Best-selling Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published the first book in her charming series in 1908, making it a literary favorite for more than a hundred years. Published as a children's novel, the story of Anne Shirley, an orphan, was inspired by the author's childhood adventures on rural Prince Edward Island. It follows Anne's journey as she moves to a farm on Prince Edward Island to live with a middle-aged brother and sister who had intended to adopt a boy to help them with farming chores. The story follows Anne as she makes a home and comes of age on the island.

Anne of...

A classic piece of children's literature first published as a novel in 1911, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden is a story of transformation and renewal. Unwanted by her parents, Mary Lennox, a spoiled, selfish young girl is raised in India by servants. When cholera breaks out killing her parents and most of the servants, Mary is sent to live with a mostly absent uncle in England. It seems as though no one cares for Mary, and that Mary will never care for anyone--until she steps into the secret garden, and her life begins to change. Now available from Canterbury Classics, this...

The idea for the story came to the author, Mary Shelley, in a dream she had about a scientist who had created life and was horrified by what he had made. This Gothic-style romance is among the first of true science fiction novels, if not the first. A young scientist named Victor Frankenstein, after going through his own near-death experience, decides to play God and create life in the form of a grotesque creature, which turns into a nightmare. Through his experience, he learns that the gift of life is precious, not disposable. His journey and personal transformation has deeply affected...

"Call me Ishmael" is the iconic opening line of Herman Melville's classic American novel, Moby-Dick. Ishmael is a seaman aboard the whaling vessel, Pequod, under the vengeful captain, Ahab. Maniacally seeking retribution from the great white sperm whale called Moby-Dick -- the whale responsible for the captain's missing leg -- Ahab leads the crew on a quest to kill the infamous beast. A fictional work based on actual events, Moby-Dick is a classic that has been enjoyed for generations and is now available as part of the Word Cloud Classic series, making it a...

Dated to about the fifth century B.C., The Art of War is considered the world's oldest treatise on war. Attributed to Sun Tzu of the Zhou dynasty, the book is composed of 13 chapters, each addressing a particular aspect of warfare such as planning offenses, military combat, and the employment of spies. Influential in Eastern civilization for millennia and in Western culture since its first translation in the 18th century, the teachings of this book have been applied to scenarios as varied as office politics, the Vietnam War, and American football. Now this living military heirloom is...

Perhaps the most iconic pirate story of all time, Treasure Island was written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1881. The book follows young Jim Hawkins who finds himself in possession of a treasure map and embarks on a journey to unearth the pirate booty. His adventure takes him through the turbulent waters of morality, and his subsequent coming of age has captivated generations of readers. Rousing and full of adventure, Stevenson's Treasure Island is a classic to be enjoyed by readers of all ages. Now available as part of the Word Cloud Classics series, it makes a chic and...

Anna Sewell's 1877 classic Black Beauty is considered to be one of the foremost works in animal welfare literature and a leading work in the children's pony book genre. Narrated by the horse himself, the book follows his trials and tribulations as he passes from one owner to another and experiences the full spectrum of human treatment -- from the knowledgeable and kind to the ignorant and cruel. Beloved by children and animal lovers alike, Black Beauty is now available as part of the Word Cloud Classics series, making it a chic and affordable addition to any library....

Penned by English Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling in 1894, The Jungle Book is a collection of allegorical stories that take place in the Indian jungle. The most famous stories of The Jungle Book are those featuring a young boy named Mowgli who was raised by wolves, is friends with a panther, and was educated by the animals of the jungle. Also popular in this collection is "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," about a mongoose who protects his human family against cobras. This edition also features tales from Kipling's Just So Stories. These origin fables answer many questions about why...

Romanticism gained traction in the late 1700s as writers moved away from the intellectualism of the Enlightenment and toward more emotional and natural themes. The major works of the movement's five most famous poets -- William Wordsworth, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, and John Keats -- are represented in this handsome Word Cloud Classics volume, The Romantic Poets. One of the largest and most influential artistic movements in history, Romanticism valued intuition and pastoralism, and its themes are well represented in the...

The Poetry of Emily Dickinson is a collection of pieces by 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson, who insisted that her life of isolation gave her an introspective and deep connection with the world. As a result, her work parallels her life -- misunderstood in its time, but full of depth and imagination, and covering such universal themes as nature, art, friendship, love, society, mortality, and more. During Dickinson's lifetime only seven of her poems were published, but after her death her prolific writings were discovered and shared. With this volume, readers can dive into the...