Classics Library

The rambling house called Thornyhold is like something out of a fairy tale. Left to Gilly Ramsey by the cousin whose occasional visits brightened her childhood, the cottage, set deep in a wild wood, has come just in time to save her from a bleak future. With its reputation for magic and its resident black cat, Thornyhold offers Gilly more than just a new home. It offers her a chance to start over.

It's a hard-knock life for America's favorite orphan! Everyone knows the story of the irrepressible Annie, who lives at Miss Hannigan's orphanage until she beats the odds and finds a new life with the benevolent and wealthy Daddy Warbucks. Annie has enchanted millions of fans from her original comic strip appearance to the hit Broadway musical. Now, with a Tony-nominated revival playing on Broadway, Puffin is reissuing this novelization of the classic story, with a new introduction by Tony and Emmy Award-winning author Thomas Meehan.

The story of a moose who was too hospitable for his own good.

A modern fable in humorous verse.

A collection of silly tongue-twisters.

Master wit Mark Twain selected these 27 stories himself by 15 of his favorite 19th-century authors. The order follows that which Twain placed them in in the original anthology, published in 1888. He indulged his comic fancy rather than making a textbook in which all themes or authors are placed together, saying that "This way you will have to peruse the whole thing before discovering that one of your favorites is not included." Among others, you'll find: Artemus Ward, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Francis Lee Pratt, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Frederick W. Cozzens, and Twain himself.

Washington Irving's tales of romance, travel, biographical discourse, and literary musing introduced such classic fictional figures as Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane, and the Headless Horsemen of Sleepy Hollow. A sage, storyteller, and wit, Irving earned his preeminence in early American literature with these masterpieces in miniature.

The kindness and determination of the Little Blue Engine have inspired millions of children around the world since the story was first published in 1930. Cherished by audiences for 90 years, The Little Engine That Could is a classic tale of a little engine that, despite her size, triumphantly pulls a train full of wonderful things to the children waiting on the other side of a mountain.

Underneath the steps leading down to Eric's basement is a hidden storage place. It's dusty and old, nothing special at all. But when Eric, Julie, and Neal all huddle inside the gray room together, something unbelievable happens. A glittering light and then a rainbow-colored staircase appear. As the kids take their very first step down into the mysterious land of Droon, they know that only magic and adventure await them!

Jerry Renault ponders the question on the poster in his locker: Do I dare disturb the universe? Refusing to sell chocolates in the annual Trinity school fund-raiser may not seem like a radical thing to do. But when Jerry challenges a secret school society called The Vigils, his defiant act turns into an all-out war. Now the only question is: Who will survive? First published in 1974, Robert Cormier's groundbreaking novel, an unflinching portrait of corruption and cruelty, has become a modern classic.

Books are vanishing. Stories are being erased. And only one girl remembers they ever existed. When 13-year-old librianian-in-training Juniper Quill discovers that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has vanished, from every bookshelf, every brain, everywhere, she’s thrown into a secret war within the Library of Eternity: the mysterious place where all stories are born, catalogued… or destroyed. With her eccentric mentor Professor Cornelius Vellum (a disgraced scholar with a suspicious fondness for footnotes), a malfunctioning gadget called the StoryScope, and a frog in a pirate hat named...

The Cat in the Hat shows Young Cat the fun he can get out of reading.

This Raging Bull Publishing set contains four classic Western books by Bret Harte.

Jimmie John Hall wasn't anything until he was a killer, and Betty Dienhardt wasn't anything until she met Jimmie John Hall. When they get together, sparks fly and bullets follow. The first to go are Betty's parents, but Betty isn't bothered. She only wants to be with her man - the first person to ever make her feel special. They set off on a cross-country spree, killing for gas money and food, killing to swap their car for one the police aren't looking for. As the dragnet draws tighter they only grow closer, riding a road that leads to death because death has surrounded them all the time.

In the untamed heart of the African jungle, Edgar Rice Burroughs unfolds the riveting tale of Tarzan of the Apes. Orphaned and raised by a band of apes, a young boy emerges as the formidable Tarzan, mastering the perils of the wild with unparalleled bravery and agility. But his primal world is forever altered with the arrival of the compassionate Jane Porter, igniting a conflict between his savage upbringing and the stirrings of a civilized heart.

Barbara Cooney's story of Alice Rumphius, who longed to travel the world, live in a house by the sea, and do something to make the world more beautiful, has a timeless quality that resonates with each new generation. The countless lupines that bloom along the coast of Maine are the legacy of the real Miss Rumphius, the Lupine Lady, who scattered lupine seeds everywhere she went. Miss Rumphius received the American Book Award in the year of publication.

This is the story of unlikely heroine Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard who doesn't believe in anything that can't be proven by science. She and her sister Alice are still grieving for their dead mother when their father takes a job in a strange museum in a city where it always snows. On her very first day in the museum Ophelia discovers a boy locked away in a long forgotten room. He is a prisoner of Her Majesty, the Snow Queen. And he has been waiting for Ophelia's help. As Ophelia embarks on an incredible journey to rescue the boy everything that she believes will be tested.

It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the first death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why, before the police do.

In The Mystery of the Cupboard, Omri’s father discovered his magical secret. Now Little Bear, Omri’s Iroquois friend from the past, is in grave danger and needs their help. As father and son struggle to solve the problem of traveling through time to reach Little Bear, they cannot know what terrors lie in wait - for their Indian friends and for them.

When Tarzan of the Apes frees a man being tortured by cruel bandits, he is surprised to learn that the stranger comes from no race or country the ape-man knows. He is from the fabled land of Onthar, where lie two ancient cities unknown to the outside world. One is Athne, city of ivory; the other is Cathne, city of gold and evil. There great prides of trained lions are used to hunt down men and wage eternal war. And there Tarzan meets the beautiful queen Nemone, who is determined to have Tarzan as her king...or feed him to the lions!