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Dickens's first novel follows the comic adventures of a band of men as they journey around nineteenth-century England.Set in the early nineteenth century, The Pickwick Papers follows well-off gentleman Samuel Pickwick, who forms a club with three friends. Their goal is to travel through the English countryside by coach, observing the world beyond London and staying at inns along the way. The reader follows Pickwick and his pals—less-than-skillful sportsman Nathaniel Winkle; self-proclaimed poet Augustus Snodgrass; and obese Tracy Tupman, who fancies himself a ladies'man—as they stumble into both adventure and trouble. Joined by Pickwick's valet, a talkative coachman, and another traveler with a knack for tall tales, this merry band will entertain the reader while offering a tour of England in the 1820s, populated by an assortment of colorful characters.

The bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel delivers a “provocative, enthralling, bang up-to-the-minute” thriller (Daily Mail). It all starts with a prize. The Price family wins a holiday trip to Florida and gets their photo in the paper. They're all there, the picture-perfect family in front of their gorgeous home. But it's awkward, adolescent, seventeen-year-old Hannah who catches someone's eye. And only days later, she's gone. Val and Morris Price try not to panic when Hannah doesn't return from Camden Market on Sunday night. After all, she is a teenager. But when Hannah still hasn't shown up on Monday, they start to think the worst—then the ransom note comes with a demand for £500,000 and no police. After days of tallying assets and scrambling for money, Val makes the drop. Hannah comes home. Only what should be the end of a nightmare is just the beginning... The Prices'have lost their business and their home. Their sudden change in fortune takes its toll, and family bonds slowly begin to disintegrate. Meanwhile, the desperate couple who kidnapped Hannah embark on a life of luxury that only fuels their twisted love. But what goes up must come down... with a crash. “A neat plot... [with] dark flashes of hubris and nemesis.” —The Guardian “Moggach's subject is the rickety edifice we call the family, which she comes at armed with both a wrecking ball and an insatiable curiosity to note the particular way it collapses.” —The Independent “Deborah Moggach is a delight to read—her characters are wonderfully alive, and their stories grip us unequivocally.... The novel is enjoyable from first to last.” —The Daily Telegraph “It is characterisation at which Moggach excels. Her gift is to perceive and describe our confusions about life... and to write with feeling about the continual quest for love and happiness that is part of the human condition.” —The Sunday Times

“[A] social comedy with some brilliant people observations about ageing and a devilish plot twist” from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (The Times, London). After their elderly father's fall, Phoebe and her brother, Robert, couldn't be happier with his new caregiver, Mandy. She came to them with great recommendations and has given the brilliant, yet lonely, widower a new lease on life—though he is gossiping about the locals'love affairs instead of debating science and politics. But Phoebe and Robert soon become suspicious of Mandy—her rummaging about in their father's papers, her strange inheritance from a former client, her habit of speaking her mind no matter the consequences. Then Robert discovers that their father has changed his will. Suddenly Mandy seems more devil than angel... For the first time in years, Phoebe and Robert are bonding over something—even if it is their mutual distrust of Mandy. And what happens next will make the siblings question everything they thought they knew about their parents—and themselves. “Moggach addresses an all too common nightmare with ruthless honesty and sublime wit—The Carer is one of the funniest novels I have read for ages.” —The Times (London) “Unputdownable, fun and tender with characters that jump off the page. Perfection.” —Marian Keyes, international-bestselling author of Again, Rachel “Joyous... a sustained satire on smug middle-class mores.” —Daily Mail “The most endearing of humorists, Deborah Moggach casts a penetrating eye on our foibles and fantasies. Neither ageing, nor death—as The Carer so beautifully demonstrates—can resist her comic scrutiny.” —Lisa Appignanesi, award-winning author of Mad, Bad, and Sad

The bon vivant takes charge of a New York magazine—and gets in a tangle with the mob—in this comic novel by the creator of Jeeves and Wooster. When Cambridge student Mike Jackson journeys to New York on a cricketing tour, his good friend Psmith comes along for a laugh. An inveterate dandy and irrepressible wit, Psmith finds New York lacking in entertainment—until he stumbles into the magazine business. Befriending the editor of Cozy Moments, Psmith talks his way onto the editorial staff and has the once-stodgy periodical printing scandalous exposés in no time. While the paper's sudden change is upsetting to its subscribers, they're no trouble at all compared to the local ruffians who've started tailing Psmith. Clearly someone doesn't like what Cozy Moments has to say about local housing conditions. Suddenly Psmith and Mike are wrapped up in a madcap adventure of mass media, gangsters, professional boxing, and lost cats. First published in 1915, Psmith, Journalist was included in the BBC's 2019 list of “100 Novels That Shaped Our World.”

Three touching contemporary British novels of love, loss, and humor from the international bestselling “virtuoso” (The Times, London). Jumping the Queue: This masterpiece of wit, humor, and psychological suspense tells the story of a middle-aged widow who has had it with life. She puts her papers in order, gives away her pet goose, packs a picnic lunch, and heads to the beach to drown herself—only to meet a criminal on the run who has the same idea. Together they set out on adventure in this novel about the hidden costs of love and death. The Camomile Lawn: In this international bestseller, several cousins reunite after forty years to lay one of their own to rest. Together they recall their last carefree summer—and one hot August night in 1939 before the war began. They also reflect on the chaos that followed... and how it changed their lives forever. Harnessing Peacocks: Single mother Hebe juggles numerous lovers while working as a manor house chef to pay for her son's schooling. When her two worlds collide, a secret from the past leads to a final showdown with a man who's in search for his lost love in this captivating and sensual novel.

