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...

"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 ...

"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 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"...

"I do not say there is no character as well-drawn in Shakespeare [as D’Artagnan]. I do say there is none that I love so wholly." —Robert Louis Stevenson"A masterpiece which remains as fresh and living as if it were written yesterday." —Jean Lucas-Dubreton"Dumas had genius of a certain kind — the genius that comes of vigour and a sense of the dramatic." —André MauroisOne of the most celebrated and popular historical romances ever written, The Three Musketeers tell the ...

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?

Dark allegory describes the narrator’s journey up the Congo River and his meeting with, and fascination by, Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious personage who dominates the unruly inhabitants of the region. Masterly blend of adventure, character development, psychological penetration. Considered by many Conrad’s finest, most enigmatic story.

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...

"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...

"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...

"['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...