This book contains the complete novels of Charles Dickens in the chronological order of their original publication.[1836-1837] The Pickwick Papers[1837-1839] Oliver Twist[1838-1839] Nicholas Nickleby[1840-1841] The Old Curiosity Shop[1841] Barnaby Rudge[1843] Martin Chuzzlewit[1846-1848] Dombey and Son[1849-1850] David Copperfield[1851-1853] Bleak House[1854] Hard Times[1855-1857] Little Dorrit[1859] A Tal...

"One of the few English novels written for grown-up people." —Virginia Woolf"What do I think of ‘Middlemarch’? What do I think of glory — except that in a few instances this 'mortal has already put on immortality.' George Eliot was one. The mysteries of human nature surpass the 'mysteries of redemption,' for the infinite we only suppose, while we see the finite." —Emily Dickinson"‘Middlemarch’ is probably the greatest English novel." —Julian Barnes"They've [women] prod...

"The finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country." —Henry James"[Nathaniel Hawthorne] recaptured, for his New England, the essence of Greek tragedy." —Malcolm Cowley"There could be no more perfect work of the American imagination than 'The Scarlet Letter'”. —D. H. Lawrence"The style of Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is singularly effective — wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes... We look upon him as one of the ...

"Among the writers who have approached nearest to the manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen." —Thomas Macaulay"‘Pride and Prejudice’ is the best novel in the language." —Anthony Trollope"I used to think that men did everything better than women, but that was before I read Jane Austen. I don't think any man ever wrote better than Jane Austen." —Rex Stout"Elizabeth Bennet has but to speak, and I am at her knees." —Robert Louis Stevenson...

"The tragedy of tragedies." —Wang Guowei"['The Dream of the Red Chamber'] is to the Chinese very much what 'The Brothers Karamazov' is to Russian and 'In Search of Lost Time' is to French literature… It is beyond question one of the great novels of all literature." —Anthony West“'The Dream of the Red Chamber' and 'The Tale of Genji' are the two greatest works of prose fiction in all the history of literature." —Kenneth Rexroth"A masterpiece." —Frederic Wakeman"...

"['Fathers and Sons'] stirs the mind… because everything is permeated with the most complete and most touching sincerity." —Dmitry Pisarev"[Turgenev] was of the stuff of which glories are made." —Henry James"Turgenev is much the most difficult of the Russians to translate because his style is the most beautiful." —Constance Garnett"What an amazing language!" —Anton ChekhovConsidered Ivan Turgenev’s greatest work, “Fathers and Sons” was the first of the great ni...

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, «The Death of Ivan Ilyich» is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

"One of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world." —Upton Sinclair"The greatest of all novels." —Leo Tolstoy"Hugo is unquestionably the most powerful talent that has appeared in France in the nineteenth century." —Fyodor Dostoyevsky"I sobbed and wailed and thought [books] were the greatest things." —Susan Sontag«Les Misérables» is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in ...

«Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero» is a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in 1847–48, satirizing society in early 19th-century Britain. The book's title comes from John Bunyan's allegorical story The Pilgrim's Progress, first published in 1678 and still widely read at the time of Thackeray's novel. Vanity fair refers to a stop along the pilgrim's progress: a never-ending fair held in a town called Vanity, which is meant to represent man's sinful attachment to worldly...

"The genius of Richardson’s narration is not simply the innovative use of epistolary fiction… but also the subtlety with which he unfolds the dark tragedy of Clarissa’s fatal attraction to Lovelace." —Robert McCrum"O Richardson! In spite of ourselves we play a role in your works, we take part in your conversations, we approve, we blame, we marvel…" —Denis Diderot"No one, in any language, has ever written a novel that equals or even approaches 'Clarissa'". —Jean-Jacques Rousse...

"There are few novels which grip so thrillingly as those first read in childhood, and for me none which has quite matched the excitement of Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Treasure Island'." —P. D. James"It is a breathless journey and the closest thing to a real pirate adventure without an eye patch and a time machine... It is a unique work of genius." —Eoin Colfer"Over 'Treasure Island' I let my fire die in winter without knowing I was freezing." —J. M. Barrie“'Treasure Isl...

Dorian Gray is the subject of a full-length portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist who is impressed and infatuated by Dorian's beauty; he believes that Dorian’s beauty is responsible for the new mode in his art as a painter. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, and he soon is enthralled by the aristocrat's hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual fulfilment are the only things worth pursuing in life...