The autobiography of Booker T. Washington, a remarkable orator and former slave who pressed for equality and black community.

Hawkeye, the colonial scout, and Chingachkook, the Mohican warrior are brought together by their love of the New World forests and their desire for peace between their races. Set against the exciting days of the French and Indian War, their story--heroically risking their lives to guide two English sisters through hostile territory, battling the evil Le Renard Subtil--is a story of how trust and understanding can develop between people of two cultures....

Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman--"as unflinching as a hero in a book"--who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a merchant-ship sailing from an eastern port. His life is ruined: an isolated scandal has assumed horrifying proportions. But, then he is befriended by an older man named Marlow who helps to establish him in exotic Patusan, a remote Malay settlement where his courage...

Based on actual events, this sweeping historical romance, considered to be Dumas' finest work, recounts the story of Edmond Dantès, a gallant young sailor whose life takes a bitter turn when, during the final days of Napoleon's reign, he is falsely accused of treason and condemned to lifelong imprisonment. After languishing for many years in a fetid dungeon, he makes his dramatic escape. In a labyrinthine tale plump with themes of justice, vengeance,...

Stepping far afield from his medical studies, Victor Frankenstein brings to life a human form he has fashioned from scavenged organs and body parts. Horrified by his achievement, he turns his back on his creation, only to learn the danger of such neglect. As the creature educates itself and learns how cruel mankind can be to something that they deem monstrous, he demands that Victor make him a companion, an Eve to his Adam. When Victor refuses, his...

In Edmond Rostand's beloved 1897 stage play "Cyrano De Bergerac", the titular soldier-poet is hopelessly in love with Roxane, the most beautiful woman in all of Paris. Believing he has no chance with her because of his extremely large nose, he agrees to write love letters on behalf of the slow-witted Christian, who also pines for Roxane. Rostand's work is a fictionalization of the real life novelist Cyrano De Bergerac, who in addition to being a novelist...

Captains Courageous is a novel by Rudyard Kipling, that follows the adventures of fifteen-year-old Harvey Cheyne Jr., the spoiled son of a railroad tycoon, after he is saved from drowning by a Portuguese fisherman in the north Atlantic. The book's title comes from the ballad "Mary Ambree", which starts, "When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt". Kipling had previously used the same title for an article on businessmen as the new adventurers,...

During one of his several adventurous voyages in the 1600's, an Englishman becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives for nearly thirty years on a deserted island.

The unusual voyages of Englishman Lemuel Gulliver carry him to such strange locales as Lilliput, where the inhabitants are six inches tall; Brobdingnag, a land of giants; an island of sorcerers; and a nation ruled by horses.

This Applause edtiion allows the reader and student to look beyond the scholarly reading text to the more sensuous, more collaborative, more malleable performance text which emerges in conjunction with the commentary and notes. Readers and students are faced with real theatrical choices in each speech as the editors point out the challenges and opportunities to the actor and director at each juncture. Readers will not only discover an enlivened Shakespeare,...