"Joseph Conrad's enduring portrait of the ugliness of colonialism in a deluxe edition with a gripping cover by 'Hellboy' artist Mike Mignola. 'Heart of Darkness' is the thrilling tale of Marlow, a seaman and wanderer recounting his physical and psychological journey in search of the infamous ivory trader Kurtz. Traveling upriver into the heart of the African continent, he gradually becomes obsessed by this enigmatic, wraith-like figure. Marlow's discovery...

He was Sam Clemens, steamboat pilot, before he was Mark Twain, famous author. His better-known name originated with the lingo of navigation, and much of his writing was informed by his shipboard adventures on one of the world's great rivers. In this book, Twain offered recollections ranging from his salad days as a novice pilot to views from the passenger decks in the twilight of the river culture's heyday. Under the tutelage of the most celebrated...

"What does walking with Jesus look like in this life? The Pilgrims Progress is one of the greatest Christian classics of all time, answering that question and illustrating the deepest struggles Christians face as they walk with God in this life. Since its publication in 1678, it has been the most widely read Christian book other than the Bible. From the dark confines of a prison cell, John Bunyan wrote a book that transformed not only his experience...

In Spoon River Anthology, the American poet Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950) created a series of compelling free-verse monologues in which former citizens of a mythical Midwestern town speak touchingly from the grave of the thwarted hopes and dream of their lives. First published in book form in 1915, the Anthology was the crowning achievement of Masters' career as a poet, and a work that would become a landmark of 20th-century American literature....

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theater of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities.

Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and...

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) was a Jesuit priest whose poetry combined an awareness of material sensuousness with the asceticism of religious devotion. His collected poems, published posthumously in 1918, exercised a profound influence on modern poetry. This volume features all of Hopkins's mature work, offering a sampler of the poet's striking originality, intellectual depth, and perceptive vision. Featured works include his well-known elegy,...

Published to great acclaim and fierce controversy in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment has left an indelible mark on global literature and our modern world, and is still known worldwide as the quintessential Russian novel. Readers of all backgrounds have debated its historical, cultural, and spiritual dimensions, probing the moral and ethical dilemmas that Dostoevsky so brilliantly stages throughout his narrative. Yet, at its heart, this...

At twenty-­seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant...

"Huckleberry Finn had a tough life with his drunken father, until an adventure with Tom Sawyer changed everything. But when Huck's dad returns and kidnaps him, he must escape down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave named Jim. They encounter trouble at every turn, from floods and gunfights to armed bandits and the long arm of the law. Through it all the friends stick together...but can Huck and Tom free Jim from slavery once and for all?" --...