"My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else," proclaimed Charles Dickens in explaining the theme of this classic novel. Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a "fanatic of the demonstrable fact," who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality. Without a moral compass to guide them, the children sink into lives of desperation and despair, played out...

Introduction by Edward J. Larson
 
Perhaps the most readable and accessible of the great works of scientific inquiry, The Origin of Species sold out its first printing on the very day it was published in 1859. Theologians quickly labeled Charles Darwin the most dangerous man in England and, as the Saturday Review noted, the uproar over the book quickly “passed beyond the bounds of the study and lecture-room...

This fantastic work of fiction that is based on a found manuscipt at a renowned univerity, follows the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes during a previously unrevealed part of his life.

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars

Biographies

...

This is an Abridged Edition


For Edmond Dantes, life couldn't be better. At nineteen, he is soon to be captain of his own ship and about to be married to his true love, Mercedes. But his life is suddenly turned upside down when, on his wedding day, he is arrested. Without a fair trial, he is condemned to solitary confinement in the miserable Chateau d'If. Soon it is clear that Edmond has been framed by a handful of powerful enemies,...

On December 27, 1831, the young naturalist Charles Darwin left Plymouth Harbor aboard the HMS Beagle. For the next five years, he conducted research on plants and animals from around the globe, amassing a body of evidence that would culminate in one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind—the theory of evolution.


Darwin presented his stunning insights in a landmark book that forever altered the way human beings...

Widely regarded as Dickens's masterpiece, Bleak House centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which "whole families have inherited legendary hatreds." Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther's romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance,...

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day
 
In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into World War II.
Now, as the mature Ono struggles through...

"New truth is often uncomfortable," Bertrand Russell wrote, "but it is the most important achievement of our species." In Religion and Science (1961), his popular polemic against religious dogma, he covers the ground from demonology to quantum physics, yet concedes that science cannot touch the profound feelings of personal religious experience.

Between 1841 and 1844, Edgar Allan Poe invented the detective fiction genre with his mesmerizing stories of a young French eccentric named C. Auguste Dupin. Introducing to literature the concept of applying reason to solving crime, these tales brought Poe fame and fortune. Years later, Dorothy Sayers would describe "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" as "almost a complete manual of detective theory and practice." Indeed, Poe's short mysteries inspired...