The dashing Duke of Selchester is on his way to visit Lord Upminster at Copple Hall when a stagecoach crashes into his own travelling carriage, buckling its wheel. Worse still, his beloved pedigree stallion, Salamanca, needs re-shoeing. Arriving on foot at the nearest village, he finds a beautiful Verena Winchcombe, who agrees to take him to the local blacksmith. It transpires that she has been awaiting the arrival of someone she calls 'the Odious Duke', who is due at Copple Hall.

Leo Tolstoy's classic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature. Generations of readers have been enthralled by his magnificent heroine, the unhappily married Anna Karenina, and her tragic affair with dashing Count Vronsky.

First published in 1925, The Painted Veil is an affirmation of the human capacity to grow, change, and forgive. Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, it is the story of the beautiful but shallow young Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to a remote region of China ravaged by a cholera epidemic.

Jimmy, Gerald, and Cathy discover an enchanted garden and wake a beautiful princess from a hundred-year-sleep - only to have her immediately made invisible by a magic ring. The quest to rescue her from her own magic proves difficult, humorous, and at times very frightening.

Isabella Beverley is blessed with unparalleled beauty but, unfortunately, has been raised in the most snobbish and haughtiest of families. When her father gambles away their fortune - including Mannerling, the exquisite family mansion - Isabella discovers there is very little sympathy for her plight. As the eldest, Isabella is chosen to court Mr. Judd, the roguish bachelor who won Mannerling. Surely no sacrifice is too great to regain Mannerling? But tempting her away from Mr. Judd is Lord Fitzpatrick, an Irish rake who fears Isabella can never love a man as she does her home.

Countess Ellen Olenska, separated from her European husband, returns to old New York society. She bears with her an independence and an awareness of life which stirs the educated sensitivity of the charming Newland Archer, engaged to be married to her cousin, May Welland. Though he accepts the society's standards and rules he is acutely aware of their limitations. He knows May will assure him a conventional future but Ellen, scandalously separated from her husband, forces Archer to question his values and beliefs.

The second daughter of the Queen’s close friend, the Scottish Duke of Buccleuch, Lady Margaret Montagu Scott is expected to make an advantageous marriage. But Margaret is an impulsive and outspoken girl in a repressive society where women are literally caged in corsets and required to conform. When Lady Margaret’s parents arrange a society marriage for her, she tries to reconcile herself to the match. But shortly before her betrothal is announced, Margaret flees, leaving her parents to explain her sudden absence to an opulent ballroom stuffed with two hundred distinguished guests.

Lovely Alice Lacey was a true incomparable, and her marriage to the Duke of Ferrant was the event of the season. Almost no one realized, however, that Alice was secretly in love with someone else - or that she had confided her feelings to a clever talking mynah bird who announces these intimacies at the moment of the couple's wedding. Now the gossip mongers are relentless. Alice's marriage started out, and has remained, cold and impersonal, and her new husband is already rumored to be taken with another woman.

Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Ozamu Dazai died, a suicide, in 1948. But the influence of his book has made "people of the setting sun" a permanent part of the Japanese language, and his heroine, Kazuko, a young aristocrat who deliberately abandons her class, a symbol of the anomie which pervades so much of the modern world.

Mount Mellyn stood as proud and magnificent as she had envisioned. But what about its master—Connan TreMellyn? Was Martha Leigh's new employer as romantic as his name sounded? As she approached the mansion towering above the cliffs of Cornwall, an odd chill of apprehension overcame her. TreMellyn's young daugher proved as spoiled and difficult as the three governesses before Martha had discovered. But it was the girl's father whose arrogant demeanor unleashed unfamiliar sensations and turmoil—even as whispers of past tragedy and present danger begin to insinuate themselves into her life.

When Edward de Salis travels to America after the death of his first wife, he is astonished to find himself falling in love with Marguerite, a young woman many years his junior. Full of hope for the future, he returns to his Irish estate, Cashelmara, but in 19th-century Ireland - a country racked by poverty and famine - his family eventually becomes trapped in a sinister spiral of violence that Edward could never have foreseen.

1901. When the Earl of Stainton dies in a tragic hunting accident, Giles, the eldest son of the noble Tallant family, must step forward to replace him as the head of the family. But Giles has avoided the Castle and his stifling relatives for years, deciding instead to forge his own path away from the spotlight. Now, he must put aside his ambitions and honour his duty to the family.

James Markland, Lord Falconer, knows that he is ugly, very ugly, and he lives a life of seclusion, wearing a heavily cowled mantle to conceal his face from the world. When he learns that a neighboring girl, the exquisite, young Ariel Hawthorne, is about to be sold into marriage with a revolting lecher, he offers her the only protection he can: his name. Of course it will be a marriage in name only, because what woman could want him? A talented artist, Ariel is cursed by her beauty and vulnerability. Though she never sees her husband's face, she is drawn to his kindness and generosity.

Miss Honaria Honeyford was sent to London to save the family fortune by hunting a wealthy husband - and being a loving (if not entirely dutiful) daughter, she obeyed. But if she was reluctantly willing to surrender her hand, this beautiful young lady who could ride, shoot, and argue with any man was not about to lose her head or heart to the dismal dandies of the Marriage Mart. First she met the arrogantly attractive Lord Alistair Stewart, who treated her infuriatingly like a little girl. And then she met the skillfully seductive Lord Channington, who treated her intoxicatingly like a desirable woman....

The Earl of Tredair has had his fill of balls, routs, and silly misses, and he despairs of finding someone extraordinary - that is, until he meets Miss Fanny Waverley. Most unique and intriguing, Fanny and her two sisters are the adopted daughters of the reclusive bluestocking Madame Waverley. They have been raised as her disciples to spread the word of women's rights and to encourage poor oppressed females to stand up against the iniquities of the male sex. The beautiful and farouche Miss Fanny, however, finds it quite difficult to think of all men as cruel and lustful beasts....