Two compelling works of fiction from a feminist literary icon hailed as “Virginia Woolf without the evasive prettifying” (The New York Times).Chamber Music: Caroline Maclaren, the widow of a prominent composer, is finally going to tell her own life story. Taking pen to paper, she relives her sheltered youth, her chilly marriage to a brilliant man, and the melancholy solitude she experienced until she found loving companionship with her ill husband's caretaker, Anna. This masterful tale of passion late in life is widely considered Grumbach's finest work. The Ladies: In 1778, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby left Ireland to live together in Wales as a married couple. Well-born and highly educated, the Ladies of Llangollen—as they came to be known—defied social convention, spending half a century in a devoted relationship. In this fictionalized account, Grumbach breathes vivid life into this fascinating story that is “a true classic on that rarest of relationships, companions of the heart” (San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle). A truly groundbreaking talent whose writing “depicts lesbianism as a positive, life-giving force in women's lives,” Doris Grumbach's words continue to move the hearts and minds of a new generation of readers (Ann Cothran).

Rudyard Kipling's classic tale of an orphaned boy, a lama on a powerful quest, and two imperialist nations butting heads over one magical country Set in the former Lahore, India, against the backdrop of an imperialist war between Russia and Great Britain, Kim is the coming-of-age story of Kimball O'Hara, a low-caste orphan boy roaming the streets with a “magic” talisman around his neck. The pendant contains three magic parchments sewn into a leather amulet case—papers that could whisk him away from the world he knows and trusts. One afternoon, Kim takes pity on an elderly lama who declares he is searching for wisdom and enlightenment at the River of the Arrow, and becomes the old man's guide, savior, and friend. Together, the odd pair travels the Grand Trunk Road, dodging cutpurses and road agents until the “Little Friend of all the World” becomes a little disciple to the wise old lama. But when Kim's father's old regimental chaplain runs into the lama and his young chela on their travels, a big change threatens to disrupt the friends'plans to find enlightenment and happiness on their shared quest. Widely considered to be Rudyard Kipling's masterpiece, Kim combines sweeping adventure with a brilliant coming-of-age story. Part children's tale, part spy thriller, part examination of the twilight of the Victorian empire, Kim is a classic page-turner. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

A spirited collection of stories revealing the extremes of the human experience from the author of The Ice Storm In his first story collection, Rick Moody provides readers with a poignant, brazenly honest glimpse into the lives of a wide array of characters, from a paranoid husband obsessively listening in on his wife's phone calls to the junkies and sex addicts of New York City's underworld. Whether they're grasping for connection or struggling to survive in a dismal and indifferent environment, these individuals'haunting voices and the evocative worlds they inhabit make for a diverse and powerful volume. Experimenting with form—one story is told as a term paper, another as an annotated bibliography—Moody demonstrates the vast range of his fascinations and talents, as well as his arresting command of language. Candid depictions of contemporary society and the inner-workings of distinctive characters'minds bring these inquisitive, heartrending, and at times undeniably funny accounts to life. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Rick Moody including rare images from the author's personal collection.

A boy returns home from seminary to a family on the verge of collapse For almost seven years, Mrs. Fury has done nothing but think of Peter. Of her five children, he is the youngest, her darling boy whose future she planned out long ago. It was for Peter that she took one child out of college and married another off—for Peter that she sent a third to work at sea. She has sacrificed everything so that Peter could return to Ireland to study for the priesthood. He is to be the family's salvation—but after seven years in seminary, Peter has failed. Mrs. Fury receives two telegrams: One telling her that Peter is coming home, the other bearing the news that her eldest son, Anthony, has fallen from his ship's mast and is in a hospital in New York. With two slips of paper, Mrs. Fury's hopes for the future are dashed. But this Irishwoman is strong as iron, and she will do whatever it takes to keep her family together—if only for Peter's sake. The Furys is the first book of James Hanley's acclaimed Furys Saga.

In this short story collection, the acclaimed author of Our Crowd offers fourteen darkly funny and poignant tales of the human heart. Stephen Birmingham is renowned for his penetrating examinations of America's upper classes. Here, he proves himself an equally deft hand at fiction, bringing the same knowing wit and piercing insight to the short stories in this collection. In “She Ate Grass?,” a boy navigates coming of age while buying whiskey for his mother's cocktail party. In “Race Day,” a shy woman endures her husband's ambition to join the board of an exclusive yacht club. In these and other stories, Birmingham peels back the layers of middle-class life in the late twentieth century.

Barsetshire gathers to celebrate a milestone birthday at the Old Bank House in this conclusion to the much-loved, long-running series.A home is saved from destruction, a budding romance takes steps toward the altar, a doctor experiences the return of a former love—and the fine people of Barsetshire make plans for a festive extravaganza to mark Mrs. Morland's seventieth birthday... “Triumphantly completed” by Angela Thirkell's close friend C. A. Lejeune after Thirkell's death, Three Score and Ten features a host of new and old friends from the author's acclaimed series spanning decades of English country life (The New York Times). “Her writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness, dislike of fuss, and low-key irony.... Light, witty, easygoing books.” —The New Yorker“Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Her writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness,[and] dislike of fuss.... Light, witty, easygoing books.” —The New YorkerAs 1951 draws to a close, Christmas approaches—but the conservative upper class of Barsetshire have already received the gift they really wanted: Winston Churchill's re-election as prime minister. Nevertheless, their individual struggles carry on. A member of the House of Lords worries that marriage is not in the cards for him due to an insufficient fortune, while another man does manage to get engaged—but frets that his betrothed doesn't truly love him. The widow Lady Lufton misses her husband—as well as the money she's lost to taxes. And an aspiring scholar falls madly in love, but must choose between Oxford and the object of his affections... “[This] characteristically witty, nostalgic... novel in the beloved Barsetshire series describes the lingering effects of WWII on the fictional village that Thirkell adapted from its Victorian inventor and chronicler, Anthony Trollope.” —Publishers Weekly

A picturesque community in postwar England comes together when it counts in this witty, moving novel in the “beloved” Barsetshire series (Publishers Weekly).Edith Graham is still single when she returns from America to visit Mrs. Morland, and there's no shortage of interested men—until three suitors find each other such good company that they start socializing together and ignoring her. Meanwhile, Mrs. Morland has received a marriage proposal herself and needs to let the dear man down gently. But while these day-to-day problems preoccupy the two women and their Barsetshire neighbors, they will soon be united by a poignant loss... “Here are the familiar cross-county conversations, the disentangling of relationships, the good pieces of meddling and the criticisms and comments that embroider this ever-unfolding panorama of English life.” —Kirkus Reviews“Thirkell writes in a charmingly easy and intimate style.” —The New York Times“Her writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness, dislike of fuss, and low-key irony.... Light, witty, easygoing books.” —The New Yorker

