The elements which make up The Moonstone--a purloined Indian jewel which carries with it a mysterious curse, a stolid British police sergeant, a drama of theft and murder in a spacious country home--have been repeated, in slightly varying guises, throughout much of the detective fiction to which Wilkie Collins' popular 1868 novel gave birth.

Mansfield Park is a study of three families-the Bertrams, the Crawfords, and the Prices-with the isolated figure of the heroine, Fanny Price, at its center. Fanny's quiet passivity, her steadfast loyalty and love for the son of the family who regard her as the poor relation, and who have taken her under their roof, are not appreciated until they are tried against the brilliant and witty Mary and Henry Crawford, the unfortunate consequences of whose...

First published serially between 1859 and 1860, “The Woman in White” is Wilkie Collins’s epistolary novel that tells the tale of Walter Hartright, who encounters a woman all dressed in white on a moonlit road in Hampstead. Hartright helps the woman to find her way back to London. The woman warns him against an unnamed baronet and after they part he discovers that she may have escaped from an insane asylum. Hartright travels to Cumberland where...

Jane Eyre (originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published on 16 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London, England, under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Primarily of the bildungsroman genre, Jane Eyre follows the emotions and experiences of its title character, including her growth to adulthood,...

This is the spirited story of a survivor whose racy anecdotes and shady dealings only underline her essential warmth and goodness. But there is nothing sentimental about Moll, who presents herself warts and all. Though her adventures take her abroad, she remains the vivid creation of London. Moll Flanders, pickpocket and prostitute–a mercantile genius trading in the oldest human commodity–has been for the past three centuries an enduring representative...

The publication of "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" in 1891 generated both controversy and mixed reviews. Featuring a disgraced woman as the heroine, the tragic novel elicited reactions that ranged from "an unpleasant novel told in a very unpleasant way ("The Saturday Review") to "Hardy's best novel yet" ("The Atlantic Monthly"). "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" has since come to be considered a masterpiece of English literature, sparking numerous film and...

When Daisy Cooper’s new husband joins the RAF to fight the Battle of Britain, she’s terrified she’s going to lose him. So when her mother Ivy suggests she join the gardeners at Kew to keep busy, Daisy’s intrigued. After all, Ivy worked at Kew during the last great war and made lifelong friends along the way. Louisa Armitage, not ready to hang up her gardening gloves just yet, and Beth Sanderson, an aspiring doctor looking to make a difference,...