The Mark of Zorro was originally entitled The Curse of Capistrano. It was the first work to feature the California character Diego Vega, the masked hero also called Zorro. Zorro is the Spanish word for fox. The story was adapted into the silent film The Mark of Zorro in 1920. A new version of The Mark of Zorro was produced in 1940 starring Tyrone Power as Don Diego Vega.

Alta California, 1820: The Pueblo de Los Angeles is under the heel of a dictatorial Alcalde, Luis Miguel Montero. No class is exempt. California's largest landowner, Don Alejandro de la Vega, has grown weary of the situation and has summoned his son Diego home to aid him in overthrowing Montero's oppressive regime. But to his surprise, when Diego arrives, he finds his son uninterested the community's problems and unwilling to take up arms. However, Diego's pretense of pacifism is just a ploy to protect his quick-tempered firebrand of a father....

Has Zorro gone mad? That's the rumor spreading like wildfire through Reina de Los Angeles. For a dazzling swordsman wearing cape and mask is terrorizing innocent citizens. Riding with the night, he leaves the Mark of Zorro on his cruel deeds. Already the governor has placed a price on Zorro's head, dispatching a cutthroat army led by the ruthless Captain Rocha to hunt him down. But Zorro's loyal band and a gallant Indian tribe refuse to believe the foul lie. Still, only one man can expose the truth - and unmask the evil impostor.

Young nobleman d’Artagnan has arrived in Paris intent on joining the guardians of King Louis XIII. He befriends the regiment’s most formidable musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and together they unite in their commitment to uphold justice. Soon, a royal indiscretion thrusts them into an audacious escapade of courtly intrigue, thwarted romance, and daring rescue. But it’s the Machiavellian schemes of a powerful enemy and the wicked seductions of an ingenious female spy that will be their greatest challenges.

Set in Los Angeles during the era of early 19th-century Colonial Spanish California, the story introduces us to wealthy, young aristocrat Don Diego de la Vega, son of the richest ranchero in the country. Don Diego is an idler who has never concerned himself with more than the cut of his clothes. Unlike other full-blooded youths of his age, he presents himself as a fop, lacking in vigor, vitality, and strength. But Vega’s timorous reputation is merely a mask to conceal his alter ego—El Zorro.

In the grotesque bell-ringer Quasimodo, Victor Hugo created one of the most vivid characters in classic fiction. Quasimodo's doomed love for the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda is an example of the traditional love theme of beauty and the beast. Yet, set against the massive background of Notre Dame de Paris and interwoven with the sacred and secular life of medieval France, it takes on a larger perspective.

Maurice Leblanc, a writer of detective fiction during the same period as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, created Arsene Lupin, a sort of French Robin Hood. An inventive genius, a master of disguise, and an accomplished actor, Lupin operates in the choice chateaux and salons. He scorns sham and with great disdain leaves his card in a baron's residence. The card reads, "Arsene Lupin, gentleman-burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine."

With the Reign of Terror at its peak, and the death toll mounting, France's violent revolutionists suddenly find themselves frustrated by a mysterious vigilante. Known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, the enigmatic hero rescues the country's ill-fated aristocrats from the doom of the guillotine and whisks them away to safety, with a band of gallant cohorts at his aid.

Natty Bumppo , one of the greatest heroes in American literature, is the rugged frontiersman of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels that includes The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer. Although it was the final volume to be written, The Deerslayer is the first in the chronology of Natty Bumppo’s life, depicting the character as a young man testing himself in the wilderness and against enemies for the first time.

This collection contains all of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian stories published during his lifetime, contextualized with biographical details of their author.

Considered one of China's great classical novels, Wu Ch'êng-ên's Journey to the West was translated by Arthur Waley in abridged form as Monkey in 1942 and has delighted English readers ever since. It is a riveting adventure story about a priest's quest to obtain holy Buddhist scriptures for the Tang emperor; joining him on this rollicking journey: Sandy, Pigsy, and the mischievous monkey king, Sun Wukong, whose flying cloud and magic cudgel are never far from his infamous deeds.

Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life. But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow's best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday.

Upon her brother's death, missionary Rose Sayer and Charles Allnutt, disreputable skipper of the African Queen, become allies as, marooned in German Central Africa during World War I, they fight their old launch downriver 'to strike a blow for England'.

Meet Peter Brown, a young Manhattan emergency room doctor with an unusual past that is just about to catch up with him. His morning begins with the quick disarming of a would-be mugger, followed by a steamy elevator encounter with a sexy young pharmaceutical rep, topped off by a visit with a new patient - and from there Peter's day is going to get a whole lot worse and a whole lot weirder.

CastleCorp and the famous Castleton brothers are unveiling the World’s Greatest Adventure Machine! The roller coaster is an experience like no other, and four lucky kids have won the chance to be the first to ride it. There’s Trevor, whose latest stunt got him in trouble at school...again. There’s Devin, whose father is pushing him to be the next Internet sensation. Nika’s wealthy grandfather isn’t too pleased about her participation. And Cameron, he’ll be the first to tell you, is a certified genius. The whole world is watching.