Amid food shortages and grumbling, Barsetshire is unsettled by the arrival of a pretty war widow in this “delicately humorous [and] entertaining” novel (The New York Times).World War II may be over, but its effects linger in the English countryside as the local ladies trade ration coupons for a paltry selection of provisions. It's feeling like a bleak summer—but it won't be a boring one, now that flirtatious young widow Peggy Arbuthnot and her sister-in-law, Effie, are on the scene. Peggy has quite a few admirers—including Noel Merton, which is rather unfortunate for his wife. Suspense reigns over who might win Peggy's hand—and whether the Merton marriage will survive... “Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

A widow goes house-hunting in Barsetshire in this witty, moving novel by an author of “graceful stories of upper-class English life” (The New York Times).One rainy summer, amid the social and cultural changes of postwar England, Mrs. Macfadyen wrestles with the loss of her beloved husband after just five years of happiness. Life has left her uprooted—but where can she replant herself? The hunt for a new house (preferably not too close to her mother's) will involve everyone from friends and neighbors to an old suitor and the local clergy, but ultimately the decision—and her future—is up to her... Recreating Anthony Trollope's fictional county and bringing it into the mid-twentieth century, Angela Thirkell tells a tale filled with heartache, humor, and sharp social observation.“It is in [Mrs. Macfadyen's] fitful remembrance, quiet loneliness and gentle acceptance, that one realizes her author's sense of the poetry in life, and her sympathetic ear for the nuances of pain.” —The New York Times

The missing lord of the manor looms large in this quirky novel by an author who offers “a fresh, original, witty interpretation of England's social history” (The New York Times).Lady Graham is anticipating the long-awaited appearance of Sir Robert, finally retiring from his glorious military career and globetrotting adventures a decade after the end of World War II. In the meantime, life at Holdings goes on and Lady Graham's youngest, eighteen-year-old Edith, has her pick of suitors. It is unclear, however, if she will make up her mind about them any time soon—and if she will exit Holdings before her father enters... “Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

Matches are being made among the cream of postwar English society in this novel of “warmth, whimsy, quirks, and vinegar with a dash of vitriol”(The New York Times).The England of old may be fading away (it's so hard to find good help these days!)—but that doesn't stop the prominent families of Barsetshire from producing a new generation of genteel brides and grooms in this funny, entertaining portrait of stubbornly cherished traditions in a changing world. “It is difficult not to become charmed, amused and engrossed. [Thirkell's] sense of the ludicrous is enchanting. Perhaps, above all, it is her basic human kindness and her remarkable insight into the delicate relationship between parents and adolescent and grown children, that endear her books to so many people.” —The New York Times“Thirkell writes with an asperity and wit and glorious clowning that are all her own.” —San Francisco Chronicle

As Elizabeth II's coronation draws near, the gentry of Barsetshire engage in preparations, committee meetings, and “their perennially amusing antics” (The New York Times).A new queen is about to be crowned, and the prominent families of Barsetshire intend to make a good impression amid the festivities. Fortunately, the highly capable Lydia Merton takes the helm of the local committee planning for the big event. All she needs to do is keep calm and carry on through the squabbling, the petty jealousies, and the occasional disaster... “The Thirkell wit presides with tongue-rolling malice.” —The New York Times“Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

From a starry-eyed teenager to an elderly clergyman, it seems no one is immune to romance in the county of Barsetshire... In the long-running and beloved series that brings Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire into the mid-twentieth century and offers “a fresh, original, witty interpretation of England's social history,” the quirky inhabitants and well-bred families of the county find themselves navigating the delights and uncertainties of love (The New York Times). Lady Gwendolyn Harcourt, no spring chicken, is courted by the aging Reverend Oriel of Harefield. And on the other end of the generational spectrum, fresh-faced sixteen-year-old Lavinia Merton may have a future marriage prospect in her singing partner Ludovic, Lord Mellings... “Thirkell's gently meandering account of the diversions of Barsetshire society leaves nothing to be desired.” —New York Herald Tribune“To read [Thirkell] is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews

A “charming troupe” of Barsetshire inhabitants celebrate a spate of marriages—while one young woman bemoans her prospects—in this novel of 1950s English life (The New York Times).The locals are all talking about the upcoming wedding of the vicar of Hatch End to the much-loved Miss Merriman—in fact, the couple's friends and neighbors seem even more excited than the bride- and groom-to-be. But that's to be expected when a couple of a certain age tie the knot, because it reminds everyone that it's never too late for love. And though Edith Graham is increasingly gloomy about landing a husband, the romantic spirit of the event just might be contagious... “Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter.... To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.” —Kirkus Reviews“[Thirkell's] talent for easy, light characterization does not seem to be flagging.” —The Times Literary Supplement

In 1930s England, a beleaguered mother frets over her twelve-year-old's “skirmishes with the grown-up world and his schoolmasters... amusingly told” (Kirkus Reviews).Laura Morland loves her son, Tony, unconditionally... even when he's talking everyone's ear off, accidentally breaking a window, shelling peas in the bathtub, or desperately trying to convince her to buy him a bicycle—the thought of which terrifies her. And of course Laura cherishes their time together when Tony's home on break, while secretly counting the minutes until he goes back to school... This twentieth-century tale set in Anthony Trollope's beloved Barsetshire is a lighthearted and sharp-witted look at the life of the upper class in prewar England, and a funny portrait of the fraught relationship between a long-suffering mother and a demanding, rambunctious, and occasionally infuriating twelve-year-old boy. Praise for Angela Thirkell and the Barsetshire novels“Thirkell writes in a charmingly easy and intimate style.” —The New York Times“[Thirkell's] writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness, dislike of fuss, and low-key irony.... Light, witty, easygoing books.” —The New Yorker

In this comic novel by a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a bachelor on a transatlantic cruise meets a group of runaway children who change his life forever. Martin Boyne is a cautious man of forty-six. The bachelor has been nursing a relationship with a widow for five years, and now he is crossing the Atlantic to be with her. He laments that he never meets interesting people in his travels, but that is about to change... The seven precocious Wheater siblings, traveling with their nanny, are running away from their parents. Their mother and father are always breaking up and reconciling, shuffling the children back and forth, and they have had enough. They simply want to be together... Moved by the children's plight and knowing of their parents, Boyne decides to help them as best he can. It is time to throw caution to the wind, and everyone, including Boyne, just may be better for it...

