HC Classic Collection Book

Now you can own ten classic tales for less than $60! These literary legends belong to the Barnes & Noble Classics collection—beautiful hardcover editions that feature new introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars; biographies of the authors; chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events; footnotes and endnotes; selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work; comments by other famous authors; study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations; bibliographies for further reading; and indices & glossaries, when appropriate. The titles include:

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Aesop's Fables by Aesop
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu
• Beowulf
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Floating down the Mississippi on their raft, Huckleberry Finn and Jim, a runaway slave, find life filled with excitement and the spirit of adventure. Join Huck and Jim and their old friend Tom Sawyer as they come up against low-down thieves and murderers, while being chased by Huck's evil, drunken father who is after his treasure. Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a trip that you will never tire of.

This collection presents nearly 300 of Aesop's mostentertaining and enduring stories—from "The Hare and the Tortoise" and "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" to "The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs" and "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing." Populated by a colorful array of animal characters who personify every imaginable human type—from fiddling grasshoppers and diligent ants to sly foxes, wicked wolves, brave mice, and grateful lions—these timeless tales are as fresh and relevant today as when they were first created. Full of humor, insight, and wit, the tales in Aesop's Fables champion the value of hard work and perseverance, compassion for others, and honesty. They are age-old wisdom in a delicious form, for the consumption of adults and children alike.

Sun Tzu's incisive blueprint for battlefield strategy is as relevant to today's combatants in business, politics, and everyday life as it once was to the warlords of ancient China. The Art of War is one of the most useful books ever written on leading with wisdom. It's an essential tool for modern corporate warriors battling to gain the advantage in the boardroom, and for anyone struggling to gain the upper hand in confrontations and competitions.

Part history and part mythology, Beowulf opens in the court of the Danish king where a horrible demon named Grendel devours men in their sleep every night. The hero, Beowulf, arrives and kills the monster, but joy turns to horror when Grendel's mother attacks the hall to avenge the death of her son. Ultimately triumphant, Beowulf becomes king himself and rules peacefully for fifty years until, one dark day, a foe more powerful than any he has yet faced is aroused—an ancient dragon guarding a horde of treasure. Once again, Beowulf must summon all his strength and courage to face the beast, but this time victory exacts a terrible price.

Marry Shelley's Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? How far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of organ donation genetic engineering, and bio-terrorism, these questions are more relevant than ever.

Jane Eyre is an extraordinary coming-of-age story featuring one of the most independent and strong-willed female protagonists in all of literature. Poor and plain, Jane Eyre begins life as a lonely orphan in the household of her hateful aunt. Despite the oppression she endures at home, and the later torture of boarding school, Jane manages to emerge with her spirit and integrity unbroken. She becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she finds herself falling in love with her employer—the dark, impassioned Mr. Rochester. But an explosive secret tears apart their relationship, forcing Jane to face poverty and isolation once again. One of the world's most beloved novels, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is a startlingly modern blend of passion, romance, mystery, and suspense.

No book except perhaps Uncle Tom's Cabin had as powerful an impact on the abolitionist movement as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. But while Stowe wrote about imaginary characters, Frederick Douglass's book is a record of his own remarkable life. Born a slave in 1818 on a plantation in Maryland, Douglass taught himself to read and write. In 1845, seven years after escaping to the North, he published Narrative, the first of three autobiographies. This book calmly but dramatically recounts the horrors and the accomplishments of his early years—the daily, casual brutality of the white masters; his painful efforts to educate himself; his decision to find freedom or die; and his harrowing but successful escape. An astonishing orator and a skillful writer, Douglass became a newspaper editor, a political activist, and an eloquent spokesperson for the civil rights of African Americans. He lived through the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the beginning of segregation. He was celebrated internationally as the leading black intellectual of his day, and his story still resonates in ours.

In a remote village in Hertfordshire, England, a country squire of no great means must marry off his five vivacious daughters. At the heart of this all-consuming enterprise are his headstrong second daughter, Elizabeth Bennet, and a stoic aristocrat named Fitzwilliam Darcy. A tour de force of wit and sparkling dialogue, Pride and Prejudice is also a sumptuously detailed picture of contemporary society, which, in its exploration of manner and motives, has a great deal to say about the society of today. Jane Austen's best-loved novel is a memorable story about the power of reason, and above all about the strange dynamics of human relationships and emotions.

A unique combination of biblical oratory and playfulness, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, chronicles the wanderings and teachings of the prophet Zarathustra, who descends from his mountain retreat to awaken the world to its new salvation. Do not accept, he counsels, what almost two thousand years of history have taught you to call evil. The Greeks knew better: Goodness for them was nobility, pride, and victory, not the Christian virtues of humility, meekness, poverty, and altruism. The existence of the human race is justified only by the exceptional among us—the "superman," whose self-mastery and strong "will to power" frees him from the common prejudices and assumptions of the day. These and other concepts in Zarathustra were later perverted by Nazi propagandists, but Friedrich Nietzsche, a despiser of mass movements both political and religious, did not ask his readers for faith and obedience, but rather for critical reflection, courage, and independence.

Nearly every young author dreams of writing a book that will literally change the world. A few have succeeded, and Harriet Beecher Stowe is such a marvel. Although the American anti-slavery movement had existed at least as long as the nation itself, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin galvanized public opinion as nothing had before. The book sold 10,000copies in its first week and 300,000 in its first year. Its vivid dramatization of slavery's cruelties so aroused readers that it is said Abraham Lincoln told Stowe her work had been a catalyst for the Civil War. Today the novel is often labeled condescending, but its characters—Tom, Topsy, Little Eva, Eliza, and the evil Simon Legree—still have the power to move our hearts. Uncle Tom's Cabin is a living, relevant story, passionate in its vivid depiction of the cruelest forms of injustice and inhumanity—and the courage it takes to fight against them.