Eternal youth and beauty is a temptation hard to resist. But at what price? .The subject of a painting and admired for his beauty, Dorian Gray trades his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Amidst a lifestyle of hedonism and secret lives, he nonetheless manages to maintain the persona of a very proper gentleman in the eyes of society. But his portrait tells a very different story.... Brilliant. Very interesting reading.

Publishers Weekly #1 Best Seller for 1902.

This novel was the grandfather of the Western genre and follows a natural gentleman as he is entangled with the new Wyoming state's 1890s Johnson County War - the ugly side of the consolidation of The American West. A cabal of large vested interests and a diffuse collection of small players fight for control of access rights to publicly owned common range land. Rhetoric and actions escalate and culminated in some nasty lynchings, the use of a gang of hired Texan killers (with the tacit approval of the state Governor), the murder of a small rancher, the siege of the Texans by a posse of 200, and their eventual rescue by the U.S. sixth cavalry at the orders of the president.

Written in 1792 it is one of the earliest works on "the woman question". The controversial life of its author caused the earliest feminists to distance themselves from the work. Some major themes include education for girls, the debased position of women in society, the necessary equality of men and women, and the right of women to work.

Publishers Weekly #1 Best Seller for 1914.

Set in the world of authors, artists, and their patrons this novel explores the conflict between art for art sake and art for profit and fame. It was quite controversial in it's day; some accusing Wright of preaching and others supporting his observations.

Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird) 1876 - 1938 was born and raised on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota. She lived a traditional lifestyle until age eight when she left for Quaker school. Old Indian Legends is a collection of folktales that she gathered during her visits home to the reservation.

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.

Therese Raquin begins an affair with a friend of her husband. Their passion is such a contrast to her dry almost loveless marriage that they plot to drown her husband. The novel caused a scandal when it was published and Zola continued to be a controversial and notorious figure.