"No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth than the alluring, resourceful Becky Sharp, who ruthlessly clambers up the social ladder while her sweet, sentimental friend Amelia longs for her worthless soldier lover. As fortunes change, and battles are fought at home and abroad, who will survive?" -- Book cover.

During the French Revolution a young English lawyer goes to the guillotine to save a French aristocrat, husband of the woman he loves. "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times ..." With these famous words, Charles Dickens plunges the reader into the French Revolution. From the storming of the Bastille to the relentless drop of the guillotine, Dickens vividly captures the terror and upheaval of that tumultuous period. At the center is the...

"The Call of the Wild is a novel by Jack London published in 1903. The story is set in the Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush—a period when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The novel's central character is a dog named Buck, a domesticated dog living at a ranch in the Santa Clara valley of California as the story opens. Stolen from his home and sold into the brutal existence of an Alaskan sled dog, he reverts to atavistic traits. Buck...

"Wuthering Heights tells us a story about the life in northern England between 1771 till 1783. The two main characters are Catherine Earnshaw and Hareton Earnshaw, who fall in love with each other when they are children but become separated when they are grown up. The book tells us also about the life of Heathcliff, a homeless boy who loved Catherine. It's seen as a representative work of the gothic novel genre, despite its troubling subject matter...

A retelling of Dickens's story of the orphan forced to practice thievery and live a life of crime in nineteenth-century London. Illustrated notes throughout the text explain the historical background of the story.

A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future. Includes an account of Dicken's first reading of the story, and a biographical sketch.

"Considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens' most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Havisham and her beautiful...

Mr. Blandings builds his dream house: Cary Grant plays a successful New York advertising executive who wants to escape his current living situation. He decides to design his own dream house in the suburbs and the project turns wrong when the bills never end and the problems never stop. My favorite wife: A funny thing happens to Nick on his way to his honeymoon suite. He meets his wife. No, not his bride. He meets the wife that was lost at sea seven...

The commander of a U.S. bomber unit in Britain during World War II begins to crack under the strain.

"When Black Beauty was born one sweet spring day, he could not have imagined the life ahead of him. Following his mother's advice to do his work with a good will, he enjoys the adventures of country and city life, makes new friends, and suffers from the cruelty and greed of his human masters. Beauty faces each challenge with bravery and kindness -- and then a chance encounter with an old friend brings him the greatest joy of all. Anna Sewell's classic...