Winner of the 1919 Pulitzer Prize. In 1942 Orson Wells directed a film version. The second book in the Growth trilogy, following The Turmoil.

"The Magnificent Ambersons is perhaps Tarkington's best novel," said Van Wyck Brooks. "[It is] a typical story of an American family and town -- the great family that locally ruled the roost and vanished virtually in a day as the town spread and darkened into a city. This novel no doubt was a permanent page in the social history of the United States, so admirably conceived and written was the tale of the Ambersons, their house, their fate and the growth of the community in which they were submerged in the end."

Publishers Weekly #1 Best Seller for 1915.

Tarkington was a widely read and prolific multiple Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and dramatist. The story uses a tale of two families following different trajectories but linked by romance to provide a glimpse of the changes induced by industrialization and urbanization.

Teresa of Avila was major figure of the Catholic Reformation - a prominent mystic, writer, and reformer. At age seven she ran away from home to 'find martyrdom amongst the Moors'. At twenty she joined the Carmelite nuns. She resolved to found a new convent based on the principal of absolute poverty and renunciation of property. This, and the three kinds of ritual flagellation used at services, disturbed the laity. Later, the Carmelites tried to suppress her movement. After Don Quixote this is Spain's mode widely read prose classic.

Vanity Fair was the first work that Thackeray published under his own name. Extremely well-received at the time, it is now remembered as a classic of English literature. While the novel satirizes society in early 19th-century England, Thackeray meant the book to be not only entertaining but also instructive.

An influential classic and one of the earliest scholarly works of history. Enthusiastically embraced by the author's contemporaries and immediate successors. History gives an account of the war fought between the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) and the Delian League (led by Athens) in Ancient Greece. Unlike the many appearances the Gods make in the writings of Herodotus and the poems of Homer, Thucydides sees history as being caused by the choices and actions of human beings.

Anna Karenina moves in the esteemed circles of St. Petersburg society. She appears to have all the trappings of wealth, a high-ranking husband and a lovely son. Yet, this is not enough for Anna. An affair with Count Vronsky brings excitement for Anna but in its wake follows scandal, jealousy, bitterness and destruction. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Anna Karenina has been listed the "Greatest Book of all Time" in Time Magazine, January 2007.