The Cliff

"Charlotte Bronte (21 April 1816 - 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Bronte sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She enlisted in school at Roe Head in January 1831, aged 14 years. She left the year after to teach her sisters, Emily and Anne, at home, returning in 1835 as a governess. In 1839 she undertook the role as governess for the Sidgwick family but...

When David Copperfield's widowed mother remarries, David suffers from his stepfather's abuse. At age 8, David is sent away to a harsh school where the principal routinely beats the students. David's circumstances become even worse when he is removed from school and, at age 10, forced to labor from morning to night in a London warehouse. David then decides to take desperate action. He will run away to his great-aunt, who lives in Dover. Having never...

A married woman falls blindly in love with a handsome military officer. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. States Leo Tolstoy in his great modern novel of an adulterous affair set against the backdrop of Moscow and St. Petersburg high society in the later half of the nineteenth century. A sophisticated woman who is respectably married to a government bureaucrat, Anna begins a passionate, all-consuming involvement...

When a Martian spacecraft lands on Woking Common, mankind is terrorized by aliens in tall, armored capsules which stalk the countryside on three legs. The machines wreak havoc on London and the Southern Counties, and survivors are driven underground. Scientist John Nicholson tells how he was plunged into a paralyzing nightmare of stark terror, savage madness and utter destruction.

"The vividness of Homer's language, his large-scale rhythms and hard edges, are laid bare in this new translation--as is the bracing speech of his gods and mortals and, above all, the boldness of his narrative strokes."--Jacket.

The epic tale of an eccentric country gentleman and his companion who set out as a knight and squire of old to right wrongs and punish evil in sixteenth-century Spain.

One of the most influential and compelling books in American literature, Walden is a vivid account of the years that Henry D. Thoreau spent alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond. This edition-introduced by noted American writer John Updike-celebrates the perennial importance of a classic work, originally published in 1854. Much of Walden's material is derived from Thoreau's journals and contains such engaging pieces from the lively "Where I Lived,...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ...for her, life was as cold as an attic with a window looking to the north, and ennui, like a spider, was silently spinning its shadowy web in every cranny of her heart. Married to Charles, a provincial doctor, Emma Bovary yearns for a more glamorous life. Disenchanted with her husband and seeking an escape from their dull marriage she is soon tempted into a brief...

This classic novella by the author of A Christmas Carol offers another unforgettable holiday tale of despair and redemption in Victorian England. An impoverished old man, Toby "Trotty" Veck is beginning to despair for society. On New Year's Eve, after reading the latest news of crime and depravity in London, he begins to wonder if the poorer classes are simply born wicked. But after coming across a drifter and an orphan-whom Trotty happens to know...

In dark days, men need a clear faith and a well-grounded hope; and as the outcome of these, the calm courage which takes no account of hardships by the way. The times through which we are passing have afforded to many of us a confirmation of our faith. We see that the things we had thought evil are really evil, and we know more definitely than we ever did before the directions in which men must move if a better world is to arise on the ruins of the...