From the agony of Charles Dickens disenchantment with the Victorian middle class comes a novel of spellbinding mystery and a profound examination of moral values. An orphan living with his older sister and her kindly husband, Pip is hired by wealthy and embittered Miss Havisham as a companion for her and her beautiful adopted daughter, Estella. His years in service to the Havishams fill his heart with the desire to rise above his station in life. Pips wish is fulfilled when a mysterious benefactor provides him with great expectations--the means to be tutored as a gentleman. Thrust into Londons high-society circles, Pip grows accustomed to a life of leisure, only to find himself lacking as a suitor competing for Estellas favor. After callously discarding everything he once valued for his own selfish pursuits, Pip learns the identity of his patron--a revelation that shatters his very soul. With an Introduction by Stanley Weintraub and an Afterword by Annabel Davis-Goff
The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wildes enduringly popular story of a beautiful and corrupt man and the portrait that reveals all his secrets. Entranced by the perfection of his recently painted portrait, the youthful Dorian Gray expresses a wish that the figure on the canvas could age and change in his place. When his wish comes true, the portrait becomes his hideous secret as he follows a downward trajectory of decadence and cruelty that leaves its traces only in the portraits degraded image. Wildes unforgettable portrayal of a Faustian bargain and its consequences is narrated with his characteristic incisive wit and diamond-sharp prose. The result is a novel that is as flamboyant and controversial as its incomparable author.
Peter, Wendy, Captain Hook, the lost boys, and Tinker Bell have filled the hearts of children ever since Barrie's play first opened in London in 1904 and became an immediate sensation. Now this funny, haunting modern myth is presented with Bedford's wonderful illustrations, which first appeared in the author's own day, have long been out of print, and have never been equaled.
Although the publication of Little Women in 1868 earned Louisa May Alcott tremendous popularity, for a long time she was thought of as a writer of children's stories and considered--at best--a minor figure in the American literary canon. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, Alcott's vast body of work is being celebrated alongside the greatest American writers, and this collection shows why. The Portable Louisa May Alcott samples the entire spectrum of Alcott's work: her novels, novellas, children's stories, sensationalist fiction, gothic tales, essays, letters, and journals. Presenting her more daring works, such as Moods and Behind a Mask (both reprinted in their entirety), alongside the familiar heroines of Little Women, this singular collection offers readers a rich and wide-ranging portrait of this talented, prolific, and influential writer.
The stories of magic and myth gathered by the Brothers Grimm have become part of the way children--and adults--learn about the vagaries of the real world. Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow-White, Hänsel and Gretel, Little Red-Cap (Little Red Riding Hood), and Briar-Rose (Sleeping Beauty) are only a few of the more than two hundred enchanting characters included in this volume. The tales are presented just as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm originally set them down: bold, primal, just frightening enough, and endlessly engaging. With black-and-white illustrations throughout Illustrated by Josef Schari / Commentary by Joseph Campbell Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library
