Fifty essential works, one sweeping introduction to the world's greatest storytellers. This first volume gathers Jane Austen's social wit, Charles Dickens's unforgettable characters, Fyodor Dostoevsky's psychological depth, Victor Hugo's romantic grandeur, Herman Melville's seafaring epic, and Edgar Allan Poe's dark imagination alongside giants from Cervantes to Tolstoy, the Bronte sisters to Shakespeare. Spanning centuries and continents, from the Spanish Golden Age to Gothic romance, Vic...

In these darkly imaginative stories, E. M. Forster explores worlds where technology, habit, and social convention have replaced direct human experience. The title story, The Machine Stops, follows Vashti, who lives sealed in an automated room and worships the all-encompassing Machine, while her son Kuno begs her to visit him and rediscover the earth, the stars, and the body's own authority. Her journey by airship through a civilization that has grown fearful of nature, touch, and independe...

This book contains the following works arranged alphabetically by authors last names - Little Women [Louisa May Alcott] - Sense and Sensibility [Jane Austen] - Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy) [J.M. Barrie] - Cabin Fever [ B. M. Bower] - The Secret Garden [Frances Hodgson Burnett] - A Little Princess [Frances Hodgson Burnett] - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland [Lewis Carroll] - The King in Yellow [Robert William Chambers] - The Man Who Knew Too Much [Gilbert Keith Chesterton] - The Woman in Whi...

Maurice is heartbroken over unrequited love, which opened his heart and mind to his own sexual identity. In order to be true to himself, he goes against the grain of society's often unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.Forster understood that his homage to same-sex love, if published when he completed it in 1914, would probably end his career. Thus, Maurice languished in a drawer for fifty-seven years, the author requesting it be published only after his death (alo...

A prophetic story about social isolation and dependence on technology written over a century ago by the Nobel Prize–nominated author.In a future version of planet Earth, most of the human population doesn't venture above ground. Rarely do they even leave their own rooms, in which all of their needs are met by the Machine.The Machine allows the humans to communicate "ideas" with one another, which is essentially their only activity. It doesn't stop them from...

E. M. Forster's Cambridge lectures begin with a witty tribute to William George Clark, the scholar whose integrity, independence, and wide literary sympathies set the tone for the course. From there, Forster asks what a novel is, answering with playful caution while arguing that fiction is too fluid for tidy definitions or narrow critical rules. He insists that English novels must be seen beside the great achievements of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Proust, and others, and that criticism should be...

Alexandria rises here as both a city and a palimpsest: a place shaped by Alexander, the Ptolemies, Cleopatra, Christianity, the Arab conquest, Napoleon, and modern municipal change. E. M. Forster frames it as a living guidebook in which monuments only become fully meaningful when read through the past, and he blends scholarly authority with a personal, often witty voice. He explains his method, transliteration choices, and the book's deliberate division into a sweeping historical pageant a...

E. M. Forster's Anonymity: An Enquiry begins with a deceptively simple question: does knowing who wrote a work alter the way we read it? Moving from anonymous ballads like Sir Patrick Spens to signed poems such as Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner, he widens the inquiry to novels, plays, and journalism, asking what authorship really contributes to literature. At the heart of the essay is a vivid distinction between writing that merely informs and writing that creates atmosphere, mood, and im...

“The Signora had no business to do it,” said Miss Bartlett, “no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy!”“And a Cockney, besides!” said Lucy, who had been further saddened by the Signora’s unexpected accent. “It might be London.” She looked at the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the row of white bottles of water and red bottles...

Howards End is a profound and beautifully crafted novel that explores the connections and divisions between people, classes, and ideals in a rapidly changing society. Through the intertwined lives of several families from different social backgrounds, the story examines wealth, culture, ambition, and the search for understanding in an era of transformation. As personal relationships deepen and conflicts emerge, questions of inheritance, responsibility, and human connection come to the fore...

Where Angels Fear to Tread is a compelling exploration of culture, convention, and the unexpected consequences of good intentions. Set between England and Italy, the novel follows a group of individuals whose lives become intertwined through family obligations, social expectations, and decisions that challenge the boundaries of class and tradition. As misunderstandings grow and emotions intensify, the characters are forced to confront questions of love, responsibility, and personal freedom...

Soon after the widowed Lilia Herriton arrives at the dusty Tuscan town of Monteriano with her friend Caroline Abbott, she falls in love with Gino Carella, a handsome-and younger-man. When her overbearing in-laws hear of the engagement, they panic, believing a marriage like that would dishonor their family and the memory of Lilia's late husband and their child.Lilia's brother-in-law, Philip Herriton, rushes to Italy to stop the marriage and "rescue" Lilia from Gino. He soon discovers that h...