Anton Lesser

The sensational bestselling story of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, seems to belong less to the history of the Victorian novel than to folklore, fairy tale, or myth. The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens's creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters-the eloquent ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the "Marchioness";...

Suddenly fatherless and penniless, young Nicholas Nickleby can find no help for himself and his family. His uncle Ralph may be rich, but he is neither a kind nor an honorable man, so it is up to Nicholas to take responsibility. His adventures in Victorian England will take Nicholas to a job at a boys' school run by a brutal and dictatorial headmaster, a London slum, and a theater troupe where he works under an assumed name and into a web of revenge,...

"The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty, and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. In this fresh, authoritative version--the first English translation of The Odyssey by a woman--this stirring tale of shipwrecks, monsters, and magic comes alive in an entirely new way. Written in iambic pentameter verse...