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Featuring 19 of the finest works from the most distinguished writers in the American short-story tradition, this new compilation begins with Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1835 tale «Young Goodman Brown» and ranges across an entire century, concluding with Ernest Hemingway's 1927 classic, «The Killers.» Other selections include Poe's «The Tell-Tale Heart,» Melville's «Bartleby,» Harte's «The Luck of Roaring Camp,» «To Build a Fire,» by Jack London, «The Real Thing» by Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald's «Bernice Bobs Her Hair,» plus stories by Mark Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, Ambrose Bierce, Theodore Dreiser, and others. Perfect for classroom use, this outstanding collection of tales will also prove popular with fiction readers everywhere.

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From civil rights to the right to vote, women have spoken up and spoken out throughout American history. Brimming with great power and eloquence, here are twenty-one legendary speeches from the country's most inspirational female voices, including Jane Addams, Emma Goldman, and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Spanning the centuries from 1851 to 2007, these are the rousing words that continue to endure in our nation's consciousness.This distinguished collection includes these American women and their speeches: Sojourner Truth, «Ain’t I a Woman?» 1851; Susan B. Anthony, «On Behalf of the Woman Suffrage Amendment,» 1880; Margaret Sanger, «A Moral Necessity of Birth Control,» 1921; Mary McLeod Bethune, «A Century of Progress of Negro Women,» 1933; Eleanor Roosevelt, «On the Adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,» 1948; Shirley Chisholm, «People and Peace, Not Profits and War,» 1969; Geraldine Ferraro, «Vice Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address,» 1984; Gloria Steinem, «A Twenty-First Century Feminism,» 2002; Nancy Pelosi, «Speech Upon Her Election as Speaker of the House,» 2007, and many more unforgettable speeches by spirited and influential American women.

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A compulsive gambler himself at a certain period of his life, Dostoyevsky wrote this novel with real authority. Set in the appropriately named Roulettenburg, a German spa with a casino and an international clientele, it concerns the gambling episodes, tangled love affairs, and complicated lives of Alexey Ivanovitch, a young gambler; Polina Alexandrovna, the woman he loves; a pair of French adventurers, and other characters.Although not as dark as some of Dostoyevsky's other works, The Gambler nevertheless offers a grim and psychologically probing picture of the fatal attractions of gambling. Among its strengths are its well-drawn characters — Aunt Antonida, although lightly sketched in, is especially delightful — and its faithful depiction of life among the gambling set in fashionable German watering holes. This edition reprints Constance Garnett's authoritative translation.

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Written early in the second century, Plutarch's Lives offers richly detailed and anecdotal biographies of some of the ancient world's mightiest and most influential figures. Plutarch sought to explore the characters and personalities of great men, to see how individual natures led ultimately to tragedy or victory. This selection from Plutarch's massive work profiles five Greeks and five Romans. The translation used here is by an unknown writer, but was associated with John Dryden's name because it was originally published in 1683-1686, in conjunction with a life of Plutarch by Dryden. In 1864, it was revised by the poet and scholar Arthur Hugh Clough, whose introduction and notes are also featured. The great men profiled here include Solon, the lawmaker of Athens, who fostered the growth of the city's democratic institutions; Pericles, whose legendary eloquence was epitomized by his well-known funeral oration; and Alexander the Great, whose incredible eleven-year journey of conquest extended from his native Macedonia to Egypt and India. Among the Romans are the warrior-statesman Marius, who opposed the ruling aristocracy and opened the army to commoners; Cicero, the famous orator; and Julius Caesar, whose extensive character sketch provided Shakespeare with the material for one of his greatest plays.

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Leonora and Edward Ashburnham were «good people» from England, as John Dowell, the narrator of this tale, explains: and Dowell and his wife, Florence — leisured Americans of solid stock — were, like their English friends, a «model couple.»For a dozen years, the foursome cultivated and maintained a friendship reinforced with yearly meetings at a fashionable German health resort, which Dowell visited with his «ailing» wife and the Asburnhams traveled to because of Edward's «heart problems.» Their marriages seemed exemplary studies of permanence, stability, and tranquility. That is, until the day Dowell learned that for the previous nine years his wife had been the mistress of his friend Captain Ashburnham, the apparently honorable «good soldier.»A provocative study of deception and betrayal and of convention and desire, The Good Soldier was also formally innovative. Along with Ford's Parade's End tetralogy, this powerful novel — first published in 1915 — has earned him a reputation as one of the major writers of the 20th century.