This collection of supernatural, fantasy, and sci-fi stories from the Nobel Prize–nominated author “presents a new side of a distinguished writer” (The New York Times). Novelist, essayist, and acclaimed author of A Room with a View and A Passage to India, E. M. Forster explores themes of the human spirit, social isolation, and technology in this unique book of short fiction. Written between 1903 and 1914, notable works included are the dystopian “The Machine Stops” as well as “The Point of It,” “Mr. Andrews,” “Coordination,” and “The Story of the Siren.” All are profound and prescient narratives revealing a futuristic world that will look remarkably and eerily familiar to modern readers. “E. M. Forster is for me the only living novelist who can be read again and again and who, after each reading, gives me what few writers can give us after our first days of novel-reading, the sensation of having learned something.” —Lionel Trilling

This modernist, experimental, and controversial novel examines gender politics in the lives of an American family. Lesbian poet, journalist, and illustrator Djuna Barnes's debut novel was a sensation when it was originally published in 1928. A bawdy parody of patriarchal repression, the book was heavily censored upon its release in America. An exploration of sexuality that is thought to be based on Barnes's own life, the novel depicts a family headed by polygamist Wendell Ryder through the eyes of his daughter, Julia. Employing a variety of literary styles, from parable, poetry, sentimental fiction, and drama, Barnes satirizes masculinity and femininity in one of modern literature's first and best examinations of gender and power dynamics.

A teenager moves to a remote farm in the Catskill Mountains in 1931 to raise her late aunt's baby in this novel from “a writer of talent and vision” (San Francisco Chronicle). Leenie is a precocious fifteen-year-old, but her hopes of going to college depend on her mother's scheme after a family tragedy. Leenie must travel to her late aunt's home and take care of her newborn cousin, lending support to the baby's grief-stricken father, Digger. As Leenie gradually, and with difficulty, grows into her new role, she and Digger form a surprising bond of affection. But the new love and community she's discovered are now at risk from New York City, which considers their remote, fertile valley a promising site for a future reservoir, and the ground under Leenie's feet could soon be swept away...Praise for Same Blood “Remarkable... Impressive.” —Publishers Weekly “The Catskill Mountains are full of myth and mystery in this striking first novel.” —The New York Times Book Review “Scenes that leap from the page and either wrench your heart or twist your guts.” —Chicago Tribune

The story of a Boston heiress who wishes for nothing—except happiness—by a New York Times–bestselling author who “never falters when it comes to storytelling” (Publishers Weekly). Caroline Ames is rich beyond imagining. But after a childhood with a cold, rejecting father, she is irrationally terrified of poverty, seething with hostility, and incapable of giving or receiving love. Those who cross her path tend to find themselves at the very least suffering, if not thoroughly broken.A Prologue to Love introduces three generations of the Ames family during the Gilded Age and the early twentieth century—painting a compassionate portrait of a difficult woman, those who have hurt her, and those she has hurt. It is a vivid, profoundly moving novel that explores the damage that everyday evil can do—and what it takes to overcome it.

New York Times Bestseller: In Victorian Britain, an affluent woman hosts a group of Catholic priests in her home—and listens as they tell their stories. Rose, a young girl visiting her grandmother, sits among eleven priests from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. As each guest shares the most challenging moments of their vocations, tests of faith that have brought them face-to-face with the miseries, temptations, and evils that lurk beyond the peaceful confines of the rectory, their worldly, wealthy hostess and her granddaughter come to learn the struggles and outcomes of these confrontations with the human condition. “The priests themselves represent a mixed lot—men of exalted backgrounds, culture, worldly experience, who have found their hardest task bringing themselves down to the humble people of their flocks; men who understand only the intellectual, realistic aspects of their faith—and must learn to accept the mystical as well; men who hide their saintliness under uncouth exteriors, who learn the hard way to love their fellow men, who encounter devils as well as saints, murderers, sinners.... Lively reading.” —Kirkus Reviews

Following WWI, an English aristocrat struggles to find peace as he attempts to rebuild his life in this conclusion to the Parade's End Tetralogy. The Great War is over. The ancestral home of Christopher Tietjens has been sold to an American. Christopher and Valentine Wannop now share a cottage with his brother and sister-in-law. A mathematician before the war, Christopher now earns a living selling antique furniture. It seems his world will be forever changed... Set over the course of one summer day, The Last Post follows its characters as they amble through a disorientating new world. Tensions arise for the inhabitants of the cottage. Valentine is pregnant and worried about her unmarried status as well as Christopher's money troubles. Then Christopher's estranged wife schemes to make their lives miserable. With the past haunting their present, the future seems uncertain for Christopher and Valentine. Praise for Parade's End “The finest English novel about the Great War.” —Malcolm Bradbury “There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.” —W. H. Auden “The best novel by a British writer.... It is also the finest novel about the First World War. It is also the finest novel about the nature of British society.” —Anthony Burgess “The English prose masterpiece of the time.” —William Carlos Williams

