In the depths of Dormer Forest, nestling in a valley, lies Dormer Old House, inhabited by the Drake family, Solomon and Rachael with their four grown children: intense, idealistic Jasper, Ruby, pretty but silly, black-eyed Peter and the odd one out, Amber, a girl with a genius for loving -- and laughing. There too... read more »
A novel of Spring and Fall, of old love and young, of London and an ancient house about to die. When Fred Delaney wished his lodger, Patrick Munden, revolutionary poet, a Happy New Year, it was with a fervor that echoed the wish for himself because the year held little promise. True, he had his own cheerful family... read more »
A triangle romance provides the basis for a questioning of the meaning of masculinity, as well as an examination of agribusiness in California. Jack London said of this novel: 'It is all sex from start to finish -- in which no sexual adventure is actually achieved or comes within a million miles of being achieved... read more »
In his last novel, published less than a year before his untimely death at the age of forty-five, D.H. Lawrence takes up the theme of Christ's resurrection and his final days on Earth. Lawrence recounts Christ's agonizing journey from death back to life with an alarmingly profane realism, depicting the tale from the... read more »
Opening on the French Riviera among a motley community of American expatriates, The Mother's Recompense tells the story of Kate Clephane and her reluctant return to New York society after being exiled years before for abandoning her husband and infant daughter. Oddly enough, Kate has been summoned back by that same... read more »
In an old rickety building on the rock above an old grass-grown square in the city of Polchester live three old ladies. The house was a windy, creaky, rain-bitten place where tthe ladies lived as tenants. One of the tenants, Miss Beringer, has a rather nervous personality but is befriended by a kindly neighbour... read more »
Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway's magnificent fable is the story of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. In a perfectly crafted story, which won for Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of man's challenge to the elements in... read more »
In this notorious late novel, Lawrence's pagan imaginings burgeon. Kate Leslie, an Irish widow touring Mexico, becomes gradually involved with a charismatic leader, and she enters a sexual relationship with his dark henchman. As the two men conspire to revive the old Aztec religion and seize power, Kate is... read more »
"The revolt of the parents against the revolt of youth as exemplified by a typical middle-class family of four." Fred Cornplow, shrewd middle-class realist, gradually wakes to find that Sarah, his selfish college graduate daughter, and his son Howard, still irregularly playing football for old Truxon, think of him... read more »
On the eve of his move to a new, more desirable residence, Professor Godfrey St. Peter finds himself in the shabby study of his former home. Surrounded by the comforting, familiar sights of his past, he surveys his life and the people he has loved — his wife Lillian, his daughters, and Tom Outland, his most... read more »
A controversial title of its time, the novel chronicles the complex interactions between Northern financing and Southern politics as it follows the story of free-spirited Zora, child of a Southern swamp, and her romance with Yankee-educated Bles, who will eventually face the opportunity to claim political power... read more »
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brillant characters - his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob... read more »
Raised on a ranch in northern California, Jody is well-schooled in the hard work and demands of a rancher's life. He is used to the way of horses, too; but nothing has prepared him for the special connection he will forge with Gabilan, a hot-tempered pony his father gives him. With Billy Buck, the hired hand, Jody... read more »
This 1915 novel masquerades as a biography of the fictitious William Porphyry Benham, prepared by friends after his death. From a young age, Benham fixed his sights resolutely upon the idea of expressing a noble quality in every thought and action of his life, forcibly curing himself of fear and other ignoble... read more »
How does being a lavishly spoiled child impact one's ability to function as an adult? It's an always-timely topic that Pollyanna author Eleanor H. Porter explores with insight and wit in the charming novel The Road to Understanding. As a boy, Burke Denby was showered with toys and sweets, and as a young man, his... read more »
A collection of short stories by Hans Christian Anderson, set in beautiful surroundings with lively description of the characters and the ambiance. The variety of subjects keeps the readers thoroughly entertained. The flow is quite spontaneous. read more »
During the morning Captain Crowther stood beside his helmsman at the high wheel on the roof of the steamer. The Second Defile with its monstrous, high cliff, its racing waters, and the unmanageable great rafts of teak wood floating down to Rangoon presented always a delicate problem in navigation. But Captain... read more »
A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a senior tempter in the service of 'Our Father Below.' At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C. S. Lewis gives us... read more »
Fleur and Michael Mont entertain the glittering society characters of the day in their new, elegant, and fashionable house. As always, Fleur’s father—Soames Forsyte—is constantly by the side of his daughter, spoiling and watching over her. But London after the war is a place of carefree attitudes that are... read more »
The tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices... read more »
Captain Harry Luttrell is a soldier who is not happy where he's currently stationed -- in England, where he's grown fat with boredom and fears that he will do nothing with his life -- and so he's requested a transfer to Cairo, Egypt. The Olympic Games are currently being held in Cairo and if he transferred, he would... read more »
A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the... read more »
In The Tangled Skein, Baroness Orczy does not paint Queen Mary nearly so black as she is usually portrayed. Indeed Mary is depicted as so passionately loving as to be almost lovable, a woman of strong emotions, invariably swayed by justice. The tangling of the skein is due to Mary’s supposititious love for Robert... read more »
A hilarious parody of the Chicago school of literature. Poking fun at that "great race" of writers, it depicts a vogue that Hemingway himself refused to follow. In style and substance, it is a burlesque of Sherwood Anderson's Dark Laughter, but in the course of the narrative, other literary tendencies associated... read more »
Like many impoverished children living in the slums of New York around the turn of the twentieth century, Margaret Kendall has faced more than her fair share of adversity in life. When a series of remarkable coincidences and events serve to reunite her with her mother, she is certain that her problems are over. But... read more »
Considered Woolf's most experimental work, it consists of soliloquies spoken by the book's six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis. Set on the coast of England against the vivid background of the sea, the novel introduces six characters—three men and three women—who are grappling with... read more »
A dispirited, unnamed woman decides to leave her ordinary and unfulfilling life to ride out into the lands of the Chilchui Indians and get in touch with their spiritual and ancient ways. While her quest brings physical danger, it also becomes a journey of deep self-discovery and self-acceptance. D.H. Lawrence’s... read more »
Once seen as a prediction of the sinking of the Titanic, this novella was written 14 years before that ill-fated event of 1912. Those striking similarities can be examined again in this new edition. John Rowland, a disgraced former Royal Navy lieutenant, has taken employment as a lowly deck hand aboard the largest... read more »
The novel traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. Although spanning fifty years, the novel is not epic in scope, focusing instead on the small private details of the characters' lives. Except for the first, each section takes place on a single day of... read more »
White's exciting and engrossing novel of a glittering resort hotel, where every room was the setting for a private drama, and the most forbidden dreams could come shockingly true. read more »