Mark Twain's semi-autobiographical travel memoir, "Roughing It" was written between 1870-1871 and subsequently published in 1872. Billed as a prequel to "Innocents Abroad", in which Twain details his travels aboard a pleasure cruise through Europe and the Holy Land in 1867, "Roughing It" conversely documents Twain's early days in the old wild west between the years 1861-1867. Employing his characteristically humoristic wit and flare for regional dialect,...

Acclaimed as one of the most exciting books in the history of American letters, this modern epic became an instant bestseller upon publication in 1974, transforming a generation and continuing to inspire millions. A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, the book becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions of how to live. The narrator's relationship with his son leads to a powerful self-reckoning...

"Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking ... On ... the Day of the Dead, 1938, his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of...

Towering classic of dystopian satire, BRAVE NEW WORLD is a brilliant and terrifying vision of a soulless society--and of one man who discovers the human costs of mindless conformity. Hundreds of years in the future, the World Controllers have created an ideal civilization. Its members, shaped by genetic engineering and behavioral conditioning, are productive and content in roles they have been assigned at conception. Government-sanctioned drugs and...

"Presents his view of the nature of love involving the whole personality and an orientation toward life." --

"The autobiography of an African-American writer, recounting his early years and the harrowing experiences he encountered drifting from Natchez to Chicago to Brooklyn."--

Mules and Men is a treasury of black America's folklore as collected by a famous storyteller and anthropologist who grew up hearing the songs and sermons, sayings and tall tales that have formed an oral history of the South since the time of slavery. Returning to her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, to gather material, Zora Neale Hurston recalls "a hilarious night with a pinch of everything social mixed with the storytelling." Set intimately within...

The author recounts her experiences as an initiate into the voodoo practices of Haiti and Jamaica in the 1930s.

Foreword / by Henry Nash Smith. -- Letters from the Earth. -- Papers of the Adam family: Extract from Methuselah's diary ; A later extract from Methuselah's diary ; Extract from Eve's autobiography ; Passage from Eve's autobiography ; The world in the year 920 after creation ; Two fragments from a suppressed book called "Glances at history" or "Outlines of history" ; Extract from Shem's diary of 920 A.C. -- Letter to the Earth. -- A cat-tale. -- Cooper's...