42 results for "Classics"

The Crucible

Miller, Arthur
The Crucible is a powerful drama written by Arthur Miller in 1953. It is set in Salem, Massachusetts during witch tests of 1692. The story follows a small puritan community that is consumed by fear and doubt when a group of young girls are caught dancing in the forest and accused of practicing Vichakrafts. To protect themselves, girls start accusing others in the witches village, causing a wave of domination and false allegations. In the heart of the play, John Proctor is a local farmer who tries to reveal the truth and stand against insanity. His personal conflict with crime, respect and redemption adds emotional depth to the story. Abigail Williams, a former servant at Proctor House, plays a major role in chaos, as he manipulates his profit, is partially inspired by jealousy and desire to take revenge. Arthur Miller wrote a drama during the McCarthi era in America, when people were being accused of communism without real evidence. In this way, the crucible is not only about the Salem witch tests, but also a powerful criticism of how fear and doubt can destroy life and justice. The play examines subjects such as integrity, power, prestige and mass hysteria, showing how dangerous it can be when people leave the cause and control fear. Crucible is one of the most important tasks in the American theater, known for his intense drama and timely message about the results of truth, courage and false allegations.
Independently published 2025-06-07 77 pages

Trinity

Leon Uris
From the internationally acclaimed author who enthralled the world with Exodus, Battle Cry, and other classics of twentieth-century fiction comes a sweeping and powerful epic adventure. Leon Uris captures the "terrible beauty" of Ireland during its long and bloody struggle for freedom. It is the electrifying story of an idealistic young Catholic rebel and the valiant and beautiful Protestant girl who defied her heritage to join his cause. It is a tale of love and danger, of triumph at an unthinkable cost--a magnificent portrait of a people divided by class, faith, and prejudice. It is an unforgettable saga of the fires that devastated a majestic land--and the unquenchable flames that burn in the human heart.
Blackstone Publishing 2022-10-25 830 pages

West Side Story

Irving Shulman
The classic novelization of one of Broadway’s most enduring and beloved musicals, updated with a beautiful new cover. Maria is young and innocent and has never known love—until Tony. And Tony, searching for life beyond the savagery of the streets, has discovered love for the first time with her, too. But Maria’s brother is the leader of the Sharks and Tony had once led the rival Jets. Now, both gangs are claiming the same turf and with tensions rising to the point of explosion, it seems there is no way to stop a rumble. Tony promised Maria that he would stay out of it. But will he be able to keep his word or will their newfound love be destroyed by violence or even death? Evocative and unforgettable, this novelization brings out all of the depth, drama, and beauty of one of the most enduring stories in the history of American theater.
Simon and Schuster 2021-11-16 160 pages

The Great Book of King Arthur And His Knights of the Round Table

John Matthews,Neil Gaiman
Foreword by Neil Gaiman The world's leading Arthurian authority reimagines one of the most beloved and influential legends--the story of King Arthur and his Knights--for a new century in this gorgeous keepsake edition, illustrated with luminous full-color paintings and drawings by internationally acclaimed Tolkien artist John Howe. The stories of King Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere, Galahad, Gawain, Tristan and the rest of the Knights of the Roundtable, and the search for the Holy Grail have been beloved for centuries and are the inspiration of many modern fantasy novels, films, and shows. These legends began when an obscure Celtic hero named Arthur stepped on to the stage of history sometime in the sixth century, generating a host of oral tales that would be inscribed some 900 years later by Thomas Malory in his classic Morte D'Arthur (The Death of Arthur). The Great Book of King Arthur brings these legends into the modern age, using accessible prose for contemporary readers for the first time. In addition to the stories in Morte D'Arthur, John Matthews includes many tales of Arthur and his knights either unknown to Malory or written in other languages, such as the story of Avenable, the girl brought up as a boy who becomes a famous knight; Morien, whose adventures are as fantastic and exciting as any found in Malory's work; and a retelling of the life of Round Table favorite Gawain, from his strange birth to his upbringing among the poor to his ascension to the highest position--Emperor of Rome. In addition, there are some of the earliest tales of Arthur, deriving from the tradition of Celtic storytelling. The epic hero is represented in such powerful stories as "The Adventures of Eagle-boy" and "The Coming of Merlin," which is based on the early medieval text Vita Merlini and tells a completely new version of the great enchanter's story. The Great Book of King Arthur includes 15 full-color paintings and 25 pencil drawings.
HarperCollins Publishers 2022 512 pages

American Pastoral: A Novel

Roth, Philip
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE “One of the five best novels I have ever read, maybe the best. . . . It ranks with the greatest of American fiction." —Stephen King, The New York Times “An incandescent fiction. . . . Scintillates with more Rothian wit, paradox, eloquent tantrums, and absurd pitfalls than can be counted." —Los Angeles Times Book Review “The greatest of great American novels.” —Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The New York Times “Widely considered to be Roth's masterwork."—Esquire American Pastoral is an elegy for the American century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth’s protagonist is Swede Levov, a legendary athlete at his Newark high school who grows up in the booming postwar years to marry a former Miss New Jersey, inherit his father’s glove factory, and move into a stone house in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock. And then one day in 1968, Swede’s beautiful American luck deserts him. For Swede’s adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager—a teenager capable of an outlandish act of political terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longed-for American pastoral and into the American berserk.
Mariner Books Classics 2026-05-26 512 pages

Topaz

Leon Uris
A #1 New York Times bestseller from the author of Exodus and Trinity, Topaz is the classic Cold War thriller of high intrigue and international suspense set during the Cuban Missile Crisis. On the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Paris, 1962, Devereaux and Nordstrom uncover Soviet plans to ship nuclear arms. But when nobody acts after sharing his findings, Devereaux becomes the target of an assassination attempt and soon realizes the plot extends far beyond Cuba--and himself. A thrilling and well-paced novel filled with Cold War intrigue, Topaz features two agents on a journey around the world to save NATO and themselves.
Blackstone Audio, Incorporated 2022-11-22 332 pages

April morning

Fast, Howard
“Invites comparison with Crane’s Red Badge of Courage . . . Ithink this is an even better book.”—The New York Times When you read this novel about April 19, 1775, you will see the British redcoats marching in a solid column through your town. Your hands will be sweating and you will shake a little as you grip your musket because never have you shot with the aim of killing a man. But you will shoot, and shoot again and again while your shoulder aches from your musket’s kick and the tight, disciplined red column bleeds and wavers and breaks and you begin to shout at the top of your lungs because you are there, at the birth of freedom—you're a veteran of the Battle of Lexington, and you’ve helped whip the King’s best soldiers...
Bantam books 1962 202 pages

In Sunlight and in Shadow

Mark Helprin
A literary love story that rivals those celebrated in earlier classics. "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" In Helprin s rhapsodic rendering . . . "In Sunlight and in Shadow" is . . . the romance of life itself. " Los Angeles Times" In the summer of 1946, New York City pulses with energy. Harry Copeland, a World War II veteran, has returned home to run the family business. Yet his life is upended by a single encounter with the young singer and heiress Catherine Thomas Hale, as each falls for the other in an instant. They pursue one another in a romance played out in Broadway theaters, Long Island mansions, the offices of financiers, and the haunts of gangsters. Catherine s choice of Harry over her longtime fiance endangers Harry s livelihood and threatens his life. In the end, Harry must summon the strength of his wartime experience to fight for Catherine, and risk everything. In its storytelling heft, its moral rectitude, the solemn magnificence of its writing and the splendor of its hymns to New York City, ["In Sunlight and in Shadow"] is a spiritual pendant to Winter s Tale and every bit as extraordinary . . . Even the most stubbornly resistant readers will soon be disarmed by the nobility of the novel s sentiments and seduced by the pure music of its prose. "Wall Street Journal" [NO AUTHOR PHOTO] Mark Helprin is the acclaimed author of Winter s Tale, A Soldier of the Great War, The Pacific, Memoir from Antproof Case, Freddy and Fredericka, Ellis Island, and numerous other works. "
Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2013 705 pages

Battle Cry

Leon Uris
Battle Cry is the riveting Marine epic by the bestselling author of such classics as Trinity and Exodus Originally published in 1953, Leon Uris's Battle Cry is the raw and exciting story of men at war from a legendary American author. This is the story of enlisted men--Marines at the beginning of World War II. They are a rough-and-ready tangle of guys from America's cities and farms and reservations. Led by a tough veteran sergeant, these soldiers band together to emerge as part of one of the most elite fighting forces in the world. With staggering realism and detail we follow them into intense battles--Guadalcanal and Tarawa--and through exceptional moments of camaraderie and bravery, Battle Cry does not extol the glories of war, but proves itself to be one of the greatest war stories of all time.
Blackstone Publishing 2022-11-22 712 pages

