A Timeless Classic of Societal Customs, Cultural Disputes, and The Cost of Non-Conformity Henry James' novella Daisy Miller, features one of his greatest heroines. At first glance it seems to be a simple story of a lovely young, independent American girl traveling through Europe. But her flouting of social conventions has the potential to lead to catastrophe as she disrupts the rigid social rules of the Old World, attracting and scandalizing all...

Miles Franklin's 1901 ground-breaking debut, and an instant sensation. Meet Sybylla Melvyn, the young girl hungering for life and love in outback New South Wales. First published in 1901, this Australian classic is the candid tale of the aspirations and frustrations of sixteen-year-old Sybylla Melvin, a headstrong country girl constrained by middle-class social arrangements, especially the pressure to marry. Trapped on her parents' outback farm, Sybylla...

"A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman's attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world-from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen."-- Provided by publisher.

"Willa Cather's third novel, The Song of the Lark, depicts the growth of an artist, singer Thea Kronborg. In creating Thea's character, Cather was inspired by the Swedish-born immigrant and renowned Wagnerian soprano Olive Fremstad, although Thea's early life also has much in common with Cather's own. Set from 1885 to 1909, the novel traces Thea's long journey from her fictional hometown of Moonstone, Colorado, to her source of inspiration in the...

Catherine Sloper, heiress to a considerable fortune, lives in a fine house in Washington Square with her widowed father and aunt. She is quiet and kind but not, in her father's critical gaze, very clever, and when the handsome and attentive Morris Townsend, newly returned to New York, begins courting her, her father forbids the match, doubting Morris's motives. The shadow of her father, an esteemed physician still mourning the loss of his beloved...

Moving from the industrial riots of discontented millworkers through to the unsought passions of a middle-class woman, and from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of naval mutiny, it poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Through the story of Margaret Hale, the middle-class southerner who moves to the northern industrial town of Milton, Gaskell skilfully explores issues of class and gender in the...

The Bostonians is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Century Magazine in 1885-1886 and then as a book in 1886. This bittersweet tragicomedy centers on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and a Boston feminist; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty, young protégée of Olive's in the feminist movement. The storyline concerns the struggle between Ransom...

"They vanish without a trace. Disappear into the night... Each year on the center island, one girl is chosen to be the next Mortal Queen of the idolized fae. The mortals praise these lucky girls, but their daughters are never seen again. The fae realm is eternal night, where disputes are settled by chess matches, power is acquired through the most devious kinds of trickery, and seven illusive kings roam. The fae hide their faces behind masks and guard...

"Count your nights by stars, not shadows. Count your life with smiles, not tears. 1961. After a longtime resident at Nashville's historic Maxwell House Hotel suffers a debilitating stroke, Audrey Whitfield is tasked with cleaning out the reclusive woman's room. There, she discovers an elaborate scrapbook filled with memorabilia from the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Love notes on the backs of unmailed postcards inside capture Audrey's imagination...

The story of a young woman named Judy and her romance with a man to whom she has only written letters, Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs is a classic romance story that has inspired movie, television and theatrical reproductions. Judy Abbott was raised at the John Grier Home, an orphanage, where at age 18 she remained to work as a maid. One day, a matron of the institution informs Judy that a trustee has offered to pay for her college and provide her...