The final novel of “a social satire of epic proportions and one that does not suffer by comparison with Thackeray's Vanity Fair” (The New York Times). From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932 Set against the backdrop of a post–World War I Britain, now rocked by a general strike, Swan Song captures the staunch resilience—and ridiculousness—of the British upper middle class, who view this new national crisis as just a minor inconvenience. As the ever-so-steadfast Winifred Dartie says, “If they could get this little fuss over, the coming season would be most enjoyable.” Especially since Jon Forsyte and his American wife have visited from France. Though eager to pitch in to help his homeland, Jon never expects his return will have such an effect on his former love, Fleur Mont, now married to a member of Parliament and a mother. Even when the strike abates, their reunion sends ripples through their friends and family, including Fleur's father. He knows his daughter wants nothing more than what she doesn't have—and to save her from herself—he sets out to stay one step ahead of her duplicitous heart... “It is such a joy to read a book which is unquestionably a good piece of work, that tells you on the first page that it is going to tell its story gracefully, with technical skill, and with that rare quality of fineness. Swan Song has quite literally greatness—to say more about it would be to spill gilt paint over a calla.” —Chicago Tribune

From the acclaimed Harlem Renaissance author of Passing, a novel of one mixed-race woman's far-reaching quest to discover identity and happiness. At twenty-three, Helga Crane teaches in 1920s Georgia at one of the country's finest colleges for African Americans, and she's engaged to a fellow teacher. Yet happiness eludes her. And when she can't take the snobbish, conformist atmosphere one second more, she breaks off her relationship with her fiancé and leaves for Illinois. Thus begins a pattern that will define her life, as Helga runs from her hometown of Chicago—where she faces rejection by the Scandinavian half of her family—to Harlem, where she finds understanding and friendship... for a while. Falling prey once again to restlessness and insecurity, Helga flees to Europe, where she is accepted with open arms by a wealthy aunt in Copenhagen. There she finds a physical freedom that she never knew existed, only to desperately hunger for the spiritual freedom that she left behind on Harlem's bustling streets. Quicksand captures both the strength and fragility of a woman who longs to be herself, and not defined by her race, yet who cannot escape the countless perceptions and expectations of people both Black and White. “Fine, thoughtful and courageous. It is, on the whole, the best piece of fiction that [Black] America has produced since the heyday of Chesnutt.” —W. E. B. Du Bois “Quicksand and Passing are novels that I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating and indispensable.” —Alice Walker, National Book Award–winning author of The Color Purple

An African American woman lives life on her own terms in the early-twentieth-century South Carolina Lowcountry from the Pultizer Prize–winning author. In this once-banned classic of 1928, Julia Peterkin introduces readers to a Black community in the post-slavery South—and to a woman who follows her own path in the close-knit world in which she's born. Mary is just fifteen and already used to the hard work of surviving off the land that used to be a plantation. She is strong, in love, about to be married—and already pregnant. It is this “sin” that marks her, an excuse for everything that goes wrong in her life, especially the failure of her marriage and the children who she continues to have out of wedlock. But Mary doesn't see it that way. She has learned to give her heart when and to whom she wants to—without apology. Though the portrayal of an unrepentant Black woman was shocking to some upon initial publication, the Chicago Tribune called it, “a rich, colorful, passionate panorama of a person who took life as she found it and achieved, despite everything, a personal peace of spirit,” and the New York Times said it “all but cries with color, scent, sound, in a style that is a happy combination of solidity, brilliance, and pure beauty.” “Reading Scarlet Sister Mary one should keep a pencil near at hand. Sentences in the text leap out to be marked, to be read again and again and held in memory for all time. Mrs. Peterkin's prose has a beauty and a richness which is balm to a distracted world.” —Boston Evening Transcript

The Harlem Renaissance sociologist explores early-twentieth-century attitudes toward race in this tale of romance, politics, and justice. Matthew Towns is a hardworking medical student with dreams of becoming an obstetrician, but his race prevents him from completing his required courses at a white hospital. Frustrated with America, he exiles himself to Germany. In Berlin, he meets the daughter of a maharaja, Princess Kautilya, of Bwodpur, India. She introduces him to a vibrant new world, inviting him to join her international coalition for people of color united for self-liberation while dismantling white imperialism. Soon the love between Matthew and Kautilya is undeniable, but their struggles in a whites-only world threaten to tear them apart... Originally published in 1928, Dark Princess blends a young man's journey with a tale of romance and Du Bois's own sociological theories.

A writer finds wealth, fame, and sorrow in midcentury Manhattan in “a tremendous novel... full of wisdom and pain” by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author (Los Angeles Times). Arthur Youngblood Hawke, an ex-Navy man, moves from hardscrabble rural Kentucky to New York, hoping to make his mark on the literary world. His first novel becomes an instant hit, and he is toasted by critics and swept along on a tide of celebrity. But as Hawke gives himself over to the lush life that gilds artistic success—indulging in an affair with an older married woman and a flirtation with his editor, dabbling in real estate developments as his second novel brings him massive wealth and even bigger opportunities—he soon finds himself in a self-destructive downward spiral. Inspired by the life of Thomas Wolfe, and spanning from the Manhattan publishing world to Hollywood to Europe, Youngblood Hawke is both a riveting saga of postwar glamor and a poignant tale of one man's rise and fall. “A big, powerful, exciting novel... Wouk has a tremendous narrative gift.” —San Francisco Chronicle “As searing and accurate a picture of New York in the late 1940s and 1950s as Bonfire of the Vanities was of its period.... And icing the cake are some marvelous Hollywood sections, including the best agent-in-action-on-two-telephones scenes ever captured in print.” —Los Angeles Times

An epic of Israel from its founding to the Six-Day War by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author: “Full of excitement.” —Entertainment Weekly From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Winds of War and The Caine Mutiny, this saga spans from 1948 to 1967, the early decades of the state of Israel as it struggles for its life, outmatched and surrounded by enemies—the first of the two-part epic that concludes with The Glory. Zev Barak, Sam Pasternak, Don Kishote, and Benny Luria are all officers in the Israeli army caught up in the sweep of history, fighting the desperate desert skirmishes and meeting the larger-than-life personalities that shaped Israel's fight for independence. The four heroes and the women they love weave a compelling tapestry of individual destinies through a grand recounting of one nation's battle against the odds. “Much of the dialogue is witty; the descriptions of back-channel diplomacy between the United States and Israel are fascinating and convincing.” —The New York Times Book Review “Solid historical research... fictional characters of Wouk's own invention rub shoulders with real-life historical figures like David Ben Gurion [and] Moshe Dayan.” —The Christian Science Monitor “Rich and satisfying... deftly portrays the human face of inhuman conflict.” —The Plain Dealer “An engrossing and often moving tale.” —Publishers Weekly