Doc

Mary Doria Russell
The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cattle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys and young Irish hookers. Violence is random and routine, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his death shocks a part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp. And it is a matter of strangely personal importance to Doc Holliday, the frail twenty-six-year-old dentist who has just opened an office at No. 24, Dodge House. Beautifully educated, born to the life of a Southern gentleman, Dr. John Henry Holliday is given an awful choice at the age of twenty-two: die within months in Atlanta or leave everyone and everything he loves in the hope that the dry air and sunshine of the West will restore him to health. Young, scared, lonely, and sick, he arrives on the rawest edge of the Texas frontier just as an economic crash wrecks the dreams of a nation. Soon, with few alternatives open to him, Doc Holliday is gambling professionally; he is also living with Maria Katarina Harony, a high-strung Hungarian whore with dazzling turquoise eyes, who can quote Latin classics right back at him. Kate makes it her business to find Doc the high-stakes poker games that will support them both in high style. It is Kate who insists that the couple travel to Dodge City, because "that's where the money is." And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp really begins--before Wyatt Earp is the prototype of the square-jawed, fearless lawman; before Doc Holliday is the quintessential frontier gambler; before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral links their names forever in American frontier mythology--when neither man wanted fame or deserved notoriety. Authentic, moving, and witty, Mary Doria Russell's fifth novel redefines these two towering figures of the American West and brings to life an extraordinary cast of historical characters, including Holliday's unforgettable companion, Kate. First and last, however, "Doc "is John Henry Holliday's story, written with compassion, humor, and respect by one of our greatest contemporary storytellers.
Thorndike Press 2011 695 pages

Armageddon: a novel of Berlin

Uris, Leon
Meticulously researched, this New York Times bestselling novel gives a historically accurate account of the early days of the Cold War and the fight for German redemption. At the end of World War II, American army officer Captain Sean O'Sullivan is commissioned with rebuilding Berlin. Reeling from the death of his brothers at German hands and faced with the direct horrors of the Holocaust, O'Sullivan struggles against his animosity toward the nation he is helping restore. Meanwhile, Soviet forces blockade Germany in a bid for power, and the Western Allies must unite to prevent a communist takeover. When the airlift begins, the Allies find their deepest convictions tested as they fight against a threat even more dangerous than Hitler.
Blackstone Publishing 2022-10-25 898 pages

The Angry Hills

Leon Uris
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Trinity, Topaz, and Exodus, comes a classic World War II thriller of Greek resistance during the German infiltration of Athens--based on the diaries of Leon Uris's uncle. Just as World War II threatens to break out, Mike Morrison arrives in Greece to collect his late wife's inheritance. Hoping to quickly finish his business and leave before German troops invade, Morrison's plans are derailed when he receives a letter listing the names of Greek patriots pretending to be German collaborators, a list Nazi strategists desperately need. With the outcome of the war hinging on Morrison's ability to protect the letter, he embarks on an adventure across Greece in an effort to evade Nazi troops and keep the letter from falling into enemy hands.
Blackstone Publishing 2022-10-25 376 pages

Troy

Adèle Geras
The classic struggle between Greece and Troy brought to life by a panoramic chorus of voices both humble and high, human and divine. The siege of Troy has lasted almost ten years. Inside the walled city, food is becoming scarce and the death toll is rising. From the heights of Mount Olympus, the Gods keep watch. But Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, is bored with the endless, dreary war, and so she turns her attention to two sisters: Marpessa, who is gifted with God-sight and serves as handmaiden to Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world; and Xanthe, who is kind and loving and tends the wounded soldiers in the Blood Room. When Eros fits an arrow to his silver-lit bow and lets it fly, neither sister will escape its power. With vitality and grace, Adèle Geras breathes personality, heartbreak, and humor into this classic story. This is truly an inspired novel, in which the Gods move among mortals and an ancient city is brought to life.
HarperCollins Publishers 2017-06-06 368 pages

Journey to the River Sea

Ibbotson, Eva
With the memorable characters and plot twists she brings to her best-selling fantasies, acclaimed author Eva Ibbotson has written a hair-raising novel, set in turn-of-the-last-century Brazil. Accompanied by Miss Minton, a fierce-looking, no-nonsense governess, Maia, a young orphan, sets off for the wilderness of the Amazon, expecting curtains of orchids, brightly colored macaws, and a loving family. But what she finds is an evil-tempered aunt and uncle and their spoiled daughters. It is only when she is swept up in a mystery involving a young Indian boy, a homesick child actor, and a missing inheritance that Maia lands in the middle of the Amazon adventure she's dreamed of. Readers of every generation will treasure Ibbotson's lush historical adventure that harkens back to the beloved classics of Frances Hodgson Burnett and Louisa May Alcott.
Puffin Books 2003-10-13 298 pages

