The controversial novel, published in 1852, in which author Harriet Beecher Stowe offers an indictment of the pre-Civil War South through the story of Uncle Tom, an elderly slave who maintains his human dignity in the face of cruelty, suffering, and death.

Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, first published in 1910, remained a perennial favorite throughout the twentieth century and into the early 2000s. It was adapted to several popular motion pictures and into one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. Its main character, Erik, is a romantic figure whose appeal reaches across different cultures and times. He is a sensitive soul, an accomplished composer and musician whose great...

Overview: Mrs. Dalloway chronicles a June day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway-a day that is taken up with running minor errands in preparation for a party and that is punctuated, toward the end, by the suicide of a young man she has never met. In giving an apparently ordinary day such immense resonance and significance-infusing it with the elemental conflict between death and life-Virginia Woolf triumphantly discovers her distinctive style as a...

Hercule Poirot is vacationing on the Cornish coast when he meets Nick Buckly. Nick is the young and reckless mistress of End House, an imposing structure perched on the rocky cliffs of St. Loo. Poirot has taken a particular interest in the young woman who has recently narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just mere coincidences or a spate of bad luck....

When gunfire rips through the windows of Wolfe's rooftop conservatory, he realizes tha a warning from a gangland boss can't be ignored. A dead boyfriend, drugged drinks, two man-killing debutantes, and officials of a highly un-American party form a puzzle that Archie and Wolfe must solve to save their own lives.

Lucy and Edmund, accompanied by their peevish cousin Eustace, sail to the land of Narnia, where Eustace id temporarily transformed into a green dragon because of his selfish behavior and skepticism. Sequel to "Prince Caspian."

When evil comes to Narnia, Jill and Eustace help fight the great last battle and Aslan leads his people to a glorious new paradise. Sequel to "The Magician's Nephew."

Lord Edgware is dead, and since his widow had approached Hercule Poirot about helping her to get rid of him, Poirot has his doubts about the widow, the beautiful American actress Jane Wilkinson.

The unifying premise for this short story collection is the Tuesday Club: six people who meet socially one evening at Jane Marple's home and then decide to meet regularly each Tuesday night to solve a mystery which a group member must relate.

A story about the problems of a newly elected Pope from the Ukraine who has spent many years as a prisoner of the Russians in Siberia. He knows, and has the grudging respect of, Russia's Premier. A subplot of a much more temporal nature is the story of an American newspaperman and a young Italian matron.