Set in the early nineteenth-century English countryside, an English squire yields to the temptations of an innocent country girl and crime, remorse, and suffering are the consequences.

Hawthorne's tale about the brooding hold of the past over the present is a complex one, twisting and turning its way back through many generations of a venerable New England family, one of whose members was accused of witchcraft in 17th century Salem. More than 200 years later, we meet the family in its decaying, gabled mansion, still haunted by the presence of dead ancestors: Hepzibah, an elderly gentlewoman fallen on had times; her ineffectual brother,...

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum is a timeless classic that whisks readers away on an extraordinary adventure over the rainbow. This enchanting tale begins with young Dorothy Gale, swept away from her gray Kansas prairie home by a cyclone, landing in the vibrant, magical land of Oz. Accompanied by her dog Toto and new friends-the Scarecrow, who seeks a brain; the Tin Woodman, who desires a heart; and the Cowardly Lion, who is in...