In the form of a novel, brilliant with wit and irony, the author presents a study of his favourite theme, the relations of parents to children. The idiosyncracy of the Pontifex family is traced from father to son through several generations: old John Pontifex, the village carpenter, George, the domineering publisher, Theobold his son, who is bullied into taking orders and jockeyed into marriage with the smug Christina, and Ernest, their child, who...

Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him.

"Considered the greatest satire ever written in English, Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' chronicles the fantastic voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, principally to four marvelous realms: Lilliput, where the people are six inches tall; Brobdingnag, a land inhabited by giants; Laputa, a wondrous flying island; and a country where the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses, are served by savage humanoid creatures called Yahoos. Beneath the surface of this enchanting...

One of Charles Dickens' most personally resonant novels, Little Dorrit speaks across the centuries to the modern reader. Its depiction of shady financiers and banking collapses seems uncannily topical, as does Dickens' compassionate admiration for Amy Dorrit, the "child of the Marshalsea," as she struggles to hold her family together in the face of neglect, irresponsibility, and ruin. Intricate in its plotting, the novel also satirizes the cumbersome...

Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...

Sensational, dramatic, packed with rich excitement and filled with the sweep and violence of human passions, LES MISERABLES is not only superb adventure but a powerful social document. The story of how the convict Jean-Valjean struggled to escape his past and reaffirm his humanity, in a world brutalized by poverty and ignorance, became the gospel of the poor and the oppressed.