New York Times Bestseller: “A sprawling action-packed novel” of Israel by the author of The Hope (The Philadelphia Inquirer). This follow-up to The Hope plunges immediately into the violence and upheaval of the Six-Day War of 1967 and continues the stories of its multiple characters and of Israel's dramatic struggle for survival across the years. The Glory takes readers through the terrors of the Yom Kippur War, the famous Entebbe operation, and the airstrikes on Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor—and ending with a final hope for peace. Illuminating the inner lives of real Israeli leaders—including David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and Ariel Sharon—the Pulitzer Prize–winning “master of the historical novel” tells the chronicle of Israel's fight to exist with a compelling sense of both the broad significance of this time in history and its personal impact on those who lived through it (Los Angeles Times). “A genuinely enjoyable read.” —The Detroit News “A top-notch storyteller.” —Time

Two Bronx boys take radically different paths in this novel about the limits of genius and the loss of home, by a “terrifically gifted” author (Anita Shreve, New York Times–bestselling author). Ralph Silverman was a foreign film buff, a victim of bullies, and a boy genius. He held long conversations with his pet parakeet and spent countless hours on a computer, creating mesmerizing music and solving problems in philosophy. He was a friend of great scholars and the son of a wealthy outer-borough businessman with shady associates and a secret second family. And, as he begins to take over the story from the narrator, Ralph finds himself in South Florida, physically abused and expelled into a frightening world of the unhoused—with a broken pair of glasses, no money, and no shoes. From the celebrated author of Searching for Bobby Fischer, Anything Is Good is a hypnotically compelling tale of a man haunted by the fate of his childhood buddy, and of that friend's pleasures and misfortunes as he navigates an unhoused life—a life more complex and dramatic than a bypasser might ever imagine. “Anything Is Good... offers a deeply affecting dive into the lives of the unhoused. Its shifting perspective and changing narrative voice builds to a clarion call for greater empathy and understanding.” —Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March “Anything Is Good is the best portrait of homelessness I've read since George Orwell's Down and Out in London and Paris.... Superbly written.” —Gabriel Byrne Praise for Fred Waitzkin's previous books “Very few writers can deliver a story with this much heart... A great novel.” —Sebastian Junger “I've seldom been so captivated by a book.” —Tom Stoppard “A gem of a book.” —The New York Times

A parade of people in need of solace find a mysterious sympathizer, in this uniquely moving classic by a New York Times–bestselling author. They come day and night to confess their troubles to an anonymous listener positioned behind a curtain. Could it be a priest, a psychiatrist, a friend, or a judge? Each person draws a different conclusion. From a businessman who feels betrayed by someone he trusted, to a society woman with contempt for her husband, to a scientist troubled by what his work has wrought, the visitors'situations vary widely as they struggle with grief, denial, prejudice, and fear. But in this small sanctuary, there are no office hours, the listener is always listening, and the visitors'lives are forever changed. This inspiring and inventive work of fiction comes from the award-winning author of Captains and the Kings, Testimony of Two Men, and many other bestsellers. “The gift of narration and characterization which Taylor Caldwell brings to each of her books is here in strong measure.” —Kirkus Reviews “I believe [Caldwell] wanted to instill hope, renew faith, and foster love in what she saw as a society on the decline. The year was 1960. But the issues can be universally applied today.” —The Book Cafe

The eighty-year anniversary edition of the once-banned, #1 New York Times–bestselling novel of interracial romance and discrimination in Georgia. Alice Walker said it best: “The South can hardly be said to recognize itself without this book.” Igniting controversy upon its publication in 1944, Strange Fruit was banned in Boston and Detroit and the US Postal Service refused to send it through the mail until Eleanor Roosevelt intervened—all because of its portrayal of a town divided along racial lines and the forbidden love that dared to cross them... Despite having left Maxwell, Georgia, to attend college, Nonnie Anderson returned to her hometown to work for a prominent white family—and to rejoin the man she had always loved, Tracy Deen. Tracy, the directionless son of the town's doctor, has come back from war and is being pressured to finally get his life in order. Across the street, his high school sweetheart desperately waits for a marriage proposal. On the other side of town, Nonnie offers him a safe place to land, asking nothing in return. But now, she's pregnant. As a Christian revival inspires the locals to cease their sinful ways, a heady and dangerous mix of passion, religion, and racism takes hold. And when a white man is killed in a Black part of town, the event exposes the evil simmering just below the town's placid surface—an inferno waiting to erupt...“A very moving book and an extraordinary one.” —Eleanor Roosevelt“Strange Fruit is so wide in its human understanding... [its] tragedy becomes the tragedy of anyone who lives in a world in which minorities suffer.” —The Nation“An absorbing novel, of high literary merit, terrific and tender.” —The Boston Globe

Cultural shifts of the late twentieth century reveal dark secrets at an elite prep school, in this posthumously discovered novel by the author of “Our Crowd.” Located in bucolic Connecticut, the Crittenden School has long held a venerable reputation as one of New England's premier preparatory schools. However, times are changing, and that change is coming to Crittenden. In the midst of social upheaval, the headmaster's wife, Clarissa Spotswood, is thrust into faculty and student intrigues—a role for which she is woefully unprepared. Clarissa has spent the past thirty years quietly standing by her husband, Headmaster Hobart Spotswood, projecting the image of the model society wife. But this meticulous façade is shattered when Clarissa uncovers horrific events within the school's insular community. And interspersed with the drama is Clarissa's own journal entries revealing a secret history of her own. Previously unpublished, The Headmaster's Wife was written by the late Stephen Birmingham, author of notable works such as Real Lace and Life at the Dakota. Discovered after Birmingham's death, the manuscript was transcribed and edited by his son, Carey Birmingham.

