As a small boy at Joe Gargery's forge, Pip meets two people who will affect his whole life - an escaped convict he is forced to help, and the eccentric Miss Haversham, whose beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella young Pip adores. But when a secret benefactor pays for him to go to London to become a gentleman, Pip never dreams he will meet the dreadful Magwitch again, nor just how wrong his expectations are.

An officer and cavalry commander during the Civil War and Indian wars, General George Armstrong Custer (1839-76) was well known in his lifetime for his personal daring and his aggressive approach to warfare. After his "last stand" in 1876, he was even more famous as the commander who led his entire unit to annihilation by a massive coalition of Native American tribes at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. A few years before the fatal clash, Custer...

Kim O'Hara is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier stationed in India. Growing up on the streets, he amuses himself with various adventures and is eventually pulled in to be a spy in Britain's struggle to maintain its rule of India. Kim befriends a sage old Tibetan lama who transforms his life spiritually.

Curiosity, courage and a touch of recklessness: these are the qualities of a true explorer! And yet Axel, the protagonist of this masterpiece by Jules Verne, does not feel particularly courageous when he decides to take part in the mad plan conceived by his uncle, Professor Otto Lidenbrock, to discover what is in the center of the Earth. Following the indications in an ancient book, they descend into the depths of our planet, where they make incredible...

Best known as the author of the satirical novel Candide, Voltaire also wrote other highly regarded works of philosophical fiction. With the title tale of this original collection of short stories, the author addresses the social and political problems of his own day in an ancient Babylonian setting. First published in 1747, "Zadig" makes no attempt at historical accuracy. Instead, its thinly veiled references to contemporary issues challenge eighteenth-century...

The First Men in the Moon' chronicles humanity's first faltering steps to the stars. The story uses a human-meets-alien adventure to juxtapose two characters whose temperaments personify the extremes of scientific endeavour - the disinterested researcher and the seeker after fame and fortune. Wells' description of spaceflight, including weightlessness, low-gravity gymnastics on the moon and re-entry angles for returning spacecraft, have all proved...

William Crimsworth escapes a dreary clerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher in Belgium. There, however, his entanglement with the sensuous but manipulative Zoraide Reuter complicates his affections for a penniless girl who is both teacher and pupil in Reuter's school. Also included in this edition is Emma, Charlotte Bronte's last, unfinished novel. Both works are drawn from the original Clarendon texts.

A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator. Includes illustrated notes throughout the text explaining the historical background of the story.

A rich, visual record of the vices of petty officialdom, Tolstoy's novel of spiritual regeneration recounts the sins of a young Russian nobleman and his attempts in later life to redress those transgressions. A panoramic view of Russian social life at the end of the 19th century, Resurrection pointedly articulates the author's contempt for the social injustices of the world in which he lived.

This adventure story is of a heroic man victimized by his own integrity & destroyed by his sense of lost honor.