First issued in 1948, when soulless minute steaks and quick casseroles were becoming the norm, The Unprejudiced Palate inspired a seismic culinary shift in how America eats. Written by a food-loving
Long acknowledged as a master of nightmarish visions, H. P. Lovecraft established the genuineness and dignity of his own pioneering fiction in 1931 with his quintessential work of supernatural horror
In The Age of Shakespeare, Frank Kermode uses the history and culture of the Elizabethan era to enlighten us about William Shakespeare and his poetry and plays. Opening with the big picture of the rel
G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown may seem a pleasantly doddering Roman Catholic priest, but appearances deceive. With keen observation and an unerring sense of man's frailties - gained during his years
For sixty years the best food writers have been sending dispatches from Paris to Gourmet. At once unique and universal, these essays by Joseph Wechsberg, Naomi Barry, and Diane Johnson, among others,
“The boastful, unstable Toad, the hospitable Water Rat, the shy, wise, childlike Badger, and the Mole with his pleasant habit of brave boyish impulse,” noted Vanity Fair nearly a century ago, “are typ
Chosen by BusinessWeek as One of the Top Ten Business Books of the YearWith apologies to Hegel, Marx, and Lenin, the basic unit of modern society is neither the state, nor the commune, nor the party;
Introduction by JEREMY TREGLOWN“In his daily walks through London,” notes Jeremy Treglown in his Introduction to this collection, “Pritchett watched and listened to people as a naturalist observes wil
Edited and with Notes by Peter Lancelot MalliosIntroduction by Robert D. KaplanIn reexamining The Secret Agent in a post-9/11 world, Robert D. Kaplan praises Joseph Conrad’s “surgical insight into the
One of the most written-about literary figures in the past decade, Arthur Rimbaud left few traces when he abandoned poetry at age twenty-one and disappeared into the African desert. Although the dozen
Rich in playful double entendres, digressions, formal oddities, and typographical experiments, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman provoked a literary sensation when it first appeared
A major new translation of a forgotten classicParis, 1793, the onset of the Terror. Brave Republican Maurice rescues a mys-terious and beautiful woman from an angry mob and is unknowingly drawn into a
In this remarkable anthology, some of the world’s greatest writers provide a master class on the transformative power of learning and literature. Culled from a course developed by Pulitzer Prize—winni
This new edition combines Tolstoy’s most famous short tale, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, with a less well known but equally brilliant gem, Master and Man, both newly translated by Ann Pasternak Slater. B
Full of mischief, valor, ribaldry, and romance, The Arabian Nights has enthralled readers for centuries. These are the tales that saved the life of Shahrazad, whose husband, the king, executed each of
The Red and the Black, Stendhal's masterpiece, is the story of Julien Sorel, a young dreamer from the provinces, fueled by Napoleonic ideals, whose desire to make his fortune sets in motion events bot
In this eighteenth-century memoir, Olaudah Equiano recounts his life story, which begins when he is kidnapped in Africa as a boy and sold into slavery and culminates when he has achieved renown as a
Edited and with an Introduction by Gordon MarinoBasic Writings of Existentialism, unique to the Modern Library, presents the writings of key nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers broadly united b
This unique collection of Twain’s essential short stories and semiautobiographical narratives is a testament to the author’s vast imagination. Featuring popular tales such as “Jim Smiley and His Jumpi
Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men a
A new translation by Anthony Esolen Illustrations by Gustave Dore ? Written in the fourteenth century by Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy is arguably the greatest epic p
A momentous bestseller when it was first published in 1949, John O’Hara’s sprawling novel A Rage to Live offers up a gorgeous pageant of idealists and libertines, tradesmen and crusaders, men of viole
THE 100th YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITIONThe Story of My Life, a remarkable account of overcoming the debilitating challenges of being both deaf and blind, has become an international classic, making Helen K
Filled with lyrical, exotic prose and nostalgia for Rudyard Kipling's native India, Kim is widely acknowledged as the author's greatest novel and a key element in his winning the 1907 Nobel Prize in L
During World War Two, 131 German cities and towns were targeted by Allied bombs, a good number almost entirely flattened. Six hundred thousand German civilians died—a figure twice that of all American
Self-published in 1899 and sold door-to-door by the author, this classic African-American novel—a gripping exploration of oppression, miscegenation, exploitation, and black empowerment—was a major bes
The House Behind the Cedars tells of John and Lena Walden, mulatto siblings who pass for white in the postbellum American South. The drama that unfolds as they travel between black and white worlds c
Translated by Anthony EsolenIllustrations by Gustave DoreA groundbreaking bilingual edition of Dante’s masterpiece that includes a substantive Introduction, extensive notes, and appendixes that reprod
L. Frank Baum's timeless classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was the first uniquely American fairy tale. A combination of enchanting fantasy and piercing social commentary, this remarkable story has e
This irascible genius, this diminutive egghead scientist, known to the world as “The Thinking Machine,” is no less than the newly rediscovered literary link between Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe: Pro
Shocking his stodgy colleagues at the exclusive Reform Club, enigmatic Englishman Phileas Fogg wagers his fortune, undertaking an extraordinary and daring enterprise, to circumnavigate the globe in e
This brilliant satire of the women's rights movement in America is the story of the ravishing inspirational speaker Verena Tarrant and the bitter struggle between two distant cousins who seek to contr
The First New Translation in Forty YearsSet sometime between the mid-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century, Gogol’s epic tale recounts both a bloody Cossack revolt against the Poles (led by the bold
The Star Rover is the story of San Quentin death-row inmate Darrell Standing, who escapes the horror of prison life - and long stretches in a straitjacket - by withdrawing into vivid dreams of past li
Ranging from poignant scrutiny of social pretension, to wicked tales of lust and love, to harrowing stories of terror and madness, the genius of Guy de Maupassant, France's greatest short-story write
In A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain's unofficial sequel to The Innocents Abroad, the author records his hilarious and diverse observations and insights while on a fifteen-month walking trip through Central
Casanova, the Prince of Italian adventurers, is remembered as a libertine and rogue. Few know the true story of his remarkable life - and of the duel he once fought with a Polish Count.On the run fro
The Lost Girl, D. H. Lawrence's forgotten novel, is a passionate tale of longing and sexual defiance, of devastation and destitution.Alvina Houghton, the daughter of a widowed Midlands draper, comes
When Marshal of the Nobility Pozdnyshev suspects his wife of having an affair with her music partner, his jealousy consumes him and drives him to murder. Controversial upon publication in 1890, The Kr
Set on a Mississippi steamer on April Fool's Day and populated by a series of shape-shifting con men, The Confidence-Man is a challenging metaphysical and ethical exploration of antebellum American so
