A baby is found by wood nymphs in the forest of Burzee. They raise him as their own and give him the name Neclaus. When he grows up, Neclaus has to leave the forest so he makes a home for himself in the laughing valley of Hohaha, where he lives amongst humans for the first time. He discovers there that many children are very poor and neglected so, to cheer them up, he whittles wooden toys as gifts. Eventually he makes presents for all the children...

"Aesop's Fables belong to every one of us. They were once simply the words of a man who lived 600 years before Christ. The world in which Aesop lived was brutal--a place where death could happen in a moment--but in his imagination it was also a vibrant and magical place, where gods walked among mortals and animals could speak. Aesop's fables were first written down in ancient Greek, and then Latin, where they spread, like the armies of Rome, across...

Relates the experiences of a Colonel in the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first ex-slave regiment mustered by the U.S. in the Civil War.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce and is a key work of twentieth century literature that remains as fresh, challenging and relevant as the day it was first published. It is a autobiographical novel and describes the early life and development of its central character, Stephen Dedalus (representing Joyce). Stephan, an intelligent but frail child, struggles toward maturity in Ireland at the turn of...

"A stolen hot air balloon lands an unlikely crew on a mysterious island far from everything they know in this action-packed Jules Verne classic--now with an arresting new look! Five prisoners of war steal a hot air balloon and escape capture in Virginia during the American Civil War. They fly for several thousand miles before a storm forces them to crash land on an unknown island in the Pacific. There, the marooned men must work together to pool all...

"Hard Times is perhaps the archetypal Dickens novel, full as it is with family difficulties, estrangement, rotten values and unhappiness. It was published in 1854 and it is the story of the family of Thomas Gradgrind, and occurs in the imaginary Coketown, an industrial city inspired by Preston. Gradgrind is a man obsessed with misguided 'Utilitarian' values that make him trust facts, statistics and practicality more than emotion and is based upon...

"In his timeless story of two pairs of mismatched lovers, The Return of the Native sets romantic idealism as a destructive counterpoint to reality and disillusionment." "Against the lowering background of Egdon Heath, fiery Eustacia Vye passes her days, wishing only for passionate love. She believes that her escape from Egdon lies in marriage to Clym Yeobright, home from Paris and discontented with his work there. But Clym wishes to return to the...

"In The Pickwick Papers we are introduced not just to one of the greatest writers in the English language but to some of fiction’s most endearing and memorable characters, starting with the ‘illustrious, immortal and colossal-minded’ Samuel Pickwick himself. It is a rollicking tour de force through an England on the brink of the Victorian era. Reform of government, justice and commercial life are imminent, as are rail travel, social convulsion...

Ignatius Donnelly's "Atlantis: The Antediluvian World" is a groundbreaking exploration of one of the most enduring mysteries of human history-the lost continent of Atlantis. First published in 1882, this seminal work has captivated readers for over a century with its bold theories, meticulous research, and compelling narrative. Donnelly's book delves into the ancient myths and legends that surround Atlantis, weaving together historical, geological,...

This updated authoritative edition of the classic Hardy novel, which was published anonymously and first attributed to George Eliot, is set from Hardy's revised, unedited final draft of 1912 and features a new Introduction and Afterword. There is in England no more real or typical district than Thomas Hardy's imaginary Wessex, the scattered fields and farms of which were first discovered in Far from the Madding Crowd. It is here that Gabriel Oak observes...