The Cliff

Six hundred years into the future, humans are bred by cloning, and "mother" and "father" are forbidden words. Originally published in 1932, Huxley's terrifying vision of a controlled and emotionless future "Utopian" society is truly startling in its prediction of modern scientific and cultural phenomena, including test-tube babies and rampant drug abuse.

"To the Lighthouse features the serene and maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr. Ramsay, and their children and assorted guests who are on holiday on the Isle of Skye. From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Virginia Woolf constructs a moving examination of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life and the conflicts within a marriage."--BOOK JACKET

"At a glittering society party in St. Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon?s army marches on Russia, and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical Andrey, and impetuous Natasha interweave with a huge cast, from aristocrats and peasants, to soldiers and Napoleon himself. In War and Peace, Tolstoy entwines grand themes--conflict...

Retells Cervantes' story of the adventures of an eccentric Spanish country gentleman and his companion who set out as a knight and squire of old to right wrongs and punish evil.

Walden first published in 1854 as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and-to some degree-a manual for self-reliance. Walden details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months,...

Set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century bourgeois France, the story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.

H.G. Wells' "scientific romance," published first in serial form and then as a book in 1898, attained perhaps its greatest fame in another form, the infamous realistic 1939 radio broadcast "Invasion from Mars" by Orson Welles. It was also made into an early 1950s science fiction adventure movie. Stover (emeritus, Illinois Institute of Technology) describes Wells' story as "a prophecy of startling originality foreseeing the coming of totalitarianism...

Every great hero has an origin story and for the legendary Sherlock Holmes, it was "A Study in Scarlet," Arthur Conan Doyle's 1887 novel which introduced the world's leading (and only) consulting detective to the reading public. Though not an immediate sensation (the novel was received with moderate acclaim), it has gone on to become one of the most revered detective novels in history and its protagonists - Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes - are...

Published in 1839, Nicholas Nickleby is Charles Dickens' third novel. In it, Nicholas Nickleby must earn a living to support his mother and sister after his father dies unexpectedly. Turning to a wealthy uncle in London for help, Nicholas is hired on as assistant to Wackford Squeers, a sadistic and small-minded schoolmaster. Meanwhile, his sister must take a job in a milliner's studio and is occasionally pressed into service by their uncle who exploits...

When orphaned, eleven-year-old Pollyanna comes to live with austere and wealthy Aunt Polly, her philosophy of gladness brings happiness to her aunt and other unhappy members of the community.