A chemist's life is transformed by the wonders of selling snake oil in this satire of early–twentieth century capitalism by the author of The Time Machine. As a young assistant chemist, George Ponderevo rode his uncle's coattails to a great fortune. His uncle Edward's meteoric rise was all thanks to a miraculous patent medicine, Tono-Bungay-which George knew to be nothing more than sugar water. Though it provided none of its promised curative...

"The story's plot follows four characters rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope---a rural, pastoral and close-knit community in 1799. The novel revolves around a love triangle between beautiful but thoughtless Hetty Sorrel, Captain Arthur Donnithorne, the young squire who seduces her, Adam Bede, her unacknowledged lover, and Dinah Morris, Hetty's cousin, a fervent Methodist lay preacher."--Amazon.com. George Eliot's first full-length...

"The Portrait of a Lady is regarded by many as Henry James's finest work, and a lucid tragedy exploring the distance between money and happiness. When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy Aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy the freedom that her fortune has opened up and to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then...

Based on actual events, Pamela is the story of a young girl who goes to work in a private residence and finds herself pursued by her employer's son, described as a 'gentleman of free principles.' Unfolding through letters, the novel depicts with much feeling Pamela's struggles to decide how to respond to her would-be seducer and to determine her place in society.

A self-made American goes to Europe to enjoy his fortune and becomes engaged to a French widow from a noble family. Depicts the contrast between American and European culture.

Mark Twain's tale of a boy's picaresque journey down the Mississippi on a raft conveyed the voice and experience of the American frontier as no other work had done before. When Huck escapes from his drunken father and the 'sivilizing' Widow Douglas with the runaway slave Jim, he embarks on a series of adventures that draw him to feuding families and the trickery of the unscrupulous 'Duke' and 'Dauphin'. Beneath the exploits, however, are more serious...

The oft-quoted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau is best known for two works: Walden and Civil Disobedience. Walden, first published in 1854, documents the time Thoreau spent living with nature in a hand-built cabin in the woods near Walden Pond in Massachusetts. A minor work in its own time, Walden burgeoned in popularity during the counter culture movement of the 1960s. Civil Disobedience is thought to have originated after Thoreau spent a night...

Don Juan is a chronicle of the life and the affairs of the main hero. Byron exposes in a satirical tone war, tyranny and the pretense and corruption in society.

A brief essay on the characteristics of ancient Greek drama prefaces a collection of plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes.