With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Nicola Bradbury, University of Reading. This simple and haunting story captures the transcience of life and its surrounding emotions. To the Lighthouse is the most autobiographical of Virginia Woolf's novels. It is based on her own early experiences, and while it touches on childhood and children's perceptions and desires, it is at its most trenchant when exploring adult relationships, marriage and the changing class-structure in the period spanning the Great War.

Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. Besides the theme of persuasion, the novel evokes other topics, such as the Royal Navy, in which two of Jane Austen's brothers ultimately rose to the rank of admiral. As in Northanger Abbey, the superficial social life of Bath—well known to Austen, who spent several relatively unhappy and unproductive years there—is portrayed extensively and serves as a setting for the second half of the book. In many respects, Persuasion marks a break with Austen's previous works, both in the more biting, even irritable satire directed at some of the novel's characters and in the regretful, resigned outlook of its otherwise admirable heroine, Anne Elliot, in the first part of the story. Against this is set the energy and appeal of the Royal Navy, which symbolises for Anne and the reader the possibility of a more outgoing, engaged, and fulfilling life, and it is this worldview which triumphs for the most part at the end of the novel. More than eight years before the novel opens, Anne Elliot, then a lovely, thoughtful, warm-hearted 19-year old, accepted a proposal of marriage from the handsome young naval officer Frederick Wentworth. He was clever, confident, and ambitious, but poor and with no particular family connections to recommend him. Sir Walter, Anne's fatuous, snobbish father and her equally self-involved older sister Elizabeth were dissatisfied with her choice, maintaining that he was no match for an Elliot of Kellynch Hall, the family estate. Her older friend and mentor, Lady Russell, acting in place of Anne's late mother, persuaded her to break the engagement, for she, too, felt it was an imprudent match that was beneath Anne. Now 27 and still unmarried, Anne re-encounters her former love when his sister and brother-in-law, the Crofts, take out a lease on Kellynch. Wentworth is now a captain and wealthy from maritime victories in the Napoleonic wars. However, he has not forgiven Anne for rejecting him. While publicly declaring that he is ready to marry any suitable young woman who catches his fancy, he privately resolves that he is ready to become attached to any appealing young woman with the exception of Anne Elliot. The self-interested machinations of Anne's father, her older sister Elizabeth, Elizabeth's widowed friend Mrs. Clay, and William Elliot (Anne's cousin and her father's heir) constitute important subplots.

Each 48-page Study Guide includes 35 reproducible exercises, teaching suggestions, background notes, chapter summaries, and answer keys.

Bronte’s novel about a shy, quiet governess who becomes a tutor in a great house and falls in love with its lonely and mysterious master is one of the great classics of English literature. Unique in its attention to the thoughts and feelings of a female protagonist, Jane Eyre was ahead of its time as a proto-feminist text. When it was published in 1847, however, Bronte was attacked by critics for what they felt was anti-Christian sentiment in her unflinching critique of the oppressions of Victorian society.

“Every time I meet someone who also loves I Capture the Castle, I know we must be kindred spirits.” —from the new foreword by Jenny Han, the New York Times bestselling author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.A beautiful, deluxe edition of Dodie Smith’s beloved novel, I Capture the Castle, featuring a new foreword by New York Times bestselling author Jenny Han, a stunning new cover, and designed endpapers that is perfect for devoted readers and those discovering this timeless story for the first time.Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain and her family may live in a ramshackle old English castle, but that’s about as romantic as her life gets. While her beautiful older sister, Rose, longs to live in a Jane Austen novel, Cassandra knows that meeting an eligible man to marry isn’t in either of their futures when their home is crumbling and they have to sell their furniture for food. So Cassandra instead strives to hone her writing skills in her journals. Until one day when their new landlords move in, which include two (very handsome) sons, and the lives of the Mortmain sisters change forever.Through Cassandra’s sharply funny, yet poignant, journal entries, she chronicles the great changes that take place within the castle’s walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has “captured the castle” – and the heart of the reader – in one of literature’s most enchanting novels.“This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met.” —J.K. Rowling, bestselling author of the Harry Potter series

Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, who, vividly drawn by Capote, are shown to be reprehensible, yet entirely and frighteningly human. The book that made Capote's name, In Cold Blood is a seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative.

Fitzgerald war der literarische Wortführer des "Jazz Age". Er hat das glitzernde New York der Zwischenkriegsjahre, das sich für die Rhythmen von Duke Ellington und Louis Armstrong begeisterte, eingefangen, ohne die Frage auszublenden, ob dieser Glanz trügerisch sei. Seine Helden, kaum verhüllte Selbstporträts, strotzen nur so vor Selbstbewusstsein und leiden zugleich an ihrem Ausbeuten der eigenen Seele. Ungekürzte und unbearbeitete Textausgabe in der Originalsprache, mit Übersetzungen schwieriger Wörter am Fuß jeder Seite, Nachwort und Literaturhinweisen. Mit Seitenzählung der gedruckten Ausgabe: Buch und E-Book können parallel benutzt werden.

Harper Lee's classic novel of a lawyer in the Deep South defending a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many distinctions since its original publication in 1960. It won the Pulitzer Prize, has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, and been made into an enormously popular movie. Most recently, librarians across the country gave the book the highest of honors by voting it the best novel of the twentieth century.

As featured in O, Oprah Magazine, and selected for The Great American Read, the PBS series celebrating America’s 100 most-loved books.Jane Austen's best-loved novel is an unforgettable story about the inaccuracy of first impressions, the power of reason, and above all the strange dynamics of human relationships and emotions.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated by Hugh Thomson and features an afterword by author and critic, Henry Hitchings.A tour de force of wit and sparkling dialogue, Pride and Prejudice shows how the headstrong Elizabeth Bennet and the aristocratic Mr Darcy must have their pride humbled and their prejudices dissolved before they can acknowledge their love for each other.