Content with her life and not interested in marriage, Emma Woodhouse, a rich and beautiful heiress, causes complications with her matchmaking schemes.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard was the youngest member of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated 1910 expedition to the South Pole. One of just three men to survive the notorious journey, he draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of other compatriots to create a detailed account of Scott's legendary expedition.

"Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, the work follows Jean Valjean, a victim of society who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and mayor of a northern town. Despite this he is haunted by an impulsive, regretted former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector Javert. Valjean eventually...

The death of Pedro Calderon de la Barca near the end of the 17th century marked the end of Spain's Golden Age of literary and artistic excellence. Pedro Calderon de la Barca immense popularity and mastery of Spanish drama has earned him notoriety as the national dramatist of Spain. Although he came from a family of lower nobility, his theater is often associated with the royal court, as he presented many plays in the palace of Philip IV. His best...

When a well-educated young socialite in 1930s England is left orphaned and unable to support herself at age twenty-two, she moves in with her eccentric relatives on their farm.

Paradise Lost is the greatest epic poem in English literature, and Milton's Satan one of its most compelling figures. The controversy has been exceeded only by its tremendous influence: countless masters of English verse have paid homage to Milton and Paradise Lost. A profound meditation on the role of man under God, Pardise Lost is essential reading.

Pygmalion both delighted and scandalized its first audiences in 1914. A brilliantly witty reworking of the classical tale of the sculptor who falls in love with his perfect female statue, it is also a barbed attack on the British class system and a statement of Shaw's feminist views. In Shaw's hands, the phoneticist Henry Higgins is the Pygmalion figure who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl, into a duchess at ease in...

Confucius was a Chinese teacher, statesman, and philosopher who lived in the 5th and 6th century BC. One of the most influential philosophers of all time, and still deeply regarded amongst the Chinese people, his ideology is one which emphasizes the importance of the family, as well as justice, sincerity, and morality in both personal and political matters. Confucius did not regard himself as an innovator, but as the conservator of ancient truth and...

Hard Times depicts the lives of ordinary people during the industrial revolution in England. Dickens brings several characters to life and weaves an interesting story about their interactions with each other. Most of these characters are poor and they live in a pollution ridden town where the economy is based on coal production.