The Rise of Silas Lapham, one of the first American novels of manners, one of the first to look at the American businessman and self-made millionaire, and one of the first to employ realism - a style that would come to dominate twentieth-century American fiction

Through brimming with exciting exploits, this journey is also metaphorical - a spiritual and psychological trip to the center of the human soul. While many of Verne`s scientific speculations have been proven, it is this author`s remarkable ability to fashion a rousing tale full of compelling characters, extraodinary adventures, and provocative ideas that ensures he will be read for years to come.

One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, Joseph Conrad`s Nostromo is an enticing and riveting tale of love, revolution, and politics set in the mythical South American country of Costaguana during the 1890s

One of the best-selling novels of the nineteenth centures, King Solomon`s Mines has inspired dozens of adventure stories, including Edgar Rice Burroughs`s Tarzan books and the Indiana Jones movies

A master of characterization, Stendhal paints a fascinating, multi-layered portrait of Julien Sorel, who endures as one of literature`s most complex and sirprisingly sympathetic characters - a would-be manipulator out of his depth in a sea of sharks

Through first published in 1908, when "motor-cars" were new and rare, The Wind in the Willows presents surprisingly contemporary - and uproariously funny - portraits of speed-crazed Mr.Toad, generous Badger, poetic Ratty, and newly emancipated Mole. And lurking all the while within the humor and good spirits, Grahame proffers deep-felt comments about the values of courage, generosity, and friendship

An enchanting tale of romance, scandal, and intrigue in the gossipy English town of Hollingford aroun the 1830s, Wives and Daughters tells the story of Molly Gibson, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a widowed country doctor

The second and most popular of Trollop`s six Barsetshire novels, Barchester Towers chronicles the struggles for power and position in an imaginary country in Victorian England. Passions start seething when an " outsider", Dr.Proudie, is appointed bishop of Barchester. Soon his ambitious, domineering wife and the amarmy, scheming curate, Mr. Slope, are hatching plots and counter-plots as they try to control the choice of a new husband for Eleanor, a lovely young window and the daughter of the former warden, Mr.Harding.

George Eliot`s third novel, Silas Marner (1861) is a powerful and moving tale about one man`s journey from exile and loneliness to the warmth and joy of family

Written when women - and workers generally - had few rights in England, Agnes Grey exposes the brutal inequities of the rigid class system in mid-nineteenth-century Britain.