The Mayor of Casterbridge, 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...

Losing a friend can be as painful and agonizing as a divorce or the end of a love affair, yet it is rarely written about or even discussed. This is the first anthology to address this near-universal experience, bringing together the voices of writers like Francine Prose, Katie Roiphe, Dorothy Allison, Elizabeth Strout, Ann Hood, Diana Abu-Jaber, Vivian Gornick, Helen Schulman, and many others. Some write of friends who have drifted away; others of...

Unlike the other Birthmothers in her utopian community, teenaged Claire forms an attachment to her baby, feeling a great loss when he is taken to the Nurturing Center to be adopted by a family unit.

Sisters Maple and Willow miss each other when Maple starts school, leaving Willow behind at home.

"Florence Williams explores the fascinating, cutting-edge science of heartbreak while seeking creative ways to mend her own. When her twenty-five-year marriage unexpectedly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. What she doesn't expect is that she'll end up in the hospital, examining close-up the way our cells listen to loneliness. She travels to the frontiers of the science of "social pain" to learn why heartbreak hurts...

Quentin is the Heartbreak Messenger -- someone who, for a fee, will deliver a breakup message to the soon-to-be ex. His business is surprisingly successful, but as he interacts with his clients, message recipients, and his best friend Abigail, he wonders if his own heart can remain intact.

When her husband is incarcerated for his involvement in a tragic home invasion, Patty Dickerson must raise their newborn child in a community that is sometimes hostile to her, all the while struggling to maintain her dignity.