Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, becomes a thief for a band of dwarves and soon finds himself in the midst of a war with the evil goblins and wargs, and forced to make a decision between the call of duty and the pull of the simple life.

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times ..." The year is 1789. In London, Lucie Darnay lives quietly with her father, who is a former prisoner, and her husband and child. In Paris, the bloody French Revolution is about to begin. How will the uprisings in faraway France affect Lucie and those she loves? What dreadful secrets from the distant past threaten their security, even their lives? When "the best of times" becomes "the worst of...

The year is 1984. Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth, his job is to 'correct' history so that all records support the Party's official worldview. But Winston is in grave danger; his memory still functions. He knows that the Party controls the people through brutal alienation, depriving them of every liberating human pursuit, from reason to passion. Together with his beloved Julia, Winston risks his life in a revolution against the powers...

Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape, the rest of the company was attacked by Orcs. Now they continue the journey...

This Jane Austen tale deals with money and marriage, and how strongly they affect each other. Shy, fragile, Fanny Price is the consummate "poor relation." Sent to live with her wealthy uncle Thomas, she clashes with his spoiled, selfish daughters and falls in love with his son. Their lives are further complicated by the arrival of a pair of witty, sophisticated Londoners whose flair for flirtation collides with the quiet, conservative ways of Mansfield...

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...

Animal Farm is the most famous by far of all twentieth-century political allegories. Its account of a group of barnyard animals who revolt against their vicious human master, only to submit to a tyranny erected by their own kind, can fairly be said to have become a universal drama. Orwell is one of the very few modern satirists comparable to Jonathan Swift in power, artistry, and moral authority; in animal farm his spare prose and the logic of his...

An abridgement of Dickens's beloved tale of a miser who learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future.

The story of the creation of the world and of the First Age, this is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back and in whose events some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part. The three Silmarils were jewels created by Fëanor, most gifted of the Elves. Within them was imprisoned the Light of the Two Trees of Valinor before the Trees themselves were destroyed by Morgoth, the first Dark Lord. Thereafter,...

Contains the complete text of the 1860 novel about Pip, an orphan in Victorian England who is plucked from a life of poverty and informed he is to be educated and reared as a gentleman; and includes a critical introduction and a chronology.