Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known as "Mark Twain," left Missouri in 1861 to work with his brother, the newly appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory. Once settled in Nevada, Clemens fell victim to gold fever and went to the Humboldt mines. When prospecting lost its attractions, Clemens found work as a reporter in Virginia City. In 1864, Clemens moved to California and worked as a reporter in San Francisco. It was there that he...

"On the windy Nebraska prairie, Alexandra Bergson tends to the failing farm that she inherited from her father. She struggles to raise her brothers on her own. And hse is torn by the emergence of an unexpected passion...This magnificent story, Willa Cather's second novel, has become one of the geat classics of American literature--telling a timeless tale of a strong pioneer woman facing extraordinary challenges and conflicts, shining a light on the...

One of William Shakespeare's most farcical comedies, "The Comedy of Errors" is notable for its use of mistaken identity to achieve a slapstick comedic effect. Ripe with the bard's characteristic word play, the comedy concerns the lives of two sets of identical twins that were accidentally separated shortly after their birth. The play begins by the elderly Syracusian trader Egeon relating the back-story of his family. When Egeon was young, he married...

Jane Addams was a prominent progressive reformer during the early 20th century, and she became one of America's most famous women. This is a memoir of her early life.

The tale of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, and his struggles to save the beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda from being unjustly executed.

"When a young orphan runs away to London, he falls in with a group of pickpockets and thieves. Oliver Twist (1838), is one of Charles Dickens' most highly regarded works, and is a pioneering work of social realism. An unvarnished portrayal of crime and poverty in Victorian England, this is an essential classic of literature" -- Page [4] cover.

"Set in a strict Puritan community in 17th-century Boston, this novel tells the moving tale of an adulterous love affair and the retribution that follows."--P. [4] of cover.

Babbitt' represents one of Sinclair's most profound and thought-provoking works of satire and resulted in Sinclair winning the Nobel prize. The story follows George Babbitt, owner of a successful real-estate business, husband to a stunning wife and father of three children. he seemingly has everything a person could want and yet happiness eludes him. Finding himself in this maelstrom of emotion George Babbitt decides to strike out against the machine...

Emigrating from Bohemia to Black Hawk, Nebraska, with her family, Antonia discovers no white-framed farmhouse or snug barn. Instead, the cultured Shimerda family finds itself huddled in a primitive sod house buffeted by the ceaselessly blowing winds on the Midwest prairie. For her childhood friend Jim Burden, Antonia comes to embody the elemental spirit of this frontier. Working alongside men, she survives without compromising the rich, deep power...