Called "the first and greatest of English detective novels" by T.S. Eliot, The Moonstone is a masterpiece of suspense. A fabulous yellow diamond becomes the dangerous inheritance of Rachel Verinder. Outside her Yorkshire country house watch the Hindu priests who have waited for many years to reclaim their ancient talisman, looted from the holy city of Somnauth. When the Moonstone disappears the case looks simple, but in mid-Victorian England no one...

"Candide" is an accessible masterpiece which demonstrated to the world Volatire's genius as a satirist. The eponymous Candide is a young man tutored by an optimist who is convinced according to the cause and effect philosophy of Leibniz and perhaps is best summarized in Voltaire's leitmotif that human beings live in the "best of all possible worlds." Alexander Pope rather laughably made the same outrageous claim in his "Essay on Man" in which he writes,...

The curse of the Baskervilles dates to the seventeenth century, when the wicked Hugo Baskerville chased a farmer's daughter across the pitch-dark moor of Grimpen with vile intentions. The poor girl died of fright, but Baskerville's fate was worse -- a giant black hound, eyes afire and jaws dripping with blood, tore out his throat and devoured it on the spot. Since then, the specter of that terrible beast has haunted Baskerville Hall, many of whose...

Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years. This poetic, graceful love story, rooted in Black folk traditions and steeped in mythic realism, celebrates boldly and brilliantly African-American culture and heritage....

At once an engrossing murder mystery and an unflinching portrait of racial injustice in the Reconstruction South, Intruder in the Dust stands out as a true classic of Southern literature. A classic Faulkner novel which explores the lives of a family of characters in the South. An aging black who has long refused to adopt the black's traditionally servile attitude is wrongfully accused of murdering a white man.

"At a slave auction, a beautiful teenage girl, her sister, and her mother are sold as William Wells Brown's 1853 novel Clotel begins. In making his title character the daughter of Thomas Jefferson, Brown takes advantage of a scandalous and - until recently - unconfirmed rumor. Clotel's new owner falls in love with her, gets her pregnant, seems to promise marriage - then sells her. A fast-paced and harrowing tale of slavery and freedom, and of the...

"A collectible hardcover thirtieth-anniversary edition of Julia Alvarez's modern Latinx classic that gives voice to four sisters as they grow up in two cultures, featuring a new foreword by New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning novelist Elizabeth Acevedo A Penguin Vitae Edition The García sisters-Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía-and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after the discovery of their father's...

Despite the fact that she has fallen in love with a young man, Tita, the youngest of three daughters born to a tyrannical rancher, must obey tradition and remain single and at home to care for her mother.

Back in print and now available in trade paperback, Dorothy L. Sayers' classic tale of murder and scandal at a chic London advertising agency, featuring the dashing and brilliant Lord Peter Wimsey. When executive Victor Dean dies from a fall down the iron staircase at Pym's Publicity, a posh London ad agency, Lord Peter Wimsey goes undercover to investigate. Before his tragic demise, the victim had tried to warn Mr. Pym, the firm's owner, about some...

Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something...