On a sultry South Carolina island, sunlight teases out the darkest secrets of the heart, in this novel from the author of An Undisturbed Peace. Joe and Abigail Becker, a Jewish couple from Boston, have inherited a house on Sweetgrass Island in South Carolina's Lowcountry. Though they feel like fish out of water, the couple is excited to give the South a try—and maybe even find it a place to finally call home. Their Boston friends are convinced they won't last the summer. But the South works its magic on the Beckers, holding them fast to misty marsh, farmlands, and grand oaks, the sweet twang of banjos and the blues. Even the locals have put aside their usual mistrust of transplants. Joe is convinced that has more to do with Abigail's beauty than with his dubious charms—especially in the case of Billy Euston. A celebrated pit master and womanizer, Billy is transfixed with Abigail at first sight. And though Joe is used to his lovely wife's effect on men, he misjudges their playful flirtations—a tragic mistake that will tear through the island like a hurricane, leaving the broken and the battered in its wake...Praise for Mary Glickman “Mary Glickman is a wonder.” —Pat Conroy, New York Times–bestselling author of Prince of Tides “Mary Glickman gives us a nuanced image of our twentieth-century selves, our society woven into stunning art.” —Carolivia Herron, author of Nappy Hair and Thereafter Johnnie “Religion isn't the only thing that stirs Glickman to fervor: she writes in a high-drama, no-holds-barred style when it comes to romance... [An] entertaining novel about sins of the flesh and the redemptive power of belief.” —Publishers Weekly on Marching to Zion

The Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winning novel is now a new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino.A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by the society around her and abused by her own family. She strives to protect her sister, Nettie, from a similar fate, and while Nettie escapes to a new life as a missionary in Africa, Celie is left behind without her best friend and confidante, married off to an older suitor, and sentenced to a life alone with a harsh and brutal husband. In an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear, Celie begins writing letters directly to God. The letters, spanning 20 years, record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment guided by the light of a few strong women. She meets Shug Avery, her husband's mistress and a jazz singer with a zest for life, and her stepson's wife, Sofia, who challenges her to fight for independence. And though the many letters from Celie's sister are hidden by her husband, Nettie's unwavering support will prove to be the most breathtaking of all.The Color Purple has sold more than five million copies, inspired an Academy Award-nominated film starring Oprah Winfrey and directed by Steven Spielberg, and been adapted into a Tony-winning Broadway musical. Lauded as a literary masterpiece, this is the groundbreaking novel that placed Walker “in the company of Faulkner” (The Nation), and remains a wrenching—yet intensely uplifting—experience for new generations of readers.This ebook features a new introduction written by the author on the 25th anniversary of publication, and an illustrated biography of Alice Walker including rare photos from the author's personal collection. The Color Purple is the 1st book in the Color Purple Collection, which also includes The Temple of My Familiar and Possessing the Secret of Joy.

This landmark work of modernist literature explores the inner lives of a typical English family while vividly exploring the nature of loss and memory. Following her celebrated masterpiece Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf continues to develop her groundbreaking stream-of-consciousness technique in To the Lighthouse. Every summer, the Ramsey family returns to the Isle of Skye for a tranquil holiday, where the imposing lighthouse seems to promise everlasting constancy. But as their idyllic holiday confronts the realities of World War I, the Ramseys must also face the inescapable nature of change. A profound evocation of marriage, parenthood, aging, and grief, To the Lighthouse is regarded as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

The collapse of a rope bridge in Peru sets a friar on a quest to learn about those who were lost in this classic, Nobel Prize–winning novel.Peru, 1714. On the road between Lima and Cuzco, a century-old rope bridge collapses while five people are crossing it. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan monk, is about to cross the bridge himself when he witnesses the incident. To reconcile his faith with this seemingly senseless tragedy, Brother Juniper embarks on a years-long journey to learn all he can about the individuals who lost their lives. Through their interwoven stories, Thornton Wilder reveals his own profound reflections on the nature of love, fate, and free will. The Bridge of San Luis Rey was met with worldwide acclaim when it was first published in 1927. Today, it is widely considered one of the towering achievements of American literature.

A drunken womanizer succeeds as a preacher in 1920s evangelical America in this satire by the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Main Street. Elmer Gantry is unsure what do to with his future. The captain of the college football team, he doesn't care much for his classes or his uptight classmates, but he does enjoy smoking, drinking, and women. Then a preacher comes to town, inviting Elmer to a revival meeting, and it places him on a path to greatness. The silver-tongued Elmer sets out to save souls as a preacher, but he remains a narcissistic, self-indulgent, shallow, and philandering man. As he ascends to power within the church, many souls suffer in the hypocrite's wake... First published in 1926, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers across the United States. A landmark portrait of 1920s America, it is one of the greatest, most penetrating and vital satires ever.

This “jewel at the heart of English comic literature” chronicles the daily fortunes and misfortunes of a middle-age, middle-class clerk (William Trevor, The Mail on Sunday). Since its original publication in 1892, The Diary of a Nobody has become a much-loved classic. It is a fictional man's dissection of the everyday drama of his life as an office worker in a London firm. With dry wit, the authors step into the character of Charles Pooter as he navigates work life with not-so-respectful young coworkers and family life with his charming wife, Carrie, and impetuous son, Lupin. From home repairs gone wrong (painting the tub red), to the comings and goings of his friends Cummings and Gowings, Pooter painstakingly shares intimate details of his existence, with the (not completely absurd) hope of maybe someday having his memoir published. An ongoing tally of the good jokes he makes shares space with descriptions of grievous insults to his person, party mishaps, the annoying behavior of everyone around him, and Lupin's on-again off-again employment and engagement status. The Diary of a Nobody gives everyone a reason to laugh—and recognize themselves in Pooter's droll prose. “The funniest book in the world.” —Evelyn Waugh, author of Brideshead Revisited “There's a universality about Pooter that touches everybody... [he] fits into the tradition of absurd humour that the British do well, which started with Jonathan Swift and runs through Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear to Monty Python.” —Jasper Fforde, Time Out “Pooter himself is as gentle as you could wish, a wonderful character, genuinely lovable. The book is beautifully constructed.” —Andrew Davies, The Herald

