Modern Library

Defoe's account of the bubonic plague that swept London in 1665 remains as vivid as it is harrowing. Based on Defoe's own childhood memories and prodigious research, A Journal of the Plague Year walks the line between fiction, history, and reportage. In meticulous and unsentimental detail it renders the daily life of a city under siege; the often...

The Moonstone is a page-turner, writes Carolyn Heilbrun. It catches one up and unfolds its amazing story through the recountings of its several narrators, all of them enticing and singular. Wilkie Collinss spellbinding tale of romance, theft, and murder inspired a hugely popular genrethe detective mystery. Hinging on the theft of an enormous...

The story and characters in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Damehave resonated with succeeding generations since its publication in 1831. It has tempted filmmakers, and most recently animators, who have exploited its dramatic content to good effect but have inevitably lost some of the grays that make the original text so compelling. From...

Tales from a Thousand and One NightsFull of mischief, valor, ribaldry, and romance, The Arabian Nights has enthralled readers for centuries. These are the tales that saved the life of Shahrazad, whose husband, the king, executed each of his wives after a single night of marriage. Beginning an enchanting story each evening, Shahrazad always withheld...

Le Guin's selection of twenty-six stories showcases Well's genius and reintroduces readers to his singular talent for making the unbelievable seem utterly plausible....

Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Vernes masterpiece. Wide-eyed mid-nineteenth-century humanistic optimism in a breezy, blissfully readable translation by Stump (Kirkus Reviews), here is the...