Written in epistolary form and drawn from actual events, Brown’s The Power of Sympathy (1789) and Foster’s The Coquette (1797) were two of the earliest novels published in the United States. Both novels reflect the eighteenth-century preoccupation with the role of women as safekeepers of the young country’s morality.

A desperate young man plans the perfect crime -- the murder of a despicable pawnbroker, an old women no one loves and no one will mourn. Is it not just, he reasons, for a man of genius to commit such a crime, to transgress moral law -- if it will ultimately benefit humanity? So begins one of the greatest novels ever written: a powerful psychological study, a terrifying murder mystery, a fascinating detective thriller infused with philosophical, religious and social commentary. Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in a garret in the gloomy slums of St. Petersburg, carries out his grotesque scheme and plunges into a hell of persecution, madness and terror. Crime And Punishment takes the reader on a journey into the darkest recesses of the criminal and depraved mind, and exposes the soul of a man possessed by both good and evil ... a man who cannot escape his own conscience.

New translation of Machado's famous novel is for the most part faithful and readable. However, work has occasional odd errors and omissions, and fails to give sufficient attention to Machado's rhythm and syntax. Given Rabassa's vast experience as a translator, it is hard not to suspect that carelessness and haste explain the mistakes and lapses. Also poorly edited and inadequately proofread"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

‘I'm a fearful, frightful flirt! Did you ever hear of a nice girl that was not?

Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow-countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve.  Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts, or is she simply ignorant of those conventions? When she strikes up an intimate friendship with an urbane young Italian, her flat refusal to observe the codes of respectable behaviour leave her perilously exposed. In Daisy Miller James created his first great portrait of the enigmatic and dangerously independent American woman, a figure who would come to dominate his later masterpieces.

This edition has a fascinating introduction by Geoffrey Moore in which he explores the themes of innocence and experience in the novel, and notes by Patricia Crick.

Many cultures identify mourning as the very source of poetry and music, what Elizabeth Bishop calls the art of losing. That might well be the title of this collection. Not every poem is cornered with death, but all are about loss. The poems chosen traverse a surprisingly wide range of emotions from despair to joy, resignation to anger, all articulated in language of the greatest power and beauty . All the major verse forms of mourning are represented here: epitaph, requiem and lament. Three great elergies by Milton, Whitman and Rilke are surrounded by a wide variety of shorter poems. Naturally, the pathos of death predominates, but its comedy has not been neglected, whether in the savage poems of World War I or the gentle teasing of seventeenth-century satire. Poets include: Akhmatova, Auden, Bishop, Brodsky, Browning, Carew, Cory, Cowley, Dickinson, Donne, Dryden, Dyer, Fletcher, Graves, Gurney, Hardy, Harrison, Herrick, Hopkins, Horace, King, Leopardi, Lowell, MacCaig, Mandelstam, Milosz, Philips, Propertius, Roethke, Smith, Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, Edward Thomas and Wordsworth.

Little Women is one of the  best loved books of all time. Lovely Meg, talented  Jo, frail Beth, spoiled Amy: these are hard lessons  of poverty and of growing up in New England during  the Civil War. Through their dreams, plays,  pranks, letters, illnesses, and courtships, women of all  ages have become a part of this remarkable family  and have felt the deep sadness when Meg leaves the  circle of sisters to be married at the end of Part  I. Part II, chronicles Meg's joys and mishaps as a  young wife and mother, Jo's struggle to become a  writer, Beth's tragedy, and Amy's artistic pursuits  and unexpected romance. Based on Louise May  Alcott's childhood, this lively portrait of  nineteenth-century family life possesses a lasting vitality  that has endeared it to generations of readers.

"The story of the monster man whose horrible deformities cause fear and terror, his search for love and acceptance, and his haunting of the opera house in Paris is told in very simple language. Beautifully adapted, the story flows along so easily that readers will be immediately caught up in the tangle of events and emotions. McMullan conveys all of the anger, grief, joy, and love that make the phantom a truly believable character. Will attract reluctant readers."--School Library Journal.  


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Set against a vividly depicted background of fin de siécle New York, this novel centers on the conflict between a self-made millionaire and a fervent social revolutionary-a conflict in which a man of goodwill futilely attempts to act as a mediator, only to be forced himself into a crisis of conscience. Here we see William Dean Howells's grasp of the realities of the American experience in an age of emerging social struggle. His absolute determination to fairly represent every point of view is evident throughout this multifaceted work. Both a memorable portrait of an era and a profoundly moving study of human relationships, A Hazard of New Fortunes fully justifies Alfred Kazin's ranking of Howells as "the first great domestic novelist of American life."

First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America-an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation's peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naivete of their own time in a work which endures as a valuable social document and one of America's most important satirical novels.

The first English-language edition of a major work by George Sand. Translated by the winner of the 1994 BOMC-PEN Translation Award. "A courageous work, nowadays unjustly neglected". -- Renee Winegarten "Sand develops her most advanced political, social and sexual views in this classic work". -- Feminist Bookstore News

In one volume, the two short-story collections that established Kate Chopin as one of America's best-loved realist writers.

Henry James called The Blithedale Romance "the lightest, the brightest, the liveliest" of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novels."

Written in one of the most productive periods of Hawthorne's career, The Blithedale Romance was published a year after The House of the Seven Gables and two years after his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter. With The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne writes fully in his own time, not haunting his characters with the American past. Drawn from his stay at Brook Farm, a communal experiment in living the pastoral life, this engaging story touches on many of the issues of Hawthorne's day, from brotherhood to women's rights and socialism to mesmerism and spiritualism.

Published in 1852, The Blithedale Romance remains a captivating work about politics, love, the supernatural, and idealism, written with Hawthorne's sharp wit and deep intelligence.