Since its first publication in 1678, The Pilgrim's Progress has never been out of print -- and that fact reflects the timeless relevance and wisdom of this long-form Christian allegory. The text follows the journey of the title character, Christian, as he makes his way from the earthly sphere represented by the "City of Destruction" to the "Celestial Sphere," which represents Heaven, battling sin, temptation, and every other conceivable

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The Puritans thought Hester Prynne's crime was unforgiveable. She was convicted, imprisoned -- and then forced to wear, forever, a public reminder of her sin. The Scarlet Letter. The Letter was unending punishment: it set Hester apart from society, it tormented her days and haunted her soul. But the Letter haunted others, as well. Its mystery turned Roger Chillingworth from a gentle healer into a man driven by revenge. Its meaning burned into Rev....

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.

“My Bondage and My Freedom”, by Frederick Douglass. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from today’s top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events • Footnotes and endnotes • Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired...

Set against the background of political upheaval in France following the rule of Napoleon I, the novel tells the story of the peasant Jean Valjean, a convict struggling to escape his past and on the run, hunted by Inspector Javert, a police agent with a ruthless conscience. Their world encompasses a broad section of the outcasts, rejects and rebels of early 19th-century French society, as events take in a tour of the city's sewers, the battle of Waterloo...

Originally published over one hundred years ago, "Roughing It" tells the (almost) true story of Mark Twain's rollicking adventures across the United States. A hilarious account of how the author tried finding wealth in the rocks of Nevada, it was published before his most famous works and shows why he would grow to become one of the most beloved American writers of all time. The story follows many of Twain's early adventures, including a visit to...

Featuring the images of some of the world's most famous stage and film actors, these additions to the all-new Oxford School Shakespeare introduce--and enthrall--young people to one of the greatest writers of all time. This season brings revised editions of five of the Bard's most famous plays--As You Like It, Othello, Hamlet, Love's Labour Lost and The Taming of the Shrew. Designed specifically for students unfamiliar with Shakespeare's rich literary...

"When Shirley Keldar, an heiress, marries a tutor whose brother owns a mill introducing labor-saving devices, she helps the brother's campaign."

In Washington Square (1880), Henry James reminisces about the New York he had known thirty years before as he tells the story of Catherine Sloper and her fortune-seeking suitor Morris Townsend. This perceptively drawn human drama is James' most accessible work and an enduring literary triumph. The plot of Washington Square has the simplicity of old-fashioned melodrama: a plain-looking, good-hearted young woman, the only child of a rich widower, is...

Colonel Pyncheon does well in denouncing Old Matthew: he founds a New England dynasty and builds a remarkable mansion; but on its opening day he is found dead, slaked in his own blood. By 1840, that dynasty is almost spent; amid the dust and decay of the Seven Gables, Clifford and Hepzibah believe in their own continued nobility as much as they believe in the mysterious curse still tracking the Pyncheons. After 30 years in prison for a murder he did...