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Early in the nineteenth century, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm compiled a collection of stories to preserve the folklore of their native Germany. Forty-three of them—fairy tales, some deliciously dark, that have bewitched readers for generations—are gathered here. Translated into more than 150 languages, these well-loved narratives brim with fearless heroes, humble and hardworking heroines, and treacherous villains, exploring themes of innocence, curiosity, and revenge. Rich in detail, lyrical in phrase, these masterful translations by Margaret Hunt capture the flavor of the original Grimm tales. Here are classics such as “Rapunzel,” “Hansel and Grethel,” “Thumbling,” “Cinderella,” “The Bremen Town-Musicians,” “The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids,” “The Fisherman and His Wife,” and “Little Snow-White.” These cherished fables, created from centuries’-old oral tradition, await rediscovery by children and adults alike.

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"My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else," proclaimed Charles Dickens in explaining the theme of this classic novel. Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a «fanatic of the demonstrable fact,» who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality.Without a moral compass to guide them, the children sink into lives of desperation and despair, played out against the grim background of Coketown, a wretched community shadowed by an industrial behemoth. Louisa falls into a loveless marriage with Josiah Bouderby, a vulgar banker, while the unscrupulous Tom, totally lacking in principle, becomes a thief who frames an innocent man for his crime. Witnessing the degradation and downfall of his children, Gradgrind realizes that his own misguided principles have ruined their lives.Considered Dickens' harshest indictment of mid-19th-century industrial practices and their dehumanizing effects, this novel offers a fascinating tapestry of Victorian life, filled with the richness of detail, brilliant characterization, and passionate social concern that typify the novelist's finest creations.Of Dickens' work, the eminent Victorian critic John Ruskin had this to say: «He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially Hard Times, should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions.»

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The delighted wonder surrounding a cat that has learned to talk quickly turns to dismay when the feline's conversation involves the scandalous remarks he's overheard. «Tobermory» abounds in the irony for which its author, Saki, is well known and admired. Along with the other short stories in this first-rate anthology, it showcases the talents of a renowned British writer.Other stories include Anthony Trollope's «The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne,» a subtle study of the psychological cost of maintaining self-esteem; Thomas Hardy's «The Fiddler of the Reels,» in which a village girl is seduced by the beguiling melodies of a diabolical musician; and M. R. James's «Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad,» the tale of a vacationing professor who conjures up the unexpected with an artifact from a ruined medieval church. «The Haunted House,» by Charles Dickens, and Rudyard Kipling's story of a golden-haired ghost, «The Phantom 'Rickshaw,» also venture into the supernatural. Additional selections include D. H. Lawrence's «The Prussian Officer,» H. G. Wells's «Under the Knife,» and Robert Louis Stevenson's «A Lodging for the Night,» plus stories by John Galsworthy, Wilkie Collins, and others.

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In this unflaggingly suspenseful story of aspirations and moral redemption, humble, orphaned Pip, a ward of his short-tempered older sister and her husband, Joe, is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman. And, indeed, it seems as though that dream is destined to come to pass — because one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of «great expectations.» In telling Pip's story, Dickens traces a boy's path from a hardscrabble rural life to the teeming streets of 19th-century London, unfolding a gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, and love and loss. Its compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride.Written in the last decade of Dickens' life, Great Expectations was praised widely and universally admired. It was his last great novel, and many critics believe it to be his finest. Readers and critics alike praised it for its masterful plot, which rises above the melodrama of some of his earlier works, and for its three-dimensional, psychologically realistic characters — characters much deeper and more interesting than the one-note caricatures of earlier novels. «In none of his other works,» wrote the reviewer in the 1861 Atlantic, «does he evince a shrewder insight into real life, and a cheaper perception and knowledge of what is called the world.» To Swinburne, the novel was unparalleled in all of English fiction, with defects «as nearly imperceptible as spots on the sun or shadows on a sunlit sea.» Shaw found it Dickens' «most completely perfect book.» Now this inexpensive edition invites modern readers to savor this timeless masterpiece, teeming with colorful characters, unexpected plot twists, and Dickens' vivid rendering of the vast tapestry of mid-Victorian England.

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Twelve of the finest short stories by great French writers comprise this excellent collection, with themes that range from desire and psychological intrigue to the mysteries of failure and success.Includes: «The Horla» and «The Necklace» by Guy de Maupassant; «The Attack on the Mill» by Emile Zola; «Mocromegas» by Voltaire; «The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaler» by Gustave Flaubert; «Mateo Falcone» by Prosper Mérimée; «The Return of the Prodigal Son» by André Gide; «The Dark Lantern» by Jules Renard; «Emilie» by Gérard de Nerval; «The Unknown Masterpieces» by Honoré de Balzac; «The Pope's Mule» by Alphonse Daudet; and «Salomé» by Jules Laforgue.Classic explorations of passion, terror, and fate, these enduring literary gems will be invaluable to students and teachers of French literature and a joy for anyone who delights in fine writing.

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