In 1811, Jane Austen's first published work, Sense and Sensibility," " marked the debut of England's premier novelist of manners. Believing that "3 or 4 families in a country village is the very thing to work on," she created a brilliant tragicomedy of flirtation and folly. Romantic walks through lush Devonshire and genteel dinner parties at a stately manor draw two pretty sisters into the schemes and manipulations of landed gentry determined to marry...

Laura has her first experiences as a teacher, and is courted by Almanzo Wilder. Fifteen-year-old Laura learns that living away from home and teaching school can be a bit frightening when most of the students are taller than she is, but every week Almanzo Wilder arrives to take her to her family for the weekend.

Christopher Newman, a wealthy American businessman, descends on Europe in search of a wife to make his fortune complete. In Paris he is introduced to Claire de Cintré, daughter of the ancient House of Bellegarde, and to Valentin, her charming young brother. His bid for Claire's hand receives an icy welcome from the heads of the family, an elder brother and their formidable mother, the old Marquise. Can they stomach his manners for the sake of...

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a paraphrased version and gives brief background on the author, the sources of the play, society in Elizabethan England, and the play's plot, themes, characters, and figures of speech.

The Virginian is the quiet, noble foreman of a Wyoming cattle ranch in the 1870s. More comfortable keeping company with his trusted horse than with other people, he nevertheless falls for pretty schoolteacher Molly Wood, who helps him develop an appreciation for Shakespeare, Keats, and the finer things. But when a rival suitor challenges his honor, the Virginian struggles to make his beloved Molly understand the harsh justice of the West.

After surviving the Napoleonic Wars, Sir Benedict Harper's body and spirit are in need of healing. He never imagines that hope will come in the form of a beautiful woman who has seen her own share of suffering. After the lingering death of her husband, Samantha McKay is at the mercy of her oppressive in-laws -- until she plots an escape to Wales to claim a house she has inherited. And Ben, being a gentleman, insists that he escort her on the fateful...

Polly's friendship with the wealthy Shaws of Boston helps them to build a new life and teaches her the truth about the relationship between happiness and riches.

Anthony Trollope's celebrated Parliamentary novels, of which The Eustace Diamonds (1873) is the third and most famous, are at once unfailingly amusing social comedies, melodramas of greed and deception, and precise nature studies of the political animal in its mid-Victorian habitat. With its purloined jewels, its conniving, resilient, mercenary heroine, and its partiality for the human spectacle in all its complexity, The Eustace Diamonds is a splendid...

Arizona Territory, summer, 1907. Mary Pearl Prine and her sister Esther take their minds off the heat by sneaking banned Jane Austen novels from Aunt Sarah Elliot's bookshelf. Whispered read-alouds and reveries of getting hitched to their own Mr. Darcy swirl through their day dreams. In walks Aubrey Hanna, who whisks Mary Pearl off her feet with a forbidden kiss and hasty engagement. The lustful courtship quickly creates petty tension among the three...