"Upon its publication in 1857, Little Dorrit immediately outsold any of Dickens's previous books. The story of William Dorrit, imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea Prison, and his daughter and helpmate, Amy, or Little Dorrit, the novel charts the progress of the Dorrit family from poverty to riches. In his Introduction, David Gates argues that “intensity of imagination is the gift from which Dickens's other great attributes derive: his eye and ear,...

John Harmon returns to England as his father's heir. Believed drowned under suspicious circumstances--a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity--John evaluates Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colorful Victorian characters and incidents -- the faded aristocrats and parvenus gathered at the Veneering's dinner table, Betty Higden and her terror of the workhouse and the greedy plottings of Silas...

"Clouds of Witness" by Dorothy L. Sayers is the second novel featuring the charming and intelligent amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey. The story is set in the English countryside, where a family scandal erupts into a gripping murder mystery. The plot centers around the death of Captain Denis Cathcart, who is found shot outside the country house of the Duke of Denver, Lord Peter's elder brother. The Duke, Gerald Wimsey, is immediately implicated...

As Moll Flanders rises from the infamous Newgate Prison to fame, wealth, and respectability, Moll comes to embody all the excess and vitality of an era.

In turn-of-the-century London, an undercover, counter-revolutionary mole provokes a radical group he has penetrated into an act of violence that will bring about its own destruction. The scene is turn-of-the-century London. The characters include idealistic revolutionaries, ruthless ideologues, bureaucratic police, and at the center, an undercover, counter revolutionary mole whose mission is to provoke the radical group he has penetrated into a monstrous...

Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, have just visited Buckingham Palace, where Alan was awarded the George Cross, when they and a friend, retired Chief Inspector Jonathan Quinn, stumble across the body of a young girl hidden in St. James's Park. Wondering what led to the unfortunate girl's demise, Dorothy can't help but get involved in the case when Jonathan calls the next day and admits he knew who the victim was...

Maisie Dobbs entered domestic service in 1910 at thirteen, working for Lady Rowan Compton. When her remarkable intelligence is discovered by her employer, Maisie becomes the pupil of Maurice Blanche, a learned friend of the Comptons. In 1929, following an apprenticeship with Blanche, Maisie hangs out her shingle: "M. Dobbs, trade and personal investigations." She soon becomes enmeshed in a mystery surrounding The Retreat, a reclusive community of...

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Mary Balogh's The Secret Mistress.
“Matchless storyteller”(Romantic Times) Mary Balogh weaves a tantalizing web of wit and seduction in her new novel—an irresistible tale of two unlikely lovers and one unforgettable summer.

Kit Butler is cool, dangerous, one of London’s mostinfamous bachelors—marriage is the last thing on his mind. But Kit’s...

Vanity Fair is a story of two heroines---one humble, the other a scheming social climber---who meet in boarding school and embark on markedly different lives. Amid the swirl of London's posh ballrooms and affairs of love and war, their fortunes rise and fall. Through it all, Thackeray lampoons the shallow values of his society, reserving the most pointed barbs for the upper crust. What results is a prescient look at the dogged pursuit of wealth and...

Gibreel Farishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices, fall earthward from a bombed jet toward the sea, singing rival verses in an eternal wrestling match between good and evil.