What Maisie Knew is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Chap-Book and in the New Review in 1897 and then as a book later that year. It tells the story of the sensitive daughter of divorced, irresponsible parents. The book follows the title character from earliest childhood to precocious maturity. When Beale and Ida Farange are divorced, the court decrees that their only child, the very young Maisie, will shuttle back and forth...

"As I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of vine-leaves under the blue sky of southern Italy, it comes to me with a certain quality of astonishment that my participation in these amazing adventures of Mr. Cavor was, after all, the outcome of the purest accident. It might have been any one. I fell into these things at a time when I thought myself removed from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. I had gone to Lympne because I...

Anthony and Gloria are the essence of Jazz Age glamour. A brilliant and magnetic couple, they fling themselves at life with an energy that is thrilling. New York is a playground where they dance and drink for days on end. Their marriage is a passionate theatrical performance; they are young, rich, alive and lovely and they intend to inherit the earth. But as money becomes tight, their marriage becomes impossible. And with their inheritance still distant,...

First published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into haves and have nots evolves a drama that is intensely human...

“There it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon.”
 
Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull's egg, as "perfect as the moon." With the...

Painstakingly detailed, incredibly well executed Flaubert's seminal novel took five long years of hard work to achieve. The result is a piece of work that from the opening pages transports the reader into another world. Like a fly-on-the-wall documentary Madame Bovary seemingly leaves nothing out of the detailed existence of an unhappy marriage and a sallow housewife bent on seeking some excitement. Yet, its precision and exact storytelling...

The Fixer is the winner of the 1967 National Book Award for Fiction and the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The Fixer (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel — one that makes manifest his roots in Russian fiction, especially that of Isaac Babel.
Set in Kiev in 1911 during a period of heightened anti-Semitism, the novel tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman blamed for the brutal

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Born in 106 BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero was the member of a well connected and well to do family. His cognomen, a personal surname, is derived from the Latin word for chickpea. It is suggested that this name may have been chosen as a result of his family's prosperity arising from the cultivation of chickpeas. His name suggests that despite being one the wealthiest men of his time he viewed himself he carried himself with humility. Educated in Latin...

Presents thirty Maugham works of short fiction including the short tragedy "Rain" as well as "The Lion's Skin" and "A Man From Glasgow."