Historical Classics

April 1812. Miss Elizabeth Bennet, headstrong and usually self-assured, returns home to Longbourn chastened and confused after a surprising marriage proposal from Mr Darcy, a man she thought she despised. When Mr Bingley arrives soon afterwards, sent by his friend Darcy to resume his romantic attentions to Elizabeth's beloved sister Jane, Elizabeth begins to feel something like regret for the man she so cruelly spurned.

On a quest to find her sister's killer, Mac is a major player in a deadly game, but with one great advantage: she knows how to find the Sinsar Dubh, an ancient book of magic so dark it corrupts anyone who touches it. What Mac soon discovers is worse than she had imagined. Surrounded by treachery, her enemies indistinguishable from her allies, she can be certain of only one thing: as All Hallows' Eve approaches, her time is running out.

An amateur production of The Tempest provides a colorful backdrop for a hilarious look at unrequited love. Mathematics teacher Hector Mackilwraith, stirred and troubled by Shakespeare's play, falls in love with the beautiful Griselda Webster. When Griselda shows she has plans of her own, Hector despairs on the play's opening night.

In 1789 HMS Bounty under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh sailed off on a voyage to Tahiti in the South Pacific to obtain breadfruit trees for transplanting in the Caribbean. After a long, difficult voyage, in which a passage of Cape Horn had to be abandoned, the ship finally reached its destination. Within a few months, the Bounty was loaded with breadfruit plants and fresh provisions. But the return voyage never materialized.

In 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, Carl Brown and Annie McGairy meet and fall in love. Though only 18, Annie travels alone halfway across the country to the Midwestern university where Carl is studying law - and there they marry. But Carl and Annie’s first year together is much more difficult than they anticipated as they find themselves in a faraway place with little money and few friends. With hardship and poverty weighing heavily upon them, they come to realize that their greatest sources of strength, loyalty, and love will help them make it through.

Social climber Alroy Kear is flattered when he is selected by Edward Driffield’s wife to pen the official biography of her lionized novelist husband, and determined to write a bestseller. But then Kear discovers the great novelist’s voluptuous muse (and unlikely first wife), Rosie. The lively, loving heroine once gave Driffield enough material to last a lifetime, but now her memory casts an embarrassing shadow over his career and respectable image.

Fitzwilliam Darcy is a powerful magician who controls fire, water, and wind. What he cannot control is his growing feelings for Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth's sentiments towards Darcy are quite different. She detests his arrogance, and she fears he will expose her use of forbidden magic - forbidden to women, that is. He is the last man in the world she would choose to help her on a difficult and dangerous task. But when a magical war looms between the land of Faerie and their world, a Lord of Faerie demands that Darcy and Elizabeth serve together as his emissaries to make peace.

Who owns the Eustace Diamonds? Lizzie Eustace claims that Sir Florian Eustace, her late husband, gave them to her. But Mr Camperdown, the family solicitor, insists that they are an heirloom, to be passed down from generation to generation. Lizzie is both beautiful and clever, yet Mr Camperdown believes her to be a scheming liar. And Mr Camperdown is right! The battle for the diamonds rages until a robbery intervenes and they disappear. Or do they...?

"Who is this man, this Scarlet Pimpernel?" Each day this question grew more pressing to the leaders of the French Revolution. Only this man and his band of followers threatened their total power. Only this maddeningly elusive figure defied the vast network of fanatics, informers, and secret agents that the Revolution spread out to catch its enemies.

The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war: under fire, on patrol, waiting in the trenches, at home on leave, and in hospitals and dressing stations. Although there are vividly described incidents which remain in the mind, there is no sense of adventure here, only the feeling of youth betrayed and a deceptively simple indictment of war—of any war—told for a whole generation of victims.

A brand-new, unabridged recording of Baroness Orczy's classic tale of adventure, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt. Paris, 1792. The Terror has begun. Every day, scores of the French nobility are delivered to the guillotine. Trapped in the capital, they have no way of escape. But rumours abound of a league of young English gentlemen who are risking their lives to spirit French aristocrats away to safety across the Channel. Led by a man known only as the 'Scarlet Pimpernel', they leave no trace behind them save a single note.

One night, to decide his entire life's happiness. Chastened by Charles Bingley following Mr. Bennet's untimely death, Fitzwilliam Darcy determines he will offer marriage to Elizabeth Bennet, but she marries another. Years later, a widowed Elizabeth is mistress of Longbourn, and has vowed she will never marry again. A house party at Netherfield brings them back together, but Darcy will have to win more than her heart if he is to have any chance at making her mistress of Pemberley.

It’s 1936, in Flint Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud’s got a few things going for him. 1. He has his own suitcase full of special things. 2. He’s the author of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!! Bud’s got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father.

Hailed as Charlotte Brontë’s “finest novel” by Virginia Woolf, Villette is the timeless semi-autobiographical tale of Lucy Snowe. Left with no family and no money, Lucy goes against her own timid nature and travels to the small city of Villette, France, where she becomes a school teacher in Madame Beck’s school for girls. During her stay, she falls in love—twice—and discovers an independent, inner strength rarely seen in women of her time.

Returning to Terre d'Ange, Moirin finds the royal family broken. Wracked by unrelenting grief at the loss of his wife, Queen Jehanne, King Daniel is unable to rule. Prince Thierry, leading an expedition to explore the deadly jungles of Terra Nova, is halfway across the world. And three-year-old Desiree is a vision of her mother: tempestuous, intelligent, and fiery, but desperately lonely and a vulnerable pawn in a game of shifting political allegiances. As tensions mount, King Daniel asks that Moirin become Desirée's oath-sworn protector.

Essentially, the story is about Russia before and after the October Revolution of 1917. There are many characters who float into and out of the story, the main one being Yuri Zhivago. As the tale unwinds, we encounter the decadence of pre-war Czarist Russia, the harrowing experience of WWI, and the sudden exhilaration of revolution. But exhilaration gives way to the horror of civil war and Bolshevik terror.

The Trateri are about to learn a vital lesson of the Broken Lands. Deep in the remote expanse where anything can happen, it pays to be on a pathfinder's good side. Nobody ventures beyond their village. Nobody sane, that is. Monstrous creatures and deadly mysteries wait out here. Luckily for the people she serves, Shea's not exactly sane. As a pathfinder, it's her job to face what others fear and find the safest route through the wilderness. It's not an easy job, but she's the best at what she does.

When he falls ill on his way home from school, 15-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover--then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.

In a vivid depiction of Ancient Greece and its legendary heroes, The Mask of Apollo tells the story of Nikeratos, the gifted tragic actor at the centre of political and cultural activity in Athens, 400 B. C. Wherever he goes, Nikeratos carries a golden mask of Apollo, a relic and reminder of an age when the theatre was at the height of its greatness and talent. Only a mascot at first, the mask gradually turns into Nikeratos' conscience as he encounters famous thinkers, actors, and philosophers, including the famous Plato himself.

For years d’Artagnan shared his adventures with his three comrades - Athos, Porthos, and Aramis - but now, in Between Two Kings, the First Musketeer returns to the forefront. This is truly d’Artagnan’s novel, bringing to a dramatic climax the story that began when he first arrived in Paris 30 years earlier in The Three Musketeers.