Introduction by Diane Johnson
Commentary by G. K. Chesterton, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Rigby, George Saintsbury, and Anthony Trollope
Initially published under the pseudonym Currer Bell in 1847, Charlotte Bronte s "Jane Eyre" erupted onto the English literary scene, immediately winning the devotion of many of the world s most renowned writers, including William Makepeace Thackeray, who declared it a work of great genius. Widely regarded as a revolutionary novel, Bronte s masterpiece introduced the world to a radical new type of heroine, one whose defiant virtue and moral courage...

In this splendid new translation of Voltaire's satiric masterpiece, all the celebrated wit, irony, and trenchant social commentary of one of the great works of the Enlightenment is restored and refreshed.
Voltaire may have cast a jaundiced eye on eighteenth-century Europe-a place that was definitely not the "best of all possible worlds." But amid its decadent society, despotic rulers, civil and religious wars, and other ills, Voltaire found a mother lode of comic material. And this is why Peter Constantine's thoughtful translation is such a pleasure, presenting all the book's...

A Major New Translation

The Red and the Black, Stendhal's masterpiece, is the story of Julien Sorel, a young dreamer from the provinces, fueled by Napoleonic ideals, whose desire to make his fortune sets in motion events both mesmerizing and tragic. Sorel's quest to find himself, and the doomed love he encounters along the way, are delineated with an unprecedented psychological depth and realism. At the same time, Stendhal weaves together the social life and fraught political intrigues of post-Napoleonic France, bringing that world to unforgettable, full-color life. His...