Presents Whitman's classic poem celebrating himself and the American experience.

A moving cultural biography of abolitionist martyr John Brown, by one of the most important African-American intellectuals of the twentieth century.
In the history of slavery and its legacy, John Brown looms large as a hero whose deeds partly precipitated the Civil War. As Frederick Douglass wrote: "When John Brown stretched forth his arm ... the clash of arms was at hand." DuBois's biography brings Brown stirringly to life and is a neglected classic.

Rudyard Kipling, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1907, has long been considered an important and vibrant, even controversial, storyteller and poet. The Wish House and Other Stories is a collection of Kipling's finest works, including the stories "In the House of Suddhoo," "The Disturber of Traffic," and "The Eye of Allah," the poems "The Runners," "The Return of the Children," and "The Last Ode," and his famous story about Afghanistan, "The Man Who Would Be King." Each piece was selected by poet and scholar Craig Raine, who writes in his Preface, "We need to think about...

Mosses from an Old Manse is Nathaniel Hawthorne s second story collection, first published in 1846 in two volumes and featuring sketches and tales written over a span of more than twenty years, including such classics as Young Goodman Brown, The Birthmark, and Rappaccini s Daughter. Herman Melville deemed Hawthorne the American Shakespeare, and Henry James wrote that his early tales possess the element of simple genius, the quality of imagination. That is the real charm of Hawthorne s writing this purity and spontaneity and naturalness of fancy. "

Told by a master storyteller who, according to critic Russell Nye, "combined adventure, action, violence, crisis, conflict, sentimentalism, and sex in an extremely shrewd mixture," Riders of the Purple Sage is a classic of the Western genre. It is the story of Lassiter, a gunslinging avenger in black, who shows up in a remote Utah town just in time to save the young and beautiful rancher Jane Withersteen from having to marry a Mormon elder against her will. Lassiter is on his own quest, one that ends when he discovers a secret grave on Jane's grounds. " Zane Grey's] popularity was...

While on a sailing trip in the Baltic Sea, two young adventurers-turned-spies uncover a secret German plot to invade England. Written by Childers--who served in the Royal Navy during World War I--as a wake-up call to the British government to attend to its North Sea defenses, The Riddle of the Sands accomplished that task and has been considered a classic of espionage literature ever since, praised as much for its nautical action as for its suspenseful spycraft.

Touted by its 1885 publisher as "the most amazing story ever written," King Solomon's Mines was one of the bestselling novels of the nineteenth century. H. Rider Haggard's thrilling saga of elephant hunter Allan Quatermain and his search for fabled treasure is more than just an adventure story, though: As Alexandra Fuller explains in her Introduction, in its vivid portrayal of the alliances and battles of white colonials and African tribesmen, King Solomon's Mines "brings us the world of extremes, of the absurdly tall tales and of the illogical loyalty between disparate people...

A gripping and entertaining tale of terror and suspense as well as a potent Faustian allegory of hubris and science run amok, The Invisible Man endures as one of the signature stories in the literature of science fiction. A brilliant scientist uncovers the secret to invisibility, but his grandiose dreams and the power he unleashes cause him to spiral into intrigue, madness, and murder. The inspiration for countless imitations and film adaptations, The Invisible Man is as remarkable and relevant today as it was a hundred years ago. As Arthur C. Clarke points out in his...

The most comprehensive collection in print of the words and writings of the great American lawyer, writer, and social critic Clarence Darrow is edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Larson and ethicist Marshall.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1837-1915), Victorian England's bestselling woman writer, blends Dickensian humor with chilling suspense in this "exuberantly campy" (Kirkus Reviews) mystery. The novel features Jabez North, a manipulative orphan who becomes a ruthless killer; Valerie de Cevennes, a stunning heiress who falls into North's diabolical trap; and Mr. Peters, a mute detective who communicates his brilliant reasoning through sign language.

This edition includes a critical Afterword and endnotes by Victorian scholar Dr. Chris Willis.