Little Nell and her grandfather are left destitute when the evil Quilp seizes their Old Curiosity Shop in payment for their overdue debts.

"When Dr. Croft takes in orphan Eleanor Beady, he doesn't realize that he's gained an apprentice. Raised amidst Croft's experiments, 'Nora' becomes his most trusted assistant--an unthinkable and unlawful pursuit for a woman. Nora helps Croft's groundbreaking research and his clinic gain recognition, and she finds she doesn't mind working in the background, as long as she can continue to hone her skills. But the arrival of a new surgical resident threatens...

Relates the various activities and adventures of the Pickwick Club.

"Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? Set on the bleak moors of Yorkshire, Lockwood is forced to seek shelter at Wuthering Heights, the home of his new landlord, Heathcliff. The intense and wildly passionate Heathcliff tells the story of his life, his all-consuming love for Catherine Earnshaw and the doomed outcome of that relationship, leading to his revenge. Poetic, complex and grand in scope, Emily Brontë's masterpiece...

Drawing directly on her own experiences, Anne Brontë describes the isolation and dark ambiguity of the governess's life as lived by her fictional heroine Agnes Grey. Mature, insightful, and edged with a quiet irony, this first novel by the youngest of the Brontës displays her keen sense of moral responsibility and sharp eye for bourgeois attitudes and behavior.

"The classic story of a passionate woman's struggle against fate in her search for love. Bathsheba Everdene has inherited a prosperous farm in Thomas Hardy's fictional Wessex. Driven by pride and vanity, strong-minded and fiercely independent, she is nevertheless subject to her own whims and, perhaps, an unavoidable fate. Bathsheba's passionate nature draws the attention of three suitors: wealthy farmer William Boldwood, dashing and seductive Sergeant...

The classic tale of romance and betrayal from a distinguished master of English satire. The fifth novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire epitomizes the wit, attention to detail, and thoughtful analysis of class and gender issues that made Anthony Trollope one of Victorian England's most beloved novelists. The Small House at Allington moves away from the earlier books' overt ecclesiastical concerns to focus on a small dower house on the edge of Christopher...

First published serially between January and December of 1878 in the sensationalistic monthly London magazine "Belgravia", Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native" is the author's sixth published novel. Set in Egdon Heath, an area of Thomas Hardy's fictionalized Wessex known for the thorny evergreen shrubs, called furze or gorse, which are cut there by its residents for fuel. When the story begins, on Guy Fawkes Night, we find Diggory Venn, a merchant...

The first novel of Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire series, this work introduces the fictional cathedral town of Barchester and many of its clerical inhabitants. Originally published in 1855, the story centers on Mr. Septimus Harding who has been granted the comfortable wardenship of Hiram's Hospital, an almshouse from a medieval charity of the diocese. Mr. Harding, a fundamentally good man and an excellent musician, conscientiously fulfills his...

In Jane Austen's third published novel after Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, young Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram at Mansfield Park. Raised among her four cousins, Fanny, the poor relation, often goes unobserved in the household, making her a unique observer of the ethics, morals, attitudes and behavior of English society.