"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times ..." The year is 1789. In London, Lucie Darnay lives quietly with her father, who is a former prisoner, and her husband and child. In Paris, the bloody French Revolution is about to begin. How will the uprisings in faraway France affect Lucie and those she loves? What dreadful secrets from the distant past threaten their security, even their lives? When "the best of times" becomes "the worst of...

The sensational bestselling story of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, seems to belong less to the history of the Victorian novel than to folklore, fairy tale, or myth. The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens's creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters-the eloquent ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the "Marchioness";...

Set in the harsh Puritan environment of 17th century Boston, The scarlet letter describes the plight of Hester Prynne, an independent-minded woman who stands alone against society. Having given birth to a child after an illicit affair, she refuses to name the father and is forced to wear the letter "A" for adulteress embroidered on her dress.