With a horse between his thighs and a weapon in his grip, the dashing Brigadier Etienne Gerard, Colonel of the Hussars of Conflans, gallops through the Napoleonic campaigns on secret missions for his beloved Emperor and his country. He encounters danger and hair-breadth escapes but never loses his bravado, his eye for a pretty girl, his boastfulness or his enormous vanity.

Young nobleman d’Artagnan has arrived in Paris intent on joining the guardians of King Louis XIII. He befriends the regiment’s most formidable musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and together they unite in their commitment to uphold justice. Soon, a royal indiscretion thrusts them into an audacious escapade of courtly intrigue, thwarted romance, and daring rescue. But it’s the Machiavellian schemes of a powerful enemy and the wicked seductions of an ingenious female spy that will be their greatest challenges.

Walter of Gurnie, bastard son of an English peer, is forced to flee from Oxford for his part in the university riots of 1273. Inspired by Friar Bacon, he determines to travel to China. With his friend Tristam, he fights his way to the heart of the fabulous Mongol Empire and returns famous, to find that he must choose between the first love he thought lost and the exotic flower that he found in the East.

Grigori Aleksandrovich Pechorin is an enigma: arrogant, cocky, melancholic, brave, cynic, romantic, loner, socialite, soldier, free soul, and yet, victim of the world, he eludes definition and remains a mystery to those who know him. Just who is he? And what does he hope to achieve? Evolving from first person to third person, and then into a diary, A Hero of Our Time takes on a variety of forms to interrogate Pechorin's cryptic character and his unusual philosophy, providing breathtaking descriptions of the Caucasus along the way.

The mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel's daring rescues of French nobility from the threat of the guillotine and the evil Chauvelin's efforts to track him down are all part of the intrigue in this swashbuckling adventure.

From 1413-1415 the butcher’s guild, otherwise known as the “White Hoods” of Paris, kept that city in a state of near anarchy. With a mad king, a virtual civil war between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy, and King Henry V of England claiming the French throne, there is plenty of opportunity for Guy Aylmer, a squire to Sir Eustace de Villeroy, to show his mettle in many a skirmish, finally winning his spurs at the lopsided victory of the English over the French at the Battle of Agincourt on October 25, 1415.

Once he was Andre-Louis, lawyer to the upper class, and destined for the upper echelons of French society. Now, he is Scaramouche. Speaking out against the injustices of the French government, he dons the garb of a clown with a band of wandering actors - a passionate jester with a vital message....

After the jealous tyrant Don Rodrigo foils their wedding, young Lombardian peasants Lucia and Lorenzo must separate and flee for their safety. Their difficult path to matrimony takes place against the turbulent backdrop of the Thirty Years War, where lawlessness and exploitation are at their height. Lucia takes refuge in a convent, where she is later abducted and taken on a nightmarish journey to a sinister castle, while Lorenzo goes to Milan, where he witnesses famine, riots, and plague - all evoked through meticulous description and with stunning immediacy.

Ésta es sin duda, la novela de aventuras más famosa de la historia de la literatura. El joven Edmundo Dantés llega al puerto de Marsella, feliz por poder ver a Mercedes, de la que está enamorado. Pero otros pretendientes de Mercedes, van a hacerle la vida imposible, consiguiendo que el mismo día de la boda sea detenido, acusado de traición al rey y enviado directamente a la terrible prisión del castillo de If.

In a chamber overlooking the nighttime waterways of a maritime city, a man looks back on his youth and the people who shaped his life. Danio Cerra's intelligence won him entry to a renowned school even though he was only the son of a tailor. He took service at the court of a ruling count - and soon learned why that man was known as the Beast.

The Elder Isles, located in what is now the Bay of Biscay off the coast of Old Gaul, are made up of 10 contending kingdoms, all vying with each other for control. At the centre of much of the intrigue is Casmir, the ruthless and ambitious king of Lyonnesse. His beautiful but otherworldly daughter, Suldrun, is part of his plans. He intends to cement an alliance or two by marrying her well. But Suldrun is as determined as he and defies him.

Sixteenth-century Spanish gentleman Don Quixote, fed by his own delusional fantasies, takes to the road in search of chivalrous adventures. But his quest leads to more trouble than triumph. At once humorous, romantic, and sad, Don Quixote is a literary landmark. This fresh edition, by award-winning translator Edith Grossman, brings the tale to life as never before.

Historians have long whispered that Elizabeth "the Virgin Queen's" passionate, lifelong affair with Robin Dudley, Earl of Leicester, may have led to the birth of a son, Arthur Dudley. In this exquisite sequel to The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, Robin Maxwell fashions a stunning fictional account of the child switched at birth by a lady-in-waiting who foresaw the deleterious political consequences of a royal bastard.

Georgiana Escott has one night to find the perfect man to ruin her and leave her with a tattered reputation so she can avoid an arranged marriage to an aging, despicable roue. With a misstep, she tumbles into the arms of the disgraced and dashing Lord Danvers. But Georgie doesn't know that the lover she has enticed to follow her into the night and the stranger she holds responsible for her misfortunes are in the same....

In A Hero of Our Time, Grigory Pechorin is a bored, self-centered, and cynical young army officer who believes in nothing. With impunity he toys with the love of women and the goodwill of men. He is brave, determined, and willful, but his wasted energy and potential ultimately result in tragedy.