KDL Recommends

Emma is young, rich and independent. She has decided not to get married and instead spends her time organizing her acquaintances’ love affairs. Her plans for the matrimonial success of her new friend Harriet, however, lead her into complications that ultimately test her own detachment from the world of romance.

The private and social worlds of three families are revealed through the experiences of the heroine, Fanny Price.

Catherine Morland’s sentimental illusions crumble as she enters into adulthood.

The romance between Captain Wentworth and Anne, the daughter of Sir Walter Elliot, seems doomed because of the young man’s family connections and lack of wealth.

Wealthy Mr. Darcy and spirited Elizabeth Bennett dislike each other at first sight, and each must contend with their pride and prejudices while Elizabeth’s mother plots economically advantageous marriages for all her daughters.

Two sisters, one practical and conventional and the other emotional and sentimental, find that only through compromise of their mutual differences can they get along.

In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret.

Lucy Snowe flees England and the memory of childhood tragedies, to become a teacher in a French boarding school in the town of Villette.

Against a background of English moors in the 18th century, the lives of two families become intertwined through marriage, passion, and the dominating force of a man called Heathcliff.

Antonia works as a servant for her neighbors after her father’s death, elopes, and then returns to marry a Bohemian farmer.

A married woman’s belated awakening to her individuality and sexuality in an extramarital relationship.

Marlowe sails down the Congo in search of Kurtz, a company agent who has, according to rumors, become insane in the jungle isolation.

Henry Fleming, a young Union soldier, struggles with his conflicting emotions about violence, death, and the nature of bravery in this ironic, skeptical account of the Civil War.

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.

David Copperfield, whose stepfather casts him out after the death of David’s mother, lives through trials and tribulations, first at a boys’ school and then as a young man in London before he goes to live with his great-aunt and eventually finds happiness.

The orphan, Pip, and the convict, Magwitch, the beautiful Estella, and her guardian, the embittered and vengeful Miss Havisham, the ambitious lawyer, Mr. Jaggers—all have a part to play in the mystery.

Born in a workhouse, Oliver Twist, an orphan, walks to London where he gets involved with Fagin and his gang of young thieves.

Two men who look alike love Lucie Manette, and during the French Revolution one of them goes to the guillotine in place of the other for Lucie’s happiness.

When the destinies of King Louis XIV and a mysterious prisoner in an iron mask converge, the Three Musketeers and D’Artagnan find themselves caught between conflicting loyalties.

In nineteenth-century England, Dorthea Brooke’s wishes to defy social conventions are inhibited by the strict nature of her surroundings.

Silas Marner, unjustly accused of theft, finds redemption in the love for a foundling child.

Emma Bovary becomes bored with her life and embarks on an affair.

Howards End, an English country house, passes to the moneyed, the cultured, and then to the lower class.

Follows the plight of Wormold, a former vacuum cleaner salesman, who becomes a slave to the expensive whims of his thirteen-year-old daughter, Milly, and takes on a job for MI6 as Secret Agent 5920015 to pay for them.

Although Gabriel Oak loves the proud Bathsheba Everdene, she willfully becomes involved with two other unsuitable men, with tragic consequences.

Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D’Urbevilles, and meeting her “cousin” Alec proves to be her downfall. When Angel Clare offers her love and salvation, she must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future.

The curse of Mathew Maule descends on seven generations of the inhabitants of an old New England house.

In early colonial Massachusetts, a young woman endures the consequences of her sin of adultery and spends the rest of her life in atonement.

A superstitious schoolmaster, in love with a wealthy farmer’s daughter, has a terrifying encounter with a headless horseman.

An anthropologist conducts an unusual research project in a reputedly haunted house.

Daisy Miller, a naive young American woman traveling in Europe with her family, finds it difficult to understand European society.

Tells of the psychological impact of European culture upon an American girl, Isabel Archer, and of her unfortunate marriage.

The story unfolds with the arrival of a new governess at a remote country estate. She has been hired by the uncle of two young orphans to take complete charge of the children’s lives and upbringing. Her first peaceful weeks are disturbed by the apparition of the ghosts of two evil servants who once served in the house.

The adventures of an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, part Scotch Shepherd, that was kidnapped and shipped off to Alaska to work on the Klondike Gold Rush. Buck the dog quickly learns how to survive in the wild and also learns the call of the wolf.

The story of the ill-fated voyage of a whaling ship led by the fanatical Captain Ahab in search of the white whale that had crippled him.

After a terrible murder in the village of Ilmorog, four suspects are placed in detention: Munira the headmaster; Abdullah the storekeeper; Karega the assistant teacher and ‘barmaid’ Wanja. The lives of these four characters are linked with the lives of the three murder victims, the fortunes of Ilmorog and with the fate of Kenya itself.

A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator.

Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant lured by appealing advertisements, comes to Chicago to make money in the stockyards, but the reality is different from what he expects.

The Joad family, Okie farmers forced from their dustbowl home during the Depression, try to find work as migrant fruitpickers in California.

Uncle Tom’s master sells him, separating him from his wife, and he becomes attached to the gentle daughter of his new owner, but after her death, he is sold to the evil Simon Legree.

The voyages of an Englishman carry him to such strange places as Lilliput, where people are six inches tall; Brobdingnag, a land of giants; and a country ruled by horses.

In 1872 Phileas Fogg wins a bet by traveling around the world in seventy-nine days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-seven minutes.

A scientist who has discovered a way to make himself invisible unleashes his growing madness and frustrations by terrorizing a small town.

The sole survivor of a shipwreck, Edward Prendick, a young naturalist, finds himself stranded on a remote Pacific island run by the sinister Dr. Moreau, a mad scientist intent on creating a strain of beast men.

The story of a journey 800,000 years into the future of a slowly dying Earth populated by two bizarre races which symbolize the duality of human nature and offer a frightening picture of what may come.

An English astronomer, in company with an artilleryman, a country curate, and others, struggle to survive the invasion of Earth by Martians in 1894.

An elegant portrait of desire and betrayal in Old New York. In the highest circle of New York social life during the 1870’s, Newland Archer, a young lawyer, prepares to marry the docile May Welland. Before their engagement is announced, he meets May’s cousin, the mysterious, nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned to New York after a long absence.

A scathing novel of ambition featuring one of the most ruthless heroines in literature. Undine Spragg is as unscrupulous as she is magnetically beautiful. Her rise to the top of New York’s high society from the nouveau riche provides a provocative commentary on the upwardly mobile and the aspirations that eventually cause their ruin.

A New England farmer must choose between his duty to care for his invalid wife and his love for her cousin.

A portrait of American manners and morals at the turn of the century offers the saga of Lily Bart, a beautiful heroine who lacks one requirement for marrying well in New York society—her own money.