Anna, a young countess, has lived in the glittering city of St Petersburg all her life in an ice-blue palace overlooking the River Neva. But when revolution tears Russia apart, her now-penniless family is forced to flee to England. Armed with an out-of-date book on housekeeping, Anna determines to become a housemaid and she finds work at the Earl of Westerholme's crumbling but magnificent mansion.

When Edward de Salis travels to America after the death of his first wife, he is astonished to find himself falling in love with Marguerite, a young woman many years his junior. Full of hope for the future, he returns to his Irish estate, Cashelmara, but in 19th-century Ireland - a country racked by poverty and famine - his family eventually becomes trapped in a sinister spiral of violence that Edward could never have foreseen.

Miss Honaria Honeyford was sent to London to save the family fortune by hunting a wealthy husband - and being a loving (if not entirely dutiful) daughter, she obeyed. But if she was reluctantly willing to surrender her hand, this beautiful young lady who could ride, shoot, and argue with any man was not about to lose her head or heart to the dismal dandies of the Marriage Mart. First she met the arrogantly attractive Lord Alistair Stewart, who treated her infuriatingly like a little girl. And then she met the skillfully seductive Lord Channington, who treated her intoxicatingly like a desirable woman....

The Earl of Tredair has had his fill of balls, routs, and silly misses, and he despairs of finding someone extraordinary - that is, until he meets Miss Fanny Waverley. Most unique and intriguing, Fanny and her two sisters are the adopted daughters of the reclusive bluestocking Madame Waverley. They have been raised as her disciples to spread the word of women's rights and to encourage poor oppressed females to stand up against the iniquities of the male sex. The beautiful and farouche Miss Fanny, however, finds it quite difficult to think of all men as cruel and lustful beasts....

Countess Ellen Olenska, separated from her European husband, returns to old New York society. She bears with her an independence and an awareness of life which stirs the educated sensitivity of the charming Newland Archer, engaged to be married to her cousin, May Welland. Though he accepts the society's standards and rules he is acutely aware of their limitations. He knows May will assure him a conventional future but Ellen, scandalously separated from her husband, forces Archer to question his values and beliefs.

First published in 1925, The Painted Veil is an affirmation of the human capacity to grow, change, and forgive. Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, it is the story of the beautiful but shallow young Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to a remote region of China ravaged by a cholera epidemic.

Deborah Woodly agreed to a pretend engagement with Reeve, Earl of Cambridge, because his straitlaced uncle wouldn’t let him touch his inheritance before his 26th birthday. Not unless he contracted a marriage, which would presumably “settle” him. Deb and Reeve promised not to fall in love, or marry, but to ultimately declare they wouldn’t suit. Broken promises, but also someone was trying to kill Deb.

Jenny is the story of Jenny Winge, a talented Norwegian painter who lives a free and independent life in Rome. Betraying her own ideals, she has an affair, resulting in a child out of wedlock, and decides to raise the child on her own. Undset gives a gripping portrayal of a woman struggling towards fulfillment and independence, who at the same time wrestles with mental problems. It is written with unflinching honesty, which makes her story as compelling today as it was nearly a century ago.

To Those who Appreciate Wisteria and Sunshine. Small medieaval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be Let Furnished for the month of April. This small advertisement sparks something long dormant in the reluctant hearts of two downcast London women - the possibility of happiness.

Leo Tolstoy's classic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature. Generations of readers have been enthralled by his magnificent heroine, the unhappily married Anna Karenina, and her tragic affair with dashing Count Vronsky.

Alice, Lady Charlton, is finally free of her dominating husband, but on the verge of her new life, she is trapped when a blackmailer threatens to publish letters that could ruin her. To protect the secrets of her past Alice must find a lord for his daughter, Lucy, to marry. Alice reluctantly agrees to find the girl a noble husband but when Lucy arrives, she's difficult and uncooperative and has no interest in her father's scheme. A lord, she says, will only look down his nose at her-and she's having none of that! Desperate, Alice enlists the aid of her handsome young nephew.

Guy de Maupassant is revered for his naturalistic fiction, which brilliantly captures flesh-and-blood characters as it evokes the most telling details of everyday life. Considered one of the finest French novels ever written, Bel Ami follows journalist Georges Duroy and his increasing stature among the Paris elite. With an immense thirst for power, Georges is not above an almost gleeful use of wealthy mistresses to achieve his ends.

Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Ozamu Dazai died, a suicide, in 1948. But the influence of his book has made "people of the setting sun" a permanent part of the Japanese language, and his heroine, Kazuko, a young aristocrat who deliberately abandons her class, a symbol of the anomie which pervades so much of the modern world.

With a modest inheritance and the three gowns that comprise her entire wardrobe, Theodora leaves Edinburgh—and a disappointed suitor—far behind. She is bound for Romania, where tales of vampires are still whispered, to visit an old friend and write the book that will bring her true independence. She arrives at a magnificent, decaying castle in the Carpathians, replete with eccentric inhabitants, including the castle’s master, Count Andrei Dragulescu.

E. M. Forster's first novel is a witty comedy of manners that is tinged with tragedy. It tells the story of Lilia Herriton, who proves to be an embarrassment to her late husband's family as, in the small Tuscan town of Monteriano, she begins a relationship with a much younger Italian man - classless, uncouth, and highly unsuitable. A subtle attack on Edwardian values and a humanely sympathetic portrayal of the clash of two cultures, Where Angels Fear to Tread is also a profound exploration of character and virtue.