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"In his most famous and controversial book, Utopia, Thomas More imagines a perfect island nation where thousands live in peace and harmony, men and women are both educated, and all property is communal. Through dialogue and correspondence between the protagonist Raphael Hythloday and his friends and contemporaries, More explores the theories behind war, political disagreements, social quarrels, and wealth distribution and imagines the day-to-day lives...

"The culmination of Jane Austen's genius, a sparkling comedy of love and marriage--now in a stunning 200th-anniversary Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Beautiful, clever, rich--and single--Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts...

A masterpiece of African American literature, Frederick Douglass's Narrative is the powerful story of an enslaved youth coming into social and moral consciousness by disobeying his white slavemasters and secretly teaching himself to read. Achieving literacy emboldens Douglass to resist, escape, and ultimately achieve his freedom. After escaping slavery, Douglass became a leader in the anti-slavery and women's rights movements, a bestselling author,...

Bleak House, Dickens's most daring experiment in the narration of a complex plot, challenges the reader to make connections - between the fashionable and the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and the victims. Nowhere in Dickens's later novels is his attack on an uncaring society more imaginatively embodied, but nowhere either is the mixture of comedy and angry satire more deftly managed. Bleak House defies a single description. It...

Thucydides was from the Greek Ionian city of Miletus. He lived through the war and was a general for Athens. He wrote this work about the Peloponnesian War knowing it was not going to be popular with many readers, but he wanted to record what truly happened so that future generations would know. Thucydides did not live long enough to witness the end of the war, but his historical narrative was continued by Xenophon in his work titled ‘Hellenica’....

This classic mystery by one of the first female authors of detective novels has influenced the writing of Agatha Christie and thrilled generations of avid readers Everett Raymond is a junior partner in the firm of Veeley, Carr & Raymond, attorneys and counselors at law. When Mr. Horatio Leavenworth, a very old and wealthy client, is found murdered, Everett finds himself entangled in the case. Leavenworth has been inexplicably shot while sitting at...

"Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, though written in 1884, is still considered useful in thinking about multiple dimensions. It is also seen as a satirical depiction of Victorian society and its hierarchies. A square, who is a resident of the two-dimensional Flatland, dreams of the one-dimensional Lineland. He attempts to convince the monarch of Lineland of the possibility of another dimension, but the monarch cannot see outside the line. The...

Edmond Dantes, a nineteen-year-old sailor from Marseilles, is soon to be captain of his own ship and to marry his beloved, the beautiful Mercedes. But spiteful enemies provoke his arrest on his wedding day, and he is condemned to life in prison. His sole companion is the 'crazy' priest Faria, who shares with Edmond a secret escape plan, and a map to hidden riches on the island of Monte Cristo. When Faria dies, Edmond attempts the incredible escape...

The five stories brought together in Tales of Unrest (1898) mark a turning point in the writer's career. Conrad's first short story collection evidences a writer firmly in control of his new craft staking a claim to diverse cultural and fictional territories. The introduction situates the writing of these stories in Conrad's career and discusses their sources and contemporary reception. The explanatory notes identify literary and historical references...