This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

When dystopian futures don't feel so future at all…Four decades before George Orwell wrote 1984, The Napoleon of Notting Hill defined the dystopian genre. One of the first dystopian comedies, instead of a dark vision of jackboots and surveillance states, G.K. Chesterton explores the question of what a society would look like if no one could take a joke.In this future England, each new king is decided by lottery. When Auberon Quin, a man who cares...

Martin Eden (1909) is a novel by American writer Jack London. The book follows the tradition of the Künstlerroman, a narrative that traces the life and development of an artist, to tell the story of a young man not unlike London himself. Part fiction, part autobiography, Martin Eden examines the consequences of dreams and achievements, successes and failures, for a young artist struggling with fame. The novel is heavily influenced by London's socialist...

"Set in early twentieth-century London and inspired by an actual attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory, The Secret Agent is a complex exploration of motivation and morality. The title character, Adolf Verloc, is obviously no James Bond. In fact, he and his circle of misfit saboteurs are not spies but terrorists, driven less by political ideals than by their unruly emotions and irrational hatreds. Verloc has settled into an apparent marriage...

The Four Feathers, by A. E. W. Mason, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of...

A grim portrait of World War I army life that set the standard for Hemingway, Mailer, and other acclaimed chroniclers of warfare.
They come to the army from different Americas: Fuselli, a San Francisco store clerk bucking for promotion; Chrisfield, a laid-back Indiana farm boy; and Andrews, a Harvard graduate and promising New York City musician. In basic training, they are told it doesn’t matter where a man is born or what he wants...

Mrs. Craddock (1902) is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Controversial for its portrayal of infidelity and marriage across social classes, Mrs. Craddock was instrumental in establishing Maugham's reputation as a leading author of the late Victorian era. Due to its content, the novel appeared exclusively in Bowdlerized form until Maugham saw it republished in 1938. Bertha Ley has always been independent. Orphaned at a young age, she comes into a sizable...

Abandoning his wife and children, Aaron Sisson leaves the mining community in pursuit of the 'life single': individual freedom, personal friendship, the 'male power' of passion and art. Playing the flute to pay his way he travels to post-war London, where he mixes with the modern Bohemian set and finds male friendship in Rawdon Lilly. Further travels take him to Milan and Florence ('a town of men') preoccupied with thoughts on the decline of humanity...

The adventures and experiences of Danny, his friends, and his house set in Monterrey, California just before World War II.

A definitive collection of stories from the unrivaled master of twentieth-century horror in a Penguin Classics Deluxe edition with cover art by Travis Louie
Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Philips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the 1920s, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. S. T. Joshi, Lovecraft's preeminent...