George Stade

A plague erupted. The victim suffers a two-month latent period during which he is infectious but shows no symptoms. The virus is spread by aerosol, so that millions of people are soon infected and infectious, but without knowing it. At the climax of the disease, there is what a character calls a rite of distribution. At the climax, the victim does what he or she most wanted or feared doing, the idea being that this kind of fear is laced with fascination....

"Uncle Tom's Cabin brought the evils of slavery to the consciences and hearts of the American people by its moving portrayal of slave experience. Harriet Beecher Stowe shows us in scenes of great dramatic power the human effects of a system in which slaves were property: the break up of families, the struggles for freedom, and the horrors of plantation labour. She brings into fiction the different voices of the emerging American nation; the Southern...

One of the most versatile and influential figures in twentieth-century literature, D.H. Lawrence was a master craftsman and profound thinker whose celebration of sexuality in an over-intellectualized world opened the door to that topic for countless writers after him. Perhaps his finest novel, Women in Love (1920) continues the story of two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, who first appeared in Lawrence's novel The Rainbow (1915). The story contrasts...

After ten years of solitary contemplation, the prophet Zarathustra descends from his mountain cave to deliver a message to the people below. In a town called The Pied Cow, he tells everyone about the Superman, a higher being who is free of all human prejudices, and unbound by societal constraints and the false concepts of good and evil. Zarathustra informs the people that they can achieve this state if they reject the teachings of the past, including...

"Bronte's infamous Gothic novel tells the story of orphan Jane, a child of unfortunate circumstances. Raised and treated badly by her aunt and cousins and eventually sent away to a cruel boarding school, it is not until Jane becomes a governess at Thornfield that she finds happiness. Meek, measured, but determined, Jane soon falls in love with her brooding and stormy master, Mr Rochester, but it is not long before strange and unnerving events occur...

Linguists, philologists, and restorers of ancient texts, the Brothers Grimm practically invented the science of folklore with the publication of Kinder-und Hausmarchen (1812-1815), which became popularly known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Comprising 120 of their best-loved tales, this new Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales includes criticism, reception, discussion questions, and legacies, to appeal to readers of all ages. --from Publisher's...