Study Guides

"Wuthering Heights" seems bafflingly unlike other novels yet constantly speaks to popular imagination. This edition for students and teachers engages with some of the key issues in contemporary critical theory.

MOST of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual - he is a combina tion of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of archi tecture.

The wish spoken by Dorian Gray as he looks at his portrait forms the basis of the plot of this story of a gilded and spoilt hedonist who is willing to sell his soul for his beauty.

When John Durberyfield discovers a family connection to the ancient Norman family, the d'Urbervilles, the fate of daughter Tess is transformed.

Wild child Huck has to get away. His violent drunk of a father is back in town again, raising Cain. He won't rest until he has Huck's money. So the enterprising boy fakes his own death and sets out in search of adventure and freedom. Teaming up with Jim, an escaped slave with a price on his head, the two fugitives go on the run, travelling down the wide Mississippi River. But Huck finds himself wrestling with his conscience. Should he save Jim, or turn his friend over to a terrible fate?

At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, "Persuasion" is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, but, above all, it is a love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

The War of the Worlds is a timeless science fiction novel by H.G. Wells. Taking place in London, it covers the fears, escape plans and struggles for reunion of families amidst an invasion from mars. An inspiration to artists of every sort from radio to literature to film, this is the original edition updated with a working table of contents for easy navigation.