This Vintage edition of The Plays of Oscar Wilde contains the plays that made Wilde one of the most important dramatists of his time, including The Importance of Being Earnest, one of the great works of modern literature. Oscar Wilde's plays demonstrate once again why their author must be seen as both an inaugurator and a master of modernism. In his best work, the subversive insights embedded in his wit continue to challenge our common assumptions....

"This edition contains Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass. It is illustrated throughout by Sir John Tenniel, whose drawings for the books add so much to the enjoyment of them. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Red Queen and the White Rabbit all make their appearances, and are now familiar figures in writing, conversation and idiom. So too, are Carroll's delightful verses such as...

"The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906) are two classic American adventure novels depicting the evolution of two dogs in the wild. The novels are in fact mirror images of one another, as Call of the Wild depicts Buck's journey from domestic to wild dog, while White Fang recounts White Fang's transformation from wild beast to domestic companion. Both convey powerful themes of redemption and survival that continue to affect readers even today.The...

The third in Trollope's six-volume Palliser series, The Eustace Diamonds boasts an extraordinary heroine in Lizzie Eustace, a lying schemer in the mould of Thackeray's Becky Sharp. A pompous Under-Secretary of State, an exploitative and acquisitive American and her unhappy "niece," a shady radical peer, and a brutal aristocrat are only some of the characters in this, one of Trollope's most engaging novels: part sensation fiction, part detective story,...

Between 1906 and 1921 John Galsworthy published three novels chronicling the Forsyte family, a fictional upper-middle class family at the end of the Victorian era: The Man of Property, In Chancery, and To Let. In 1922 Galsworthy wrote two interconnecting short stories to bind the three novels together and published the whole as The Forsyte Saga.

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In 1831, the then twenty-seven year old Alexis de Tocqueville, was sent with Gustave de Beaumont to America by the French Government to study and make a report on the American prison system. Over a period of nine months the two traveled all over America making notes not only on the prison systems but on all aspects of American society and government. From these notes, Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America", an exhaustive analysis of the successes...

During a truce between the Greeks and the Trojans, Troilus and Cressida vow eternal love and faithfulness. But Cressida's father has gone over to the Greeks and exchanges her for a Trojan prisoner. Diomedes takes Cressida in the Greek camp, and during a friendly feast between the Greeks and Trojans, Troilus discovers that Cressida has been unfaithful.

When Rosalind is banished by her uncle, who has usurped her father's throne, she flees to the forest of Arden where her exiled father holds court. There, dressed as a boy to avoid discovery, she encounters the man she loves now a fellow exile and resolves to remain in disguise to test his feelings for her. A gloriously sunny comedy, As You Like It is an exuberant combination of concealed identities and verbal jousting, reconciliations and multiple...

"Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage. She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. All of which circumscribe her life and position when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious,...

Prospero, exiled on an enchanted island with his daughter Miranda, raises a magical tempest to wash ashore a ship carrying the enemies who usurped his dukedom years ago -- his brother Antonio and Alonso, the king of Naples. Alonso's son Ferdinand is feared dead but has washed to another part of the island, where he meets and falls in love with Miranda. Prospero punishes the usurpers and regains his dukedom, as Miranda gains a royal husband.