The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy, 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...

Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr. Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career; and, the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. In nineteenth-century England, Dorothea Brooke's...

This classic novel takes place in Lantern Yard, a slum street in an unnamed city in Northern England, during the early 19th century. There, Silas Marner, a weaver and a member of a small Calvinist congregation, is falsely accused of stealing the congregation's funds while watching over their very ill deacon. Two pieces of evidence are against Silas: his possession of a pocket knife and the bag that formerly contained the money. Although there is also...

"Nothing escaped the satirist's whip: politics, finance, the aristocracy, the literary world, gambling, sex, and much else. In this world of bribes and vendettas, swindling and suicide, in which heiresses are won like gambling stakes, Trollope's characters embody all the vices: Lady Carbury, a 43-year-old coquette, 'false from head to foot'; her son Felix, with the 'instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog'; and Melmotte,...

Emma Woodhouse imagines that she dominates those around her in the small town of Highbury, but her inept matchmaking creates problems for herself and others.

Achieving wealth and success through his savage ambitions, tycoon Rhys Winterborne resolves to marry shy, aristocratic Lady Helen Ravenel, who in spite of her gentle upbringing responds to Rhys' seductions with her own unexpected passions.

Marrying the seemingly delicate Lady Edwina Delbraith, Declan Frobisher discovers that his new bride is unconventional and strong-willed after she accompanies him on a secret mission that leads them to unexpected enemies -- and love. Facing unforeseen perils and unexpected enemies while battling to expose a dastardly scheme involving kidnapped British citizens in West Africa, Declan and Edwina discover that their unusual marriage demands something...

"A London heiress rides out to the wilds of the English countryside to honor a marriage of convenience with a mysterious and reclusive stranger. Tall, dark, and dour, the notorious Captain Jasper Blunt was once hailed a military hero, but tales abound ofhis bastard children and his haunted estate in Yorkshire. What he requires now is a rich wife to ornament his isolated ruin, and he has set his sights on the enchanting Julia Wychwood. For Julia, an...

Preferring a career to participating in the London season, strong-willed debutante Lady Pandora Ravenel unexpectedly meets her match in notorious rake Lord St. Vincent, who talks her into a marriage of convenience as part of his plan to win her heart.

Inheriting not only an earldom, but also an estate riddled with debt and the late earl's three sisters and Kathleen, Lady Trenear, a beautiful young widow, Devon Ravenel engages in a sensual battle of wills with this woman whose sharp wit and determination are a match for his own.