"British gentlemen Phileas Fogg makes a desperate wager that he and his servant the wily Passepartout, can circle the Earth in 80 days. Travelling by rail, by sea, even by elephant, Fogg overcomes every obstacle--and even rescues the beautiful Indian princess, Aouda, from certain death! But someone is tracking Fogg, determined to bring him back to England." --back cover

"Introducing one of the most famous characters in literature, Jean Valjean—the noble peasant imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread—Les Misérables ranks among the greatest novels of all time. In it, Victor Hugo takes readers deep into the Parisian underworld, immerses them in a battle between good and evil, and carries them to the barricades during the uprising of 1832 with a breathtaking realism that is unsurpassed in modern prose. Within...

"Tom Sawyer is as clever, imaginative, and resourceful as he is reckless and mischievous, whether conning his friends into painting a fence, playing pirates with his pal Huck Finn, witnessing his own funeral, or helping to catch a murderer. Twain’s novel glows with nostalgia for the Mississippi River towns of his youth and sparkles with his famous humor, but it is also woven throughout with a subtle awareness of the injustices and complexities of...

"For as long as Man has looked to the heavens, the Moon has beckoned him, just out of reach. Now a band of dedicated engineers build the largest bun on Earth and train its dights heavenward; brave men will ride the 'bullet' all teh way to the Moon. But will the flight be jeopardized by the feud of two bitter rivals? Every obstacle can be overcome--if man can overhis own worst impulses!" --back cover

The epitome of the chivalric novel, Ivanhoe sweeps readers into Medieval England and the lives of a memorable cast of characters. Ivanhoe, a trusted ally of Richard-the-Lion-Hearted, returns from the Crusades to reclaim the inheritance his father denied him. Rebecca, a vibrant, beautiful Jewish woman is defended by Ivanhoe against a charge of witchcraft -- but it is Lady Rowena who is Ivanhoe's true love. The wicked Prince John plots to usurp England's...

"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...

"When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, he greeted her as 'the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.' He was exaggerating only slightly. First published in 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold more than 300,000 copies in its first year and brought home the evils of slavery more dramatically than any abolitionist tract possibly could. With its boldly drawn characters, violent reversals of fortune, and unabashed sentimentality,...