Set in the years leading up to and culminating in Napoleon's disastrous Russian invasion, this novel focuses upon an entire society torn by conflict and change. Here is humanity in all its innocence and corruption, its wisdom and folly.

"Tolstoy produced many drafts of Anna Karenina. Crafting and recrafting each sentence with careful intent, he was anything but casual in his use of language. His project, translator Marian Schwartz observes, "was to bend language to his will, as an instrument of his aesthetic and moral convictions." In her magnificent new translation, Schwartz embraces Tolstoy's unusual style - she is the first English language translator ever to do so. Previous translations...

Bertie must deal with the Market Snodsbury Grammar School prize giving, the broken engagement of his cousin Angela, the wooing of Madeline Bassett by Gussie Fink-Nottle, and the resignation of Anatole, the genius chef. Will he prevail? Only with the aid of Jeeves!

"Thomas Gradgrind is the guiding luminary of the Coketown school, stern proponent of the Philosophy of Fact, whose ill-conceived idealism blinds him to the essential humanity of those around, with calamitous results. His daughter Louisa becomes trapped in a loveless marriage and falls prey to an idle seducer, and her brother Tom is ruined thanks to their father's pet theories. Meanwhile Sleary's circus offers a vision of escape and entertainment,...

"Mistakenly assumed to have drowned in the Thames, John Harmon assumes a new identity to get acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, who are next in line for his inheritance, and with Bella Wilfer, whom his father's will stipulates he must marry. Amid a vast gallery of scoundrels, strivers, and social climbers, Dickens' final complete novel explores the effects of greed and corruption, blending psychological insight with social commentary"--

"The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are agog with curiousity when the Gazette advertises 'A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddoks at 6.30 p.m.' A childish practical joke? Or a spiteful hoax? Unable to resiste the mysterious invitation, the locals arrive at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out and a gun is fired. When they come back on, a gruesome scene is revealed....

A story of the future, about a specially designed air vessel that sinks with its human cargo into a sea of dust in one of the craters of the moon.

When her fiancé dies exactly as described in one of her novels, mystery writer Harriet Vane becomes the prime suspect. Can Lord Peter Wimsey find the real poisoner in time to save her from the gallows? Impossible, it seems. The Crown's case is watertight. The police are adamant. The judge's summing-up is clear: Harriet Vane is guilty. But Lord Peter is determined to find her innocent - as determined as he is to make her his wife.

Never before published in a single volume, Tolkien's four novellas (Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf by Niggle, Smith of Wootton Major, and Roverandom) and one book of poems (The Adventures of Tom Bombadil) are gathered together for the first time, in a fully illustrated volume. This new, definitive collection of works -- which had appeared separately, in various formats, between 1949 and 1998 -- comes with a brand-new foreword and endmatter, and with a...

Taken from the BBC archive, hear recordings about the events of British history during the 1940's, described by the people who lived them.