Arouse and Beware

MacKinlay Kantor
MACKINLAY KANTORPulitzer Prize-winning author of Andersonville A Novel of Escape During the Civil War BASIS FOR THE FILMTHE MAN FROM DAKOTA This is the story of three strange companions who attain what seldom has been won by any escaping prisoners. Two Yankee soldiers escape from Belle Island, the Confederate Prison, in 1864. As they make their way northward to the Union lines on the Rapidan they are joined by a woman who is fleeing from Richmond. The hazards of their painful flight are tremendous as they travel by night on roads as ominous as the incredible future awaiting them. Starvation and feasting, the swift beat of love, the primitive encounter, the hot cry of triumph-these elements are combined in this bold and valiant tale of sacrifice and high devotion. Arouse and Beware, first published in 1936, was widely praised by the critics and became a best seller. Now with the success of MacKinlay Kantor's great novel, Andersonville, and the enormous interest in the Civil War period, it is being re-issued again to be enjoyed by a whole new generation of readers.
Speaking Volumes, LLC 2017-01-20 348 pages

Mitla Pass

Leon Uris
A sweeping novel of love, passion, and freedom, Mitla Pass stands as an epic look at modern Middle Eastern history and is quite possibly Uris's most autobiographical work. Gideon Zadok arrives in Israel with every intention to research a new book, mend a broken marriage, and improve his dysfunctional family. But as political tensions escalate and his family is evacuated, Zadok asks to follow Israeli paratroopers to secure Mitla Pass and finds himself in the midst of one of the largest global crises of the twentieth century.
Blackstone Publishing 2022-11-22 393 pages

The Big Bow Mystery

Israel Zangwill
Regarded as the first full-length locked room mystery, The Big Bow Mystery focuses on a murder that has occurred inside a locked room, with no clear indication as to the weapon used, the perpetrator of the horrendous crime, or a possible escape route. Scotland Yard is stumped. Yet the seemingly unsolvable case has, as Inspector Grodman says, "one sublimely simple solution" that is revealed in a final chapter full of revelations and a shocking denouement. The Big Bow Mystery has been almost continuously in print since 1891 and has been used as the basis for three commercial films.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2015-07-31 106 pages

The Way Home Two Novellas from the World of The Last Unicorn

Peter S. Beagle
Renowned author Peter S. Beagle returns to the world of The Last Unicorn in this resonant and moving two-novella collection, featuring the award-winning “Two Hearts” and the brand-new “Sooz.” The Last Unicorn is one of fantasy’s most revered classics, beloved by generations of readers and with millions of copies in print. Revisiting the world of that novel, Beagle’s long-awaited Hugo and Nebula-Awards-winning “Two Hearts” introduced the irrepressible Sooz on a quest to save her village from a griffin, and explored the bonds she formed with unforgettable characters like the wise and wonderful Molly Grue and Schmendrick the Magician. In the never-before-published “Sooz,” the events of “Two Hearts” are years behind its narrator, but a perilous journey lies ahead of her, in a story that is at once a tender meditation on love and loss, and a lesson in finding your true self. The Way Home is suffused with Beagle’s wisdom, profound lyricism, and sly wit; and collects two timeless works of fantasy.
Penguin 2024-03-19 224 pages

The Novel of Ferrara

Giorgio Bassani
Giorgio Bassani’s six classic books, collected for the first time in English as the epic masterwork they were intended to be. Among the masters of twentieth-century literature, Giorgio Bassani and his Northern Italian hometown of Ferrara “are as inseparable as James Joyce and Dublin or Italo Svevo and Trieste” (from the Introduction). Now published in English for the first time as the unified masterwork Bassani intended, The Novel of Ferrara brings together Bassani’s six classics, fully revised by the author at the end of his life: Within the Walls , The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles , The Garden of the Finzi-Continis , Behind the Door , The Heron , and The Smell of Hay . Set in the northern Italian town of Ferrara before, during, and after the Second World War, these interlocking stories present a fully rounded world of unforgettable characters: the respected doctor whose homosexuality is tolerated until he is humiliatingly exposed by an exploitative youth; a survivor of the Nazi death camps whose neighbors’ celebration of his return gradually turns to ostracism; a young man discovering the ugly, treacherous price that people will pay for a sense of belonging; the Jewish aristocrat whose social position has been erased; the indomitable schoolteacher, Celia Trotti, whose Communist idealism disturbs and challenges a postwar generation. The Novel of Ferrara memorializes not only the Ferrarese people, but the city itself, which assumes a character and a voice deeply inflected by the Jewish community to which the narrator belongs. Suffused with new life by acclaimed translator and poet Jamie McKendrick, this seminal work seals Bassani’s reputation as “a quietly insistent chronicler of our age’s various menaces to liberty” (Jonathan Keates).
National Geographic Books 2020-12-01 800 pages