A cornerstone of American letters, Walden is Henry David Thoreau's chronicle of the two years he spent living by himself at Walden Pond, contemplating the individual's relationship to society. Thoreau first published this book in 1854, and its themes of self-reliance, independence, individuality, and integration with nature still resonate with readers today. This elegant gift edition reprints the full text of Thoreau's classic and features a stylish...

"John Milton's Paradise Lost, an epic poem on the clash between God and his fallen angel, Satan, is a profound meditation on fate, free will, and divinity, and one of the most, beautiful works in world literature. Extracted from the Modern Library's highly acclaimed The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton, this edition reflects up-to-date scholarship and includes a substantial introduction, fresh commentary, and other features - annotations...

"This edition prints the first and only text of Mark Twain's masterpiece ever based on his complete manuscript - including its first 663 pages, half the book, lost for over a hundred years until discovered in 1990 in a Los Angeles attic. Using this newly restored manuscript, the editors have recovered thousands of details of wording, spelling, and punctuation which were misread, "corrected," or simply overlooked by Mark Twain's "typewriter copyist"...

"Jules Verne's pioneering classic tells the story of the distinguished but eccentric Professor Lidenbrock, who finds a scrap of parchment in an old manuscript. A cipher, written in runes, tells of an entrance to another world - a world hidden beneath our own. So with his nephew reluctantly in tow, the Professor follows this cryptic clue down into a dormant volcano, and the further they descend, the more extraordinary the discoveries and creatures...

"William Shakespeare's dramatic and tragic play about love and jealousy Othello is an intense drama of love, deception, jealousy and destruction. Desdemona's love for her husband Othello, the Moor, transcends racial prejudice; but his trusted ensign, the envious Iago, conspires to devastate their lives. In its vivid rendering of the savagery lurking within civilization, Othello is arguably the most topical and accessible tragedy from Shakespeare's...