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"In a drunken rage, Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a visiting sailor at a local fair.

Contains "Heart of Darkness" in which an English trading company sends a sea captain to find a renegade trader who has become mad with greed and power over the natives in the Congo; and includes three short stories, an introduction to author, questions, and suggestions for further reading.

Presents Henry Fielding's 1749 novel, in which Tom Jones, a bawdy young man, is believed to be the illegitimate son of a servant girl, and after he promises to tame his wild ways, Tom competes for the affection of his upper-class neighbor Sophia Western, and eventually learns his true identity.

A black man whose skin is light enough to "pass" for white struggles to create an identity for himself at the turn of the century.

Presents Kate Chopin's novel "The Awakening," along with an additional thirteen short stories.

Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, school headmaster in Cokestown, a northern English village beset by industrialism, runs his family and his school with a rigid adherence to facts, but his daughter's loveless marriage, his son's involvement with gambling and robbery, and his encounters with a variety of characters, force him to recognize the value of the human heart.

A collection of short stories by American authors, including Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Sherwood Anderson, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, and Stephen Crane.

A collection of short stories by Franz Kafka in a new English translation featuring the well-known title story about a man who wakes up to find that he has turned into a giant insect.

A collection of essays and poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson that reflect his outlook on life and reflections on human nature.

Contains two novels by nineteenth-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, including "The House of the Dead" which details the horrors experienced by a man imprisoned for murdering his wife; and "Poor Folk," in which Makar and Varvara, second cousins who live across the street from each other, exchange letters in which they describe their terrible living conditions.

Collects "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, depicting the early years in the life of Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce; and "Dubliners," a collection of fifteen stories that serve as a collective meditation on the human condition.

Presents the slave narrative of Harriet A. Jacobs, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, in which she describes the trials of her life as a Southern slave, and discusses her determination to win freedom for herself and her children.

Presents Herodotus's classic history of the early fifth-century invasion of Greece by the Persian Empire, which provides detailed cultural background on the peoples involved; and includes an introduction, time line, explanatory and textual notes, and an index of proper names.

Contains the play "Man and Superman," a comedy that portrays Don Juan as the quarry instead of the huntsman, and three other plays by Irish-born playwright George Bernard Shaw; and includes commentaries, chronologies, notes, and discussion questions.