The stunning collection of short fiction that established Nathaniel Hawthorne as one of the most powerful and provocative artists in nineteenth-century America   Dr. Heidegger invites four friends to witness an experiment. As the impoverished merchant Mr. Medbourne, the gout-ridden sinner Colonel Killigrew, the ruined politician Mr. Gascoigne, and the aged widow Wycherly watch, Heidegger places an old rose in a vase filled with water drawn from the...

A selection of tales from Rootabaga Country peopled with such characters as the Potato Face Blind Man, the Blue Wind Boy, and many others.

Catch-22 is set in the closing months of World War II, in an American bomber squadron on a small island off Italy. Its hero is a bombardier named Yossarian, who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him.

Cabbages and Kings (1904) is a novel by American writer O. Henry. Inspired by his experiences as a fugitive in Honduras, the interconnected stories that make up Cabbages and Kings-the title refers to a line from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass-address themes of revolution, imperialism, exploitation, and greed. The novel is significant not only for launching O. Henry's career as a successful professional writer, but for coining the term "banana...

Never trust your heart to the New York Times bestselling master of suspense, Stephen King. Especially with an anthology that features the classic stories "Children of the Corn," "The Lawnmower Man," "Graveyard Shift," "The Mangler," and "Sometimes They Come Back"--Which were all made into hit horror films.

When master prankster Miles Murphy moves to sleepy Yawnee Valley, he challenges the local mystery prankster in an epic battle of tricks, but soon the two join forces to pull off the biggest prank ever seen.

"An endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut that signals the arrival of a brilliant new voice in American fiction. A boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes--only to discover how claiming the winnings might unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins--turning for help to the famed motivator himself. A new arrival in Heaven, overwhelmed with options, procrastinates...

Presents the nineteenth-century short story in which a governess believes her two charges, ten-year-old Miles and eight-year-old Flora, are being haunted by the ghosts of former servants.

Daunted by young entrepreneur Christian Grey, Anastasia Steele has broken off their relationship to start a new career with a Seattle publishing house. Christian proposes a new arrangement to Anastasia and they rekindle their affair. While Christian wrestles with his inner demons, Anastasia must confront her feelings about the women who came before her, and make the most important decision of her life.

"James Joyce’s Dubliners is a vivid and unflinching portrait of “dear dirty Dublin” at the turn of the twentieth century. These fifteen stories, including such unforgettable ones as “Araby,” “Grace,” and “The Dead,” delve into the heart of the city of Joyce’s birth, capturing the cadences of Dubliners’ speech and portraying with an almost brute realism their outer and inner lives. Dubliners is Joyce at his most accessible and...