University of Virginia.Library.Electronic Text Center

A staple in any sci-fi classics collection, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World tells the story of an incredible expedition into another dimension where prehistoric creatures still survive.  After being ridiculed for claiming he had found dinosaurs in South America, Professor George Challenger attempts to prove his story by visiting the land and bringing back hard evidence. Edward Malone, a newspaper reporter who had been on assignment to interview...

Tara and Gahan are each Barsoomian royalty, residing in two prominent cities, Helium, and Gathol. Hoping to align the cities and enjoy the advantages of a romantic union, Gahan wishes to marry Tara. However, Tara does not reciprocate this love. After rejecting the engagement, Tara sets out in her flying ship. When she flies into a turbulent storm, Tara crashes her ship in an unknown territory. Unharmed but still in danger, Tara is forced to run from...

The first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, for her novel "The Age of Innocence", Edith Wharton was discouraged by her mother from pursuing her writing at an early age. Despite this she would go on to produce a prolific body of work which included many novels and short stories. Characteristic to her work is the subtle use of dramatic irony and having grown up in a prominent New York family she would become one the most astute critics of pre-World War...

Paradise Lost is the greatest epic poem in English literature, and Milton's Satan one of its most compelling figures. The controversy has been exceeded only by its tremendous influence: countless masters of English verse have paid homage to Milton and Paradise Lost. A profound meditation on the role of man under God, Pardise Lost is essential reading.

An elegant portrait of desire and betrayal in Old New York. In the highest circle of New York social life during the 1870's, Newland Archer, a young lawyer, prepares to marry the docile May Welland. Before their engagement is announced, he meets May's cousin, the mysterious, nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned to New York after a long absence.

With impeccable timing Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective, makes his dramatic entrance on to the English crime stage. Recently, there had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn, constant companion to old Mrs Inglethorp, had stormed out of the house muttering something about 'a lot of sharks'. And with her, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security; now the air seemed rife with suspicion...

Soon after the American Civil War, Confederate soldier John Carter joins the gold rush in Arizona. After striking a vein of gold, Carter runs into trouble with the natives of the area. In attempts to evade their pursuit, Carter hides in a cave, unaware of its magical properties. Mysteriously, Carter is transported to Mars, which the planet inhabitants call "Barsoom". When Carter discovers that the gravity difference between Mars and Earth has granted...

When John Carter discovers that his beloved wife, Dejah, has been imprisoned in the Temple of the Sun, he is desperate to rescue her. However, the prison, which slowly rotates, is only opened once a Barsoomian year. As Dejah's prison sentence drags on for over a hundred days, the window of opportunity is narrowing for Carter to save her. Amid social and political unrest from the last war, the Thern had appointed a new leader, but many still believed...

Over one long, languid summer Edna Pontellier, fettered by marriage and motherhood gradually awakens to her individuality and sexuality and experiences love outside of her passionless marriage. But as she discovers emotional freedom so she comes to realise the true extent of her psychological and social confinement and its terrible consequences for her future.

Before there were airplanes and high speed travel, Phileas Fogg, an English gentleman, bets 20,000 pounds that he can travel around the world in only 80 days.