-- User's guide
-- A comprehensive biography of the novelist
-- Detailed plot summaries of each novel
-- Extracts from important critical essays that examine important aspects of each work
-- A complete bibliography of the writer's novels
-- A list of critical works about the author and his or her novels
-- An index of themes and ideas covered in the books

Discusses the plots, characters, and themes of the novelist's most important works.

Offers a brief biography of Thomas Hardy and discusses the plot, characters, and themes of Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure..

Offers a brief biography of Stendhal and discusses the plot, characters, and themes of The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma..

Offers a brief biography of George Eliot and discusses the plot, characters, and themes of Silas Marner, Middlemarch, and other works.

Offers a brief biography of Franz Kafka and discusses the plots, characters and themes of Amerika, The Castle, and The Trial..

-- User's guide
-- A comprehensive biography of the novelist
-- Detailed plot summaries of each novel
-- Extracts from important critical essays that examine important aspects of each work
-- A complete bibliography of the writer's novels
-- A list of critical works about the author and his or her novels
-- An index of themes and ideas covered in the books

Offers a brief biography of Thomas Pynchon and discusses the plots, characters, and themes of The Crying of Lot 49, V, Gravity's Rainbow, and Mason & Dixon..