Born and raised in the appalling deprivation of a Victorian-era London workhouse, the orphan Oliver escapes the drudgery of apprenticeship only to fall into the hands of the notorious Fagin and his gang of child thieves. But Oliver is an innocent at heart and the attempts by Fagin and the impudently witty Artful Dodger to teach the boy the trick of the pick-pocket's trade lead only to his almost immediate capture. Oliver's rescue by the kindly Mr....

In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret. Charlotte Bronte's novel about the passionate love between Jane Eyre, a young girl alone in the world, and the rich, brilliant, domineering Rochester has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic, ever since...

"Great Expectations is among the most masterful of Charles Dickens's novels. Displaying extraordinary tragicomic range, Dickens blends an atmosphere of brooding violence and guilt with sharp and often disturbing humor to create a drama charged with the thrilling intensity of a detective story and the poignancy of a spiritual autobiography. Much of the novel's power comes from Dickens's unequaled skill at making even the most wildly eccentric of characters...

From the Publisher: When David Copperfield's widowed mother remarries, David suffers from his stepfather's abuse. At age 8, David is sent away to a harsh school where the principal routinely beats the students. David's circumstances become even worse when he is removed from school and, at age 10, forced to labor from morning to night in a London warehouse. David then decides to take desperate action. He will run away to his great-aunt, who lives...

"In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust. In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers...

At the age of five, little orphan Heidi is sent to live with her grandfather in the Alps. Everyone in the village is afraid of him, but Heidi is fascinated by his long beard and bushy gray eyebrows. She loves her life in the mountains, playing in the sunshine and growing up among the goats and birds. But one terrible day, Heidi is collected by her aunt and is made to live with a new family in town. Heidi can't bear to be away from her grandfather;...

Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place - he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians' time as well as their ghostly teachings - such as the ability to Fade so mere mortals cannot see him. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? And then there...

After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent children. They are charming, and resourceful, and have pleasant facial features. Unfortunately, they are exceptionally unlucky. Imagine tales so terrible...

As a young woman, Anne Shirley is embracing adulthood by becoming a productive member of society making the transition from imaginative student to respected schoolteacher. In this classic coming of age story, Anne navigates various challenges that tempt old habits and test her new maturity. A now 16-year-old Anne continues to live with Marilla in the quaint farming town of Avonlea. While poised to start a new teaching position, Anne struggles to balance...

Jude, seventeen and mortal, gets tangled in palace intrigues while trying to win a place in the treacherous High Court of Faerie, where she and her sisters have lived for a decade.