The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabeled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and supply a happy ending. The play has been...

Gulliver sees life from many different perspectives during the course of his exciting voyages around the world. In Lilliput he is a giant among a race of little people only six inches high; in Brobdingnag he himself seems tiny compared to the giant inhabitants; and in the country of the Houyhnhnms, horses rule and the human creatures there have the status of animals. Life back in England seems very ordinary after all that he has seen.

The beloved ecclesiastical satire and enduring political novel, by one of the finest English authors of the nineteenth century. Part social commentary, part high comedy, the second installment in the Chronicles of Barsetshire is one of Anthony Trollope's most beloved novels, and cemented the author's reputation as the preeminent chronicler of Victorian England. When the well-regarded bishop of Barchester Cathedral unexpectedly passes away, the Evangelical...

After being kidnapped by his villainous uncle, sixteen-year-old David Balfour escapes and becomes involved in the struggle of the Scottish highlanders against English rule.

When John Barton's wife dies, he is forced to raise his daughter, Mary, alone, while he grieves the love of his life. Though he is a hard-working man, John struggles to provide for his family. Realizing how unfair his financial situation is, John becomes very resentful towards the unethical distribution of wealth between the social classes. Against John's wishes, when Mary comes of age, she decides to help support their family by working in a dressmaking...

The Pickwick Papers was Dicken's response to his publisher's request for a monthly series of sporting sketches. It became the most famous of all pre-Victorian novels. The central characters, Mr Pickwick and Sam Weller, are as familiar today as they became on publication, and there are over a hundred other speaking parts. The action is set in the late Georgian perid of the writer's earliest youth, drawing on experience and acute observation ranging...

D. H. Lawrence's 1915 novel "The Rainbow" is the story of three generations of the Brangwens family. While tame by today's standards, "The Rainbow", for its frank treatment of human sexuality, caused Lawence to be prosecuted on an obscenity charge in England when it was first published. Through richly personal characterizations, "The Rainbow" deals profoundly with the very nature of human relations as it explores the sexuality of Ursula Brangwen and...

The Riddle of the Sands is a 1903 novel by Erskine Childers. The book, which enjoyed immense popularity in the years before World War I, is an early example of the espionage novel and was extremely influential in the genre of spy fiction. It has been made into feature-length films for both cinema and television. The novel "owes a lot to the wonderful adventure novels of writers like Rider Haggard, that were a staple of Victorian Britain". It was a...

A prize of 100,000 guilders awaits the gardener who can produce a black tulip, a rich reward that incites a bitter competition in 17th-century Holland. Cornelius von Baerle, a gifted and passionate florist, has dedicated himself to cultivating the elusive flower. But a ruthless rival, capitalizing on accusations that led to the assassination of Cornelius's godfather, falsely accuses the young horticulturist of treason. Sentenced to life imprisonment,...