The semiautobiographical prison account of convict Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov, from the author of Crime and Punishment. Originally published in 1862, The House of the Dead is based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's own four-year imprisonment in Siberia for his involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This masterpiece of Russian literature begins with a nameless narrator coming upon former convict Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov in a remote Siberian town. Previously a nobleman and landowner, Goryanchikov had been given a ten-year sentence of hard labor for the murder of his wife, a crime of passion sparked by jealousy. After Goryanchikov's death, the narrator finds a handwritten record of his decade of penal servitude. From his first days in the barracks, friendless and broken in spirit, to the removal of his shackles and freedom, Goryanchikov portrays the experiences of a “lost tribe of men,” and the horrors and degradation they experienced. “Episodic, rambling, full of keen and deliberately stretched-out character sketches, the book is the drama of a person working out how to reproduce prison life in prose: its longueurs, its diversions, its pleasures, traumas, and inurements... If Dostoyevsky's captors had found the ribald, cacophonous commonplace book he assembled out of overheard insults and tossed-off sayings during his time in prison, they would have recognized that they were dealing with a spirit not easily suppressed.” —The Paris Review “I know no better book in all modern literature.” —Leo Tolstoy

Three novellas that brilliantly portray English country and clergy life at the turn of the nineteenth century from the author of Middlemarch. Initially appearing in Blackwood's Magazine, this trio of linked stories comprises George Eliot's first published work. Together they form a portrait of small-town life in Midlands, England, where changes are affecting both society at large and religious beliefs and institutions. In “The Sad Fortunes of Reverend Amos Barton,” the clergyman struggles to raise funds for church repairs and perform his parochial duties, while a target of gossip—both good and bad. Meanwhile, few in Shepperton can find fault with his shy and hardworking wife, who cares for their six children, stretching Barton's meager salary—and herself—to the limit. Set before the arrival of Amos Barton, “Mr. Gilfil's Love Story” features well-liked parish priest Maynard Gifil, who is known for smoking long pipes and preaching short sermons. Shockingly tumultuous events lead up to his marriage—including a love triangle, deception, and a murder plot. An argument over religious doctrine splits the market town of Milby into two factions in “Janet's Repentance.” With the arrival of Reverend Tryan, a rumor spreads that Evangelicalism has invaded the parish, angering local lawyer Robert Dempster. But his long-suffering wife finds in Tryan a kindred spirit, leading her to embark on a new life. “The exquisite truth and delicacy, both of the humour and the pathos of those stories, I have never seen the like of.” —Charles Dickens “A first-rate novel, and its author takes rank at once among the masters of the art.” —The Times

A man at one with nature finds himself enchanted by a vision in this classic Midwestern romance from the naturalist and author of The Keeper of the Bees. David Langston, the Harvester, allows his dog to decide his fate every year—to join the money-making scramble in the noise and grime of the city, or continue harvesting the goldenseal, mullein, and ginseng in the woods around their country home. Every year, his dog Bel chooses correctly—for they are both creatures of the woods. But this year, there is another matter to ponder. Should Langston remain alone—or should he go courting? There are pros and cons of course—mostly cons—that bang around in Langston's mind. That is, until he sees a ghostly vision near the lake, a slender dark-haired woman wrapped in robes of white, lovelier than any he has ever seen in his twenty-six years. And then one day he sees her crying in the woods. Ruth Jameson is a girl caught in a bad situation, and Langston finds himself willing to do anything to help her and make her every wish come true. Praise for the writing of Gene Stratton-Porter “As famous in the early 1900s as J.K. Rowling is now... Her natural settings, wholesome themes and strong lead characters fulfilled the public's desires to connect with nature and give children positive role models.” —Smithsonian Magazine “Her narrative is entertaining, her enthusiasm catching.” —The New York Times

A collection of short fiction from one of nineteenth-century Russia's greatest novelists, the author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. These short stories offer a dazzling glimpse of life in the Russian Empire and penetrating portraits of unforgettable characters. In the titular story, a lonely man has a chance meeting with a sad young woman. Learning that she is in love with another, the man vows to help them reunite, while secretly hoping she'll realize they are meant to be together. “Polzunkov” is a man who doesn't mind playing the buffoon, and when he tells the story of how one of his April Fools'jokes backfired—robbing him of the woman he hoped to marry—he gets the biggest laugh of all. In “A Christmas Tree and a Wedding,” a holiday party gives one guest the chance to compliment his host and hostess on their charming daughter, who just happens to be a future heiress. Five years later, his investment pays off. Fyodor Dostoyevsky's skill at depicting the madcap, desperate, and malicious motivations of his characters is on full display in this remarkable collection of stories.

The legendary science fiction writer's controversial, groundbreaking novel—one gay man's raw and wild ride through the 1960s and'70s. From an adolescent being bullied to the muddy wetlands of Vietnam to an Arizona desert commune, a man known only as Chase traces his quest for identity, meaning, and love in prose both beautiful and brutal. Thirteen fourteen fifteen o'clockis a coming-of-age and then coming-to-terms novel of a life lived looking for answers from gurus and whores, dopers and soldiers, men and women. Returning from Vietnam missing a leg and saddled with fear, rage, and grief, Chase takes to his Harley never able to outrun the trauma that resurfaces every time he is threatened because of his sexuality. Yet, though scarred and battered—inside and out—he constantly seeks those fleeting moments of connection with another soul, an awareness of a universe where he is not alone in his hurt and hunger. A searingly powerful story of survival, thirteen fourteen fifteen o'clock is what happens when life stares you down, daring you to blink first, and you meet its gaze—with eyes wide open. Praise for The Man Who Folded Himself “Most impressive.” —The Times Literary Supplement “Wildly imaginative and mindbending.” —Publishers Weekly