Young Caroline Meeber leaves home for the first time and experiences work, love, and the pleasures and responsibilities of independence in late-nineteenth-century Chicago and New York.

In depression-era California, two migrant workers dream of better days on a spread of their own until an act of unintentional violence leads to tragic consequences.

A chance acquaintance brings together the prosperous bourgeois Wilcox family and the clever, cultured, and idealistic Schlegel sisters. As clear-eyed Margaret develops a friendship with Mrs. Wilcox, the impetuous Helen brings into their midst a young bank clerk named Leonard Bast, who lives at the edge of poverty and ruin. When Mrs. Wilcox dies, her family discovers that she wants to leave her country home, Howards End, to Margaret. Thus Forster sets...

The story of a lay community of mixed-up people encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns, including Dora Greenfield, an erring wife who returns to her husband, and Michael Meade, who is confronted by his homosexual former lover.

Eighty short stories by a master of the genre O. Henry's comic eye and unique, ironic approach to life's realities are unmatched. These stories--about con men and tricksters and "innocent" deceivers, about fate, luck, and coincidence--have delighted generations of readers. Set in New York and the West, in Central America and the South, they demonstrate O. Henry's mastery of speech and place, and highlight his appreciation of life's quirks. For more...

Born to a white mother and absent black father, Helga Crane was scorned for her dark skin had learned long ago that she must fend for herself. Teaching at an all black school in the south, Helga still feels out of place. She moves to Harlem and later to Denmark seeking to find a comfortable life for herself. Eventually, she winds up right back where she started from.