His frank and often humorous descriptions cover everything from his comically wretched sea voyage to his sheer astonishment at the magnificence of the Niagara Falls, while he also visited hospitals, prisons and law courts and found them exemplary. But Dickens's opinion of America as a land ruled by money, built on slavery, with a corrupt press and unsavoury manners, provoked a hostile reaction on both sides of the Atlantic. American Notes is an illuminating account of a great writer's revelatory encounter with the New World. In her introduction, Patricia Ingham examines the response the book received when it was published, and compares it with similar travel writings of the period and with Dickens's fiction, in particular Martin Chuzzlewit. This edition includes an updated chronology, appendices and notes. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    "No pen or brush can picture life in the old Southern States in the ante-bellum days. The period comprehends two hundred and fifty years of history without a parallel. A separate and distinct civilization was there represented, the like of which can never be reproduced. Socially, intellectually, politically and religiously, she stood pre-eminent, among nations. It was the spirit of the cavalier that created and sustained our greatness. Give the Puritan his due, and still the fact remains. The impetus that led to freedom from Great Britain, came from the South. A Southern General led the ragged Continentals on to victory. Southern jurists and Southern statesmanship guided the councils of wisdom. The genius of war pervaded her people. She gave presidents, cabinet officers, commanders, tacticians and strategists. Her legislation extended the country's territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific. "

    Though brought together in a friendship that neither jealousy nor violence could shatter, the Hazards and the Mains are torn apart by the storm of events that has divided the nation. "Superb! You will gain a firsthand knowledge of life at West Point in the early 1800s...a peek at the Texas frontier, a vacation in a posh cottage at Newport...experience the savagery of war in Mexico, suffer the suspense of both the Charleston Battery and beleaguered Fort Sumter before the mortar fire that launched a war. It has been a long time since I enjoyed a book so much." (The Asheville Citizen-Times)

    unless a hero rides to her rescue. Book 2: Fighting Mac She's no sleeping beauty, but then he's no prince - just a biker warrior to the rescue. Book 3: Chasing Taz He lived his life one conquest at a time. She calculated her every move... until she met him. Book 4: Claiming Tiny Some rules are meant to be broken. Book 5: Saving Scout Nothing worthwhile in life ever comes fast or easy.

    Sweeping back and forth over half the globe -- from the boulevards of Paris to the slopes of Mount Everest to the underbellies of Bangkok and Hong Kong -- Sobhraj left in his wake a trail of baffling mystery and inexplicable horror. He also led the police of a dozen nations on a chase that ended at least twelve and possibly twenty-four corpses later with a mere seven-year prison sentence in Delhi. Besides offering a riveting narrative of serial murder and a years-long manhunt, this singular volume examines the lives not only of the intelligent, charismatic, conscienceless, and thoroughly dangerous Sobhraj but also of the unsuspecting victims that he drugged, robbed, sometimes tortured, and without a qualm often killed. A chilling tale of deadly coincidences set in exotic, glamorous locales, Serpentine offers a reading experience as frightening as it is unforgettable.

    Moment by moment, Bernstein and Woodward portray the taut, post-Watergate White House as Nixon, his family, his staff, and many members of Congress strained desperately to prevent his inevitable resignation. This brilliant book reveals the ordeal of Nixon's fall from office -- one of the gravest crises in presidential history.

