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.

Cornelius Tacitus brilliantly chronicles the moral decline and rampant civil unrest in the Roman Empire in a period when the earliest foundations of modern Europe were being laid. The Annals commence in a.d. 14, at the death of Augustus, recounting the reigns of Tiberius, Gaius (Caligula), Claudius, and Nero, and conclude in a.d. 68, the year of Nero's suicide. The Histories document the tumultuous year a.d. 69, when Emperors Galba, Otho, and Vitellius all perished in quick succession, ushering in Vespasian's ten-year reign. According to historian Will Durant, " We must] rank...

The first of Trollope's popular Barsetshire novels, set in the fictional cathedral town of Barchester, The Warden centers on the honorable cleric Septimus Harding, one of Trollope's most memorable characters. When Harding is accused of mismanaging church funds, his predicament lays bare the complexities of the Victorian world and of nineteenth-century provincial life. And, as Louis Auchincloss observes in his Introduction, "The theme of The Warden presents the kind of social problem that always fascinated Trollope: the inevitable clash of ancient privilege with modern social...

The Innocents Abroad is one of the most prominent and influential travel books ever written about Europe and the Holy Land. In it, the collision of the American "New Barbarians" and the European "Old World" provides much comic fodder for Mark Twain--and a remarkably perceptive lens on the human condition. Gleefully skewering the ethos of American tourism in Europe, Twain's lively satire ultimately reveals just what it is that defines cultural identity. As Twain himself points out, "Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little...

The first and best of the Tarzan novels, of which Edgar Rice Burroughs eventually wrote several dozen, Tarzan of the Apes remains one of the signature stories of American popular literature, as readable as it is famous. Tarzan himself, in the words of Arthur C. Clarke, is -the best known character in the whole of fiction.- As John Taliaferro asserts in his Introduction to this Modern Library Paperback Classic, -There is no question that Tarzan of the Apes] is one of the most entertaining and exemplary books of the last century. . . . It] is not merely a story from a bygone...

Celia Correas de Zapata, an internationally recognized expert in the field of Latin American fiction written by women, has collected stories by thirty-one authors from fourteen countries, translated into English by such renowned scholars and writers as Gregory Rabassa and Margaret Sayers Peden. Contributors include Dora Alonso, Rosario Ferre, Elena Poniatowska, Ana Lydia Vega, and Luisa Valenzuela. The resulting book is a literary tour de force, stories written by women in this hemisphere that speak to cultures throughout the world. In her Foreword, Isabel Allende states, This anthology is so...

Concerned for her family s financial welfare and eager to expand her own horizons, Agnes Grey takes up the position of governess, the only respectable employment for an unmarried woman in the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, Agnes cannot anticipate the hardship, humiliation, and loneliness that await her in the brutish Bloomfield and haughty Murray households. Drawn from Anne Bronte s own experiences, "Agnes Grey" depicts the harsh conditions and class snobbery that governesses were often forced to endure. As Barbara A. Suess writes in her Introduction, Bronte provides a portrait of the...

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Set amid the splendor of London drawing rooms and gilded Venetian palazzos, The Wings of the Dove is the story of Milly Theale, a naive, doomed American heiress, and a pair of lovers, Kate Croy and Merton Densher, who conspire to obtain her fortune. In this witty tragedy of treachery, self-deception, and betrayal, Henry James weaves together three ill-fated and wholly human destinies unexpectedly linked by desire, greed, and salvation. As Amy Bloom writes in her Introduction, "The Wings of the...