Publishers Weekly #1 Best Seller for 1900.

English soldier turned Virginia explorer unknowingly becomes entangled in royal intrigue when he makes a quick marriage. The author drives the plot through a series of adventures, each revealing more of the essential nature of the characters.

One Americas most popular historical novels and very hard to put down.

Sienkiewicz received the 1905 Nobel Price in Literature for his "outstanding merits as an epic writer".

The novel follows the developing love between a Christian woman and a Roman Patrician in the time of Nero. The romantic story arc is set against the conflict of the moral systems of the long established Roman Empire and the developing Christianity. Sienkiewicz uses this setting to explore morality and power, and his observations remain relevant today.

The novel is based on extensive historical research and gives a good view of life in those times.

The centrepiece of this collection of four stories is Nanna, the ninth of the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, which was to follow a family over many generations. Nanna had been earlier introduced as the daughter of an abusive drunk, forced to live on the streets and begin a life of prostitution. Here she discovers a unique talent for destroying men... When first published, the public was outraged by Nanna as they were by many of Zola's works.

The writings of Charles Dickens were often critical of society and government. This satire, Little Dorrit was also an outlet for Dickens' opinion of prison, particularly debtor's prisons. There people (including Dickens' own) who failed to pay their debts were imprisoned, paradoxically unable to work, until the debt was repaid. The story of Little Dorrit (whose father is imprisoned for debt) tells of the courtship between herself and Arthur Clennam and demonstrates the grim effects of imprisonment on those within as well as those beyond but whose lives are inextricably intertwined.