Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is one of the longest novels in the English language. Clarissa Harlowe is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become wealthy only recently and now desires to become part of the aristocracy. Their original plan was to concentrate the wealth and lands of the Harlowes into the possession of Clarissa's...

"I felt a warm rasping at my throat, then came a consciousness of the awful truth, which chilled me to the heart and sent the blood surging up through my brain." In this intriguing literary fragment-published seventeen years after Bram Stoker's most famous novel-an English visitor to southern Germany suffers a terrifying ordeal on Walpurgis Nacht: the night when, according to local tradition, supernatural horrors are set free to walk the earth. But...

Knut Hamsun believed that modern literature should express the complexity of the human mind and nowhere is that philosophy more evident than in this stunning modern masterpiece, "Hunger." First published in 1890 in Norwegian and based on Hamsun's own experiences with poverty prior to his success as an author, "Hunger" tells the story of an unnamed vagrant who stumbles around the streets of Norway's capital city of Kristiania (now Oslo) looking for...

One of Sir Walter Scott's most popular and influential works, "Ivanhoe" is the story of one of the last remaining Saxon noble families. At the beginning of the novel we find its titular character, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who has been disinherited by his father for his allegiance to the Norman king, Richard the Lionheart, and for falling in love with the Lady Rowena, returning from the Third Crusade. Wilfred's father, Cedric, had planned to marry Lady...

Mr. William Whittlestaff was strolling very slowly up and down the long walk at his countryseat in Hampshire, thinking of the contents of a letter, which he held crushed up within his trousers' pocket. He always breakfasted exactly at nine, and the letters were supposed to be brought to him at a quarter past. The postman was really due at his hall-door at a quarter before nine; but though he had lived in the same house for above fifteen years, and...

First published in 1869, this deliberately written work follows the ambitions and whims of the young Frédéric Moreau as he travels from his provincial hometown to the enticing metropolis of Paris. Though he survived the Revolution of 1848, Moreau is still prone to all the mistakes and petty concerns of a young man of the middle class: he develops an infatuation for a married woman, Madame Arnoux, and falls in and out of love with her throughout...

Clara Amedroz is the only surviving child of the elderly squire of Belton Castle in Somersetshire. At twenty-five, she is old for an unmarried woman. Her father's income and savings have been dissipated to pay for the extravagances of her brother, who subsequently committed suicide. Since her father has no living sons, his estate, which is entailed, will pass upon his death to a distant cousin, Will Belton. Despite her poor prospects, she has two...

The Trumpet-Major is a novel by Thomas Hardy published in 1880, and his only historical novel. It concerns the heroine, Anne Garland, being pursued by three suitors: John Loveday, the eponymous trumpet major in a British regiment, honest and loyal; his brother Bob, a flighty sailor; and Festus Derriman, the cowardly nephew of the local squire. Unusually for a Hardy novel, the ending is not entirely tragic; however, there remains an ominous element...

Set during the Gilded Age in New York City, The Age of Innocence follows Newland Archer, a poised and pedigreed gentleman lawyer who is eagerly anticipating his impending union with May Welland, a paragon of Old New York grace. The arrival of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's enigmatic and alluring cousin, shatters the tranquility of Archer's carefully structured world. Recently returned from Europe, Ellen exudes an air of cosmopolitan mystery as whispers...

The Nameless City is a horror story written by H. P. Lovecraft in January 1921 and first published in the November 1921 issue of the amateur press journal The Wolverine. It is often considered the first Cthulhu Mythos story. The Nameless City of the story's title is an ancient ruin located somewhere in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula and is older than any human civilization.