This beautiful new edition features unpublished notes for the novel and other illuminating documentary mate- rial, all of which is included in a new Afterword by Tappan Wilder. "On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714,the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel...

When the Duke of Avon encounters a mistreated young boy on the streets of Paris, he employs the lad as his page. As the duke's closest friends ponder his actions, the precocious Léon soon becomes the talk of the aristocracy. Léon cannot believe his good fortune after being saved from a brutal beating by his older brother. He follows the duke around like a loyal puppy, a constant source of amusement for the duke, who is seen by himself-and by society-as...

"The White Lady introduces yet another extraordinary heroine from Jacqueline Winspear, creator of the best-selling Maisie Dobbs series. This heart-stopping novel, set in Post WWII Britain in 1947, follows the coming of age and maturity of former wartime operative Elinor White -- veteran of two wars, trained killer, protective of her anonymity -- when she is drawn back into the world of menace she has been desperate to leave behind. A reluctant ex-spy...

One of the major works of fiction written during the twentieth century, D. H. Lawrence's last novel is an erotic celebration of life. Described by the New York Times as "our time's most significant romance," the controversial book was banned, burned, and the subject of a landmark obscenity trial. Printed privately in Florence in 1928, it was not published in Great Britain until 1960, after having long scandalized society with its sexually explicit...

Imagine a plague so horrific, only forty percent of the population lived to tell the tale. Written as a first-person account of the world's most dangerous pandemic, the mysterious narrator bears witness to a society that has seemingly given up hope during terrifying times. . From mounting death tolls, to horrific bodily ailments, contracting the Black Plague was considered a fate worse than death. Combining his own experiences within each of the...

"A captivating novel about two women, centuries apart, fighting to be heard -- one of whom may be the real author of Shakespeare's plays -- from the New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here. As an undergraduate, Melina Green had a rare opportunity to have one of her first plays judged by famous theater critic Jasper Tolle, only to be publicly humiliated by a harsh and biased critique. Ten years later, her confidence as a playwright...

First published serially between January and December of 1878 in the sensationalistic monthly London magazine "Belgravia", Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native" is the author's sixth published novel. Set in Egdon Heath, an area of Thomas Hardy's fictionalized Wessex known for the thorny evergreen shrubs, called furze or gorse, which are cut there by its residents for fuel. When the story begins, on Guy Fawkes Night, we find Diggory Venn, a merchant...

Capturing the essence of the Southwest in 1915, Oliver La Farge's Pulitzer Prize-winning first novel is an enduring American classic. At a ceremonial dance, the young, earnest silversmith Laughing Boy falls in love with Slim Girl, a beautiful but elusive "American"--Educated Navajo. As they experience all of the joys and uncertainties of first love, the couple must face a changing way of life and its tragic consequences.-publisher's description.

Bathsheba Everdene arrives in the small village of Weatherbury and captures the heart of three very different men: Gabriel Oak, a quiet shepherd; the proud, obdurate Farmer Boldwood; and, dashing, unscrupulous Sergeant Troy. The battle for her affections will have dramatic, tragic and surprising consequences in this classic tale of love and misunderstanding.

"2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century. 1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder...