Historical Classics

Sometimes life is unfair. No pleasant reading without angst, no sunny weather without previous clouds. One cannot enjoy reading without emotional turmoil, just as one cannot appreciate a beautiful day without the memory of prior gloom. A year since Elizabeth and Mr Darcy married, their love remains strong, but the two of them have found it uneasy about adjusting to the new dynamics of marriage. Although no longer as judgmental as she used to be, Elizabeth still has strong-willed tendencies and holds onto her ideals. Mr Darcy has to travel more to solve estate matters. The Napoleonic Wars ...

Ambientada a fines de los años cuarenta del siglo XX en Orán, La peste narra las vicisitudes de una ciudad cerrada durante un inesperado brote de peste bubónica. Ya en fechas de su publicación original, el autor confirmó lo que muchos lectores veían por sí solos: la epidemia era una alegoría de la ocupación nazi en Francia. Sin embargo, ese paralelismo no agota la capacidad profética del relato, que advierte sobre los peligros invisibles que acechan a toda sociedad moderna.

Darcy desires to claim his bride. Elizabeth’s heart agrees, but not her mind. Will personal disaster, and Caroline’s machinations, keep them apart? A spark. A knowing. Master of Pemberley, entirely used to having his own way, wealthy Fitzwilliam Darcy yearns for a wife who will love him first, and his fortune second. He finds that wife in Elizabeth Bennet, a woman he has come to esteem from afar. However, Lizzy proves difficult, resisting courtship even though circumstances force them into a hasty engagement. Darcy struggles with patience and to rein in his passion, for the harder he ...

Winter 1847, the Star of the Sea sets sail from Ireland for New York. Among the refugees are a maidservant, bankrupt Lord Merridith, an aspiring novelist and a maker of revolutionary ballads. Each is connected more deeply than they know.

Sarah, Plain and Tall, Skylark, and Caleb's Story, all unabridged and all performed beautifully by Academy Award-winning actress Glenn Close, make up this exquisite audio collection.

The year is 1928. On the outskirts of a large German city, three young men are earning a thin and precarious living. Fully armed young storm troopers swagger in the streets. Restlessness, poverty, and violence are everywhere. For these three, friendship is the only refuge from the chaos around them. Then the youngest of them falls in love and brings into the group a young woman who will become a comrade as well, as they are all tested in ways they can have never imagined.

Survivor, genius, perfumer, killer: This is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He is abandoned on the filthy streets of Paris as a child, but grows up to discover he has an extraordinary gift: A sense of smell more powerful than any other human's. Soon, he is creating the most sublime fragrances in all the city. Yet there is one odour he cannot capture. It is exquisite, magical: The scent of a young virgin. And to get it he must kill. And kill. And kill...

Hunted like an animal by Norman invaders, Bran ap Brychan, heir to the throne of Elfael, has abandoned his father’s kingdom and fled to the greenwood. There, in the primeval forest of the Welsh borders, danger surrounds him - for this woodland is a living, breathing entity with mysterious powers and secrets. Bran must find a way to make it his own if he is to survive and become King Raven. From deep in the forest, Bran, Will Scarlet, and Friar Tuck form a daring plan for deliverance, knowing that failure means death for them all - and the dreams of the oppressed people of Wales.

Written only months before Austen's death in 1817, Sanditon tells the story of the joyously impulsive, spirited, and unconventional Charlotte Heywood and her spiky relationship with the humorous, charming (and slightly wild!) Sidney Parker. When a chance accident transports her from her rural hometown of Willingden to the would-be coastal resort of the eponymous title, it exposes Charlotte to the intrigues and dalliances of a seaside town on the make, and the characters whose fortunes depend on its commercial success.

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

This exciting three-book series takes you into the heart of turn-of-the-century America, when cattle drives were still a daily way of life for many men…and also for a few women!When Colt, Michael, and Joseph are bequeathed a thriving cattle ranch, the stipulation is that they each need to marry before claiming their share of the inheritance. Before long, three brave, independent mail order brides make their way west, unaware of how startled their handsome Texan fiancés will be when it turns out these women want to participate in all parts of frontier life—cattle drives included. Danger...

Un'abbazia medievale isolata. Una comunità di monaci sconvolta da una serie di delitti. Un frate francescano che indaga i misteri di una biblioteca inaccessibile. Il romanzo che ha rivelato al mondo il genio narrativo di Umberto Eco, un racconto tradotto in 60 paesi, un best seller da 7 milioni di copie solo in Italia, che ha vinto il premio Strega e ha ispirato film e serie tv di successo mondiale.

The Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea (Spanish: Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea), known in Spain as La Celestina, is a work entirely in dialogue published in 1499. It is attributed to Fernando de Rojas, a descendant of converted Jews, who practiced law and, later in life, served as an alderman of Talavera de la Reina, an important commercial center near Toledo.

When a young couple moves into their new home, they are taken aback by the strange behavior of their new landlord. While at first he bid them to do all of the fixing-up the home needed on their own, he quickly changed his tune and was persistent in his attempts to help them tackle some of the rooms himself. The source of his desire to help lies in the fact that the old tenant may have hidden a fortune within the walls - a fortune that winds up belonging to the young couple after all!

Horry Winwood doesn't play by the rules. So when her family are near ruin and her sister is about to enter a loveless marriage to a wealthy man to settle the family debts, young and headstrong Horry proposes to marry him instead. As her new husband's attentions fall elsewhere, Horry feels increasingly unhappy. Then she meets the attractive and dangerous Lord Lethbridge, and her days suddenly become more exciting. But there is bad blood between Horry's husband and Lord Lethbridge, and as complications and deceptions mount, the social tangle grows ever trickier to unpick.

The Bridal Train is Grace Nelson’s ticket to a new life. After losing her home and everyone she loves, her only recourse is to marry. Now that she’s arrived in Kansas, she is thrilled to learn that her groom has a prestigious job as the deputy sheriff. But the wedding can’t go on as planned—because he’s been dead for two days. Sheriff Brock Bell doesn’t know what else could go wrong this month. Between the stagecoach and train robberies and being down a deputy, the last thing he needs are more complications. So when a woman arrives in his office in tears, claiming she was his ...

Set in Venice at the close of World War II, Across the River and into the Trees is the bittersweet story of a middle-aged American colonel, scarred by war and in failing health, who finds love with a young Italian countess at the very moment when his life is becoming a physical hardship to him.

Set in English society before the 1832 Reform Bill, Wives and Daughters centers on the story of youthful Molly Gibson, brought up from childhood by her father. When he remarries, a new stepsister enters Molly's quiet life, the loveable, but worldly and troubling, Cynthia. The narrative traces the development of the two girls into womanhood within the gossiping and watchful society of Hollingford.

The Deerslayer is the first of the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper. Here we meet Natty Bumppo as a young man living in upstate New York in the early 1740s. The action begins as Bumppo, called "Deerslayer", and his friend Hurry Harry approach Lake Glimmerglass, or Oswego, where the trapper Thomas Hutter lives with his daughters, the beautiful Judith and the feeble-minded Hetty. Hutter's floating log fort is attacked by Iroquois Indians, and the two frontiersmen join in the fight.

This famous novel deals with the early frontier period of American history and is set in 1757 during the Seven Years War between the French and the British. Intrepid frontiersman and scout Natty "Hawkeye" Bumppo has lived among Indians for most of his life, respecting their customs and acquiring the skills of an experienced woodsman.