The Charterhouse of Parma opens as both a dazzling political novel and a defense of genius itself. Honoré de Balzac's celebrated introduction crowns Stendhal as a master of ideas, irony, and modern realism, arguing that true literature must unite thought, feeling, and form. The novel that follows proves the point in full: a sharp, elegant blend of court intrigue, family loyalty, and historical upheaval set in Italy after Napoleon's fall. At the center stands Gina Pietranera, later the Duch...

The second volume in this essential library gathers James Joyce's modernist vision, Mark Twain's American wit, Jules Verne's boundless imagination, Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure and suspense, Oscar Wilde's epigrammatic brilliance, and Bram Stoker's gothic terror alongside voices from Tolstoy to Tagore, Stendhal to Sienkiewicz. Ranging from French Enlightenment fiction to Victorian sensation novels, Russian realism to early global literature, this collection widens the canon begun in V...

Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma is a glittering, ironical masterpiece born from his own restless life in Napoleon's shadow and Italy's fevered political world. Inspired by real people and events, it plunges into a society where honor, desire, reputation, and power are inseparable, and where the author's sharp eye exposes both passion and corruption with unsparing wit. Against the upheavals of post-Napoleonic Lombardy, the proud Marchese del Dongo and his sister, Countess Pietranera, s...

What will a young man sacrifice to rise above his social position? In The Red and the Black, Stendhal tells the compelling story of Julien Sorel, an intelligent and ambitious young man determined to escape his humble origins and rise within French society. Julien navigates a world shaped by social class, political power, religion, ambition, and appearances. His intelligence and determination open doors that would otherwise remain closed, but his pursuit of status becomes increasingly compl...

In a world of war, ambition, and political intrigue, love can be as dangerous as power. In The Charterhouse of Parma, Stendhal follows the extraordinary journey of Fabrice del Dongo, a young Italian aristocrat whose idealism and fascination with Napoleon draw him into a turbulent world of war, politics, romance, and ambition. Fabrice's adventures take him through the upheavals of Napoleonic Europe and the sophisticated political world of Restoration Italy. Along the way, he becomes entangl...

Julien Sorel is a carpenter's son with a brilliant memory, a burning ambition, and no intention of staying poor — so he uses whatever's in reach, a tutoring position, a seduction, a seminary education he doesn't believe in, to claw his way into a class that would otherwise never let him in. Stendhal tracks every calculation and every moment of genuine feeling Julien can't quite suppress, in a novel that reads Restoration-era France with the same cold precision Julien uses to read the peopl...

Fabrizio del Dongo is seventeen, half in love with Napoleon, and desperate to see a real battlefield — so he runs off to Waterloo and gets exactly what he wanted, confused, terrifying, and nothing like the glory he pictured. What follows is a long education in the far more dangerous game of Italian court politics, prison, and a love affair conducted partly through a telescope, as Fabrizio tries to find his footing in a world where charm and family connections matter more than any battle ev...

A brilliant masterpiece of ambition, romance, and psychological insight that stands among the greatest novels of world literature. Discover "The Red and the Black" by Stendhal, one of the defining works of nineteenth-century French literature. Combining romance, social commentary, and psychological depth, this enduring classic explores the pursuit of success, the complexities of love, and the challenges of navigating a society shaped by class and power. The novel follows the ambitious Juli...

An epic masterpiece of passion, politics, and personal destiny from one of France's greatest novelists. Discover "The Charterhouse of Parma" by Stendhal, one of the finest achievements of nineteenth-century European literature. Combining romance, historical drama, political intrigue, and psychological insight, this timeless classic continues to captivate readers with its elegant prose and unforgettable characters. Set against the backdrop of Napoleonic Europe and the Italian courts, the no...

A new translation of Stendhal’s marvelous first novel, a sumptuous story about the tortured romance between an impoverished émigré and an upper-class young man with an agonizing secret.Twenty-year-old Octave de Malivert, ardent, impulsive, and idealistic, is so intent on preserving his purity of mind that he has sworn never to fall in love or marry. This vow is put severely to the test when he meets Armance de Zohiloff, a beautiful but impoverished Russian émigré. ...

This book contains the following works arranged alphabetically by authors last names - The Divine Comedy [Dante Alighieri] - Emma [Jane Austen] - Persuasion [Jane Austen] - Pride and Prejudice [Jane Austen] - Father Goriot [Honoré de Balzac] - Jane Eyre [Charlotte Brontë] - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall [Anne Brontë] - Wuthering Heights [Emily Brontë] - The Way of All Flesh [Samuel Butler] - Don Quixote [Miguel de Cervantes] - Heart of Darkness [Joseph Conrad] - Nostromo [Joseph Conrad] - Mo...

Library of Masterpieces—100 Books to Read in a Lifetime offers an ambitious cross-cultural canon of enduring literature, philosophy, drama, and narrative art. Moving from classical epic, tragedy, and political thought to the novel, Gothic romance, detective fiction, modernist experiment, children's literature, and existential reflection, it reveals how literary forms continually remake questions of power, desire, faith, justice, memory, and freedom. Monumental epics, psychologically intric...