    In this edition, the original collection is supplemented with the 20 volume Harvard Shelf of Fiction, a selection of the greatest works of fiction. Content: The Harvard Classics: V. 1: Franklin, Woolman & Penn V. 2: Plato, Epictetus & Marcus Aurelius V. 3: Bacon, Milton, Browne V. 4: John Milton V. 5: R. W. Emerson V. 6: Robert Burns V. 7: St Augustine & Thomas á Kempis V. 8: Nine Greek Dramas V. 9: Cicero and Pliny V. 10: The Wealth of Nations V. 11: The Origin of Species V. 12: Plutarchs V. 13: Æneid V. 14: Don Quixote V. 15: Bunyan & Walton V. 16: 1001 Nights V. 17: Folklore & Fable V. 18: Modern English Drama V. 19: Goethe & Marlowe V. 20: The Divine Comedy V. 21: I Promessi Sposi V. 22: The Odyssey V. 23: Two Years Before the Mast V. 24: Edmund Burke V. 25: J. S. Mill & T. Carlyle V. 26: Continental Drama V. 27 & 28: English & American Essays V. 29: The Voyage of the Beagle V. 30: Scientific Papers V. 31: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini V. 32: Literary and Philosophical Essays V. 33: Voyages & Travels V. 34: French & English Philosophers V. 35: Chronicle and Romance V. 36: Machiavelli, Roper, More, Luther V. 37: Locke, Berkeley, Hume V. 38: Harvey, Jenner, Lister, Pasteur V. 39: Prologues V. 40–42: English Poetry V. 43: American Historical Documents V. 44 & 45: Sacred Writings V. 46 & 47: Elizabethan Drama V. 48: Blaise Pascal V. 49: Saga V. 50: Reader's Guide V. 51: Lectures The Shelf of Fiction: V. 1 & 2: The History of Tom Jones V. 3: A Sentimental Journey & Pride and Prejudice V. 4: Guy Mannering V. 5 & 6: Vanity Fair V. 7 & 8: David Copperfield V. 9: The Mill on the Floss V. 10: Irving, Poe, Harte, Twain, Hale V.11: The Portrait of a Lady V. 12: Notre Dame de Paris V. 13: Balzac, Sand, de Musset, Daudet, de Maupassant V. 14 & 15: Goethe, Keller, Storm, Fontane V. 16–19: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev V. 20: Valera, Bjørnson, Kielland

    An ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings, he seems made of flesh rather than of marble. In bestselling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin seems to turn to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. By bringing Franklin to life, Isaacson shows how he helped to define both his own time and ours.He was, during his 84-year life, America's best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical—though not most profound—political thinkers. He proved by flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a rod to tame it. He sought practical ways to make stoves less smoky and commonwealths less corrupt. He organized neighborhood constabularies and international alliances, local lending libraries and national legislatures. He combined two types of lenses to create bifocals and two concepts of representation to foster the nation's federal compromise. He was the only man who shaped all the founding documents of America: the Albany Plan of Union, the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France, the peace treaty with England, and the Constitution. And he helped invent America's unique style of homespun humor, democratic values, and philosophical pragmatism.But the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America's first great publicist, he was, in his life and in his writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity.Through it all, he trusted the hearts and minds of his fellow "leather-aprons" more than he did those of any inbred elite. He saw middle-class values as a source of social strength, not as something to be derided. His guiding principle was a "dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people." Few of his fellow founders felt this comfort with democracy so fully, and none so intuitively.In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, from his days as a runaway printer to his triumphs as a statesman, scientist, and Founding Father. He chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris. He also shows how Franklin helped to create the American character and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.

    Suitable for ages 4 to 8 years, this work is illustrated so that the child easily understands the story.

    His highly-acclaimed work includes One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch and Love in the Time of Cholera. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his literary production prior to Chronicle of a Death Foretold. A principal exponent of 'magical realism', his work forms a significant part of the debate about postmodernist writing, and the study of fantasy as a genre. Dr. Fiddian's detailed and accessible Introduction places Marquez's work in the contexts of national, regional (Caribbean) and continental (Latin American) writing and develops a coherent overview of the author's literary output. The essays selected for inclusion in this collection bring together some of the most up-to-date and authoritative assessments of Marquez's writing, from early stories and novellas, through the major novels, up to Love in the Time of Cholera. Featuring a variety of critical approaches, this fascinating study provides the first annotated anthology of criticism in English.

    Titles in this collection are: The Lost Symbol, Digital Fortress, Angel & Demons, Deception Point, The Davinci Code Dan Brown is the bestselling author of Digital Fortress, Deception Point, Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he has taught English and creative writing. He lives in New England.

    

    A collection of seven critical essays discussing Tolstoy's novel, arranged in chronological order of their original publication.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.