to become one of the most popular novels ever written. It is a quintessential tale of suspense and horror, boasting one of the most terrifying characters ever born in literature: Count Dracula, a tragic, night-dwelling specter who feeds upon the blood of the living, and whose diabolical passions prey upon the innocent, the helpless, and the beautiful. But Dracula also stands as a bleak allegorical saga of an eternally cursed being whose nocturnal atrocities reflect the dark underside of the supremely moralistic age in which it was originally written -- and the corrupt desires that continue to plague the modern human condition.

Father Brown, one of the most quirkily genial and lovable characters to emerge from English detective fiction, first made his appearance in The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. That first collection of stories established G.K. Chesterton's kindly cleric in the front rank of eccentric sleuths. This complete collection contains all the favourite Father Brown stories, showing a quiet wit and compassion that has endeared him to many, whilst solving his mysteries by a mixture of imagination and a sympathetic worldliness in a totally believable manner.

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: A concise introduction that gives readers important background information A chronology of the author's life and work A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations Detailed explanatory notes Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential. SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY J