The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy, 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 of the authors • Chronologies...

In the society, officials decide who you love, where you work and when you die. Cassia has always trusted their choices. It's hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one, until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices, between Xander...

"Vida Hazzard can see her future: aboard the heralded "Millionaire's Ship of the West," she'll charm the young scion Fitzhugh Farrar, resulting in a proposal of marriage. But Vida didn't plan on Fitz's best friend Sal, a rough-around-the-edges boy with a talent for getting under her skin. Nor did she anticipate a hurricane dashing their ship to pieces, along with her dreams. Stranded on an island with both Fitz and Sal, Vida is torn between the...

'Miss Dashwood had a delicate complexion, regular features, and a remarkably pretty figure. Marianne was still handsomer. Her form, though not so correct as her sister's ... was more striking' As the title of Jane Austen's first published novel suggests, the difference between two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, lies not only in their appearance but also in their temperament. Yet Sense and Sensibility not only contrasts Elinor's good sense,...

"Where women are created for the pleasure of men, beauty is the first duty of every girl. In Louise O'Neill's world of Only Every Yours women are no longer born naturally, girls (called "eves") are raised in Schools and trained in the arts of pleasing men until they come of age. Freida and Isabel are best friends. Now, aged sixteen and in their final year, they expect to be selected as companions--wives to powerful men. All they have to do is ensure...

Lady Susan is a short, epistolary novel by Jane Austen. Lady Susan Vernon is a selfish, attractive, and unscrupulous woman, who tries to trap the best possible husband while maintaining a relationship with a married man. As a widow, she seeks a match for herself, as well as husband-hunting for her daughter. Lady Susan is not only beautiful but intelligent and witty; she's highly attractive to men and her suitors are always significantly younger. Inspired...

"On the first day, no one really noticed. All those babies wrapped in blue blankets--not a pink one in sight. On the third day, people were scared--a statistic-defying abundance of blue. Not just entire hospitals, not only entire countries, but the entire world. Boys. Only boys. Until Eve. The only girl born in fifty years. The savior of mankind. Kept protected, towering above a ruined world under a glass dome of safety until she is ready to renew...

Pride and Prejudice is a story set in the English countryside outside of London during the early 19th century which centers on the life of Elizabeth Bennet, the second of five sisters who are all unmarried. When a wealthy and sociable young gentleman, Charles Bingley, rents the nearby manor of Netherfield Park the opportunity to find husbands presents itself. While attending a ball the Bennets meet Charles Bingley and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy...

"Jane Austen's final novel is her most mature and wickedly satirical. It follows the story of Anne Elliott, a teenager engaged to a seemingly ideal man, Frederick Wentworth. But after being persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that he is too poor to be a suitable match, Anne ends their engagement. When they are reacquainted eight years later, their circumstances are transformed: Frederick is returning triumphantly from the Napoleonic War, while Anne's...

In Renaissance Italy, Elisabetta longs for romance, and when Leonardo da Vinci introduces her to Guiliano de Medici, whose family rules Florence but is about to be deposed, she has no inkling of the romance--and sorrow--that will ensue.