Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol, 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...

Germinal, by Emile Zola, 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...

Published in 1872, thirteen years after On the Origin of Species, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is devoted to documenting what Darwin believes is the genetically determined aspects of behavior. Together with The Descent of Man (1871), it sketches out Darwin's main thesis of human origins. Here he traces the animal origins of human characteristics such as pursing of the lips in concentration, tightening of the muscles around the...

Vathek (1786) is a novel by William Beckford. Inspired by his travels, Beckford wrote Vathek in French before supervising its translation into English by Reverend Samuel Henley. Recognized as an instrumental work in the popularization of Orientalist fiction, Vathek is an early Gothic novel that influenced such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Lord Byron, Robert Southey, and H. P. Lovecraft. Born into a royal family, Vathek is appointed the ninth caliph...

The Titan (1914) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. The second installment of Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire, The Financier has endured as a classic of naturalist fiction and remains a powerful example of social critique over a century after its publication. Preceded by The Financier (1914) and followed by The Stoic (1947), The Titan captures the greed at the heart of the Gilded Age, a time when tycoons rose with total impunity to take over swaths of American...

This daring tale of revenge and exotic intrigue is demonstrative of Stevenson's broad range and unique genius. "The Master of Ballantrae", first published in 1889, follows the conflict between two Scottish brothers of noble origins during the tumultuous Jacobite Risings of 1745. Greed and envy threaten to tear the brothers apart as a race for the family inheritance intensifies. James Durie, the protagonist and Master of Ballantrae, is as charming...

A renowned poet's artful collection is a striking body of work.

Experience great adventures in the company of Kings and Queens, talking animals and magical creatures in the fourth stunning volume A cat had made acquaintance with a mouse, and had spoken so much of the great love and friendship she felt for her, that at last the Mouse consented to live in the same house with her, and to go shares in the housekeeping. 'But we must provide for the winter or else we shall suffer hunger,' said the Cat.  'You, little...

Crome Yellow (1921) is a novel by English author Aldous Huxley. Inspired by his stay at Garsington Manor with members of the Bloomsbury Group, Crome Yellow, Huxley's debut novel, satirizes the society of England's intellectual and political elite. In addition to its autobiographical content, the novel investigates such themes as spirituality, the nature and composition of art, and the fear of a dystopian future. Invited to spend part of the summer...

With two parts and seventeen stories, Stephen Crane's The Open Boat and Other Stories is an eclectic collection that stuns with its use of naturalism and angst. In the first part, titled Minor Conflicts, Crane shares eight works of short fiction. Among these is The Bride Comes to the Yellow Sky, a tense drama that explores themes of change with the portrayal of a Texas marshal who is saved from gunfight by his bride. Death and the Child follows a...