Author finds his identity and what is important in life through suffering defeat, and tragic love.

A classic tale of an orphan growing up in the 1800's of England. Intimately rooted in the author's own biography and written as a first-person narrative, "David Copperfield" charts a young man's progress through a difficult childhood in Victorian England to ultimate success as a novelist, finding true love along the way. Jeremy Tambling's provocative Introduction reveals subtle themes relevant today in Dickens' favorite work.

The tale of a passionate, independent woman and her three suitors, Far from the Madding Crowd tells the story of Bathsheba Everdene and her relationships with the devoted Gabriel Oak, the dashing Sergeant Troy, and the reclusive gentleman farmer, Mr. Boldwood. Through her wayward nature and a winding path of events propelled by Thomas Hardy's recurring feminist themes, Bathsheba is led to tragedy and, finally, true love. Written in 1874, Far from...

"For Harry's second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls' bathroom. But then real trouble begins--someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects ... Harry Potter himself?"--Page...

First published in 1877. Black Beauty, a horse with a white star on his forehead, describes his idyllic days on a country squire's estate and his harsh fate as a London cab horse.

A landmark of modern fiction, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse explores the subjective reality of everyday life in the Hebrides for the Ramsay family.

In 1946, as London emerges from the shadow of World War II, author Juliet Ashton is having a terrible time finding inspiration for her next book. Then she receives a letter from Guernsey Island, and learns of a unique book club formed on the spur of the moment as an alibi to protect its members from arrest by the occupying Germans during the war. Captivated, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds there will change her life forever.

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire moors, she finds it full of secrets. At night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors. Outside, she meets Dickon, a magical boy who can talk to animals. Then one day, Mary discovers the most mysterious wonder of all -- a secret garden, walled and locked, which has been forgotten for years and years. With the help of two unexpected companions,...

Jill injures her back during a coasting party and is forced to lie flat on a couch for many weeks. This happy story begins with trouble, but soon rings with the gayety of youth and closes in a glow of hope.

After being washed overboard from an ocean liner, fifteen-year-old Harvey Cheyne, spoiled son of a millionaire, is rescued by New England fishermen who put him to work on their boat.