From a tormented orphan with a clubfoot, Philip Carey grows into an impressionable young man with a voracious appetite for adventure and knowledge. His cravings take him to Paris at age eighteen to try his hand at art, then back to London to study medicine. But even so, nothing can sate his nagging hunger for experience. Then he falls obsessively in love, embarking on a disastrous relationship that will change his life forever.

Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...

Wrestling with the disease of alcoholism for most of his life, Jack London tells all in his autobiography John Barleycorn. Beginning with a discussion of the prohibition movement and its effects, London explores the ways that alcohol affects daily life in the Victorian era. Because there were not many forms of affordable entertainment or reliable communication, bars were the perfect spot for social activity. People were able to sit and drink, enjoying...

"At a glittering society party in St. Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon’s army marches on Russia, and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical Andrey, and impetuous Natasha interweave with a huge cast, from aristocrats and peasants, to soldiers and Napoleon himself. In War and Peace, Tolstoy entwines grand themes—conflict...

"For an indefinite time I clung to the machine as it swayed and vibrated, quite unheeding how I went, and when I brought myself to look at the dials again I was amazed to find where I had arrived." Embark on a journey hundreds of thousands of years into the future on a homemade time machine! The Time Traveler discovers what he first perceives as a perfect pastoral landscape inhabited by an evolved form of humanity, but soon he discovers the dark...

"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a pioneering account of one man’s journey from slavery to freedom. Douglass’s powerful autobiography was an instant bestseller upon publication in 1845 and played a fundamental role in the abolition of slavery, a movement that Douglass dedicated his life to. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers....

And now it appeared that there was a mysterious Queen clothed by rumor with dread and wonderful attributes, and commonly known by the impersonal but, to my mind, rather awesome title of She.With She, H. Rider Haggard polished the literary "lost world" odyssey. Coming upon an underground civilization more ancient than the world of pharaohs, a group of adventurers catch the attention of Ayesha, the sorceress queen.Gothic grotesqueries, penny dreadfuls,...

"Orphaned at birth to labor in a workhouse, Oliver Twist is barely ten when he flees for London. There he befriends young Jack Dawkins, who educates the innocent Oliver in the ways of survival. When Jack draws Oliver into a gang of juvenile pickpockets, tutored by the unscrupulous Fagin, Oliver's corruptive influences grow. But for a boy taught only wrong, Oliver must hold on to what he knows is right. In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens furiously condemns...

"Clare Kendry is living on the edge. Light-skinned, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a racist white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past after deciding to 'pass' as a white woman. Clare’s childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, and is simultaneously allured and repelled by Clare’s risky decision to engage in racial...