Bill Homewood

A beautiful new clothbound edition of Alexandre Dumas's classic novel of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge. Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of the Château d'If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible...

Set against the backdrop of medieval Paris, Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer of Notre-Dame Cathedral, struggles to save the beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda from being unjustly executed.

During the American Civil War, five Union prisoners of war decide to escape during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, by hijacking a balloon. The balloon lands on an uncharted island in the South Pacific and the men establish a new life on the island.

After Napoleon's defeat, the French aristocracy tried to reassert its power in a government known as the Restoration. Venal and corrupt, the Restoration fell in 1830. Later that year, Stendhal published his scathing satire of Restoration society, The Red and the Black . Its title refers to the military and the clergy, the two career paths open to young men of intelligence and ambition but no social standing. Stendha's hero, Julien Sorel, is such a...

Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding, 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...

Father Goriot is a novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac. Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the interwoven lives of three characters: the senior and loving Goriot, a shadowy criminal-in-hiding called Vautrin and a gullible law student called Eugène de Rastignac. Excerpt: "The house might have been built on purpose for its present uses. Access is given by a French window to the first room on the ground floor, a sitting-room which...

The Four Just Men (1905) is a political thriller by Edgar Wallace. The book that launched Wallace's career as one of England's leading popular fiction writers, The Four Just Men was released in conjunction with a newspaper competition allowing readers to guess the truth behind the unsolved mystery at the end of the novel. Like many of Wallace's stories and novels, The Four Just Men was adapted into a silent film in 1921 before being made into a popular...

In their second explosive adventure, the Four Just Men must sacrifice one of their own Her rise through the ranks of the Red Hundred was swift and inexorable. From scraps of conversation overheard in her father's kitchen, she crafted speeches that brought men to tears. When the time came for bloodshed, she did not hesitate-generals and princes died by her hand. As her beauty grew, so did her influence. Now the Woman of Gratz and the anarchist horde...

Once again, the intrepid Zorro fights for justice! In the fourth of Naxos AudioBooks' Zorro titles, our hero's assistance is sought when the devious Pedro Morelos threatens the fortune of a wealthy heir, Vicente Canchola. Morelos hatches a plot to kidnap the Governor of California and extort profitable trade concessions from him. Zorro overhears this, but will he be able to foil their evil scheme, and stop the Canchola estate from falling into the...

The swashbuckling sequel to The Mark of Zorro (The Curse of Capistrano), The Further Adventures of Zorro sees the daring hero out for revenge once more. After Captain Ramon kidnaps the beautiful Lolita Pulido, Zorro takes to the seas and battles pirates in a bid to win her back. Swordfights, death traps and disastrously tight corners await him. But it is never much more than a challenge as the gallant caballero laughs in the face of danger - nothing...