Wanda McCaddon

In "Two on a Tower," a love story set against the background of the stellar universe, Hardy defied social norms of the day and shocked his readers. In what is today seen as the author's most important portrayal of love across physical and societal divides, the novel tells the story of Lady Constantine, a married, older, aristocratic, religious woman who falls in love with Swithin St. Cleeve, a young astronomer, single, lower class, and agnostic. Hardy's...

"The Return of the Soldier" is British author Rebecca West's remarkable 1918 novel of the struggle of a World War I veteran and the three women who love him as he returns home and tries make sense of the life that he had before he went to war. Told from the perspective of his cousin Jenny, who lives with him and his wife Kitty, it is the story of British soldier Chris Baldry, who has just returned home from fighting in France. Chris has amnesia and...

Walter Pater (1839-1894) attained a B.A. degree in Classics from Queen's College, Oxford, followed soon after by a M.A. degree from Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was made a Fellow in 1865. That same year Pater toured Italy, where he discovered what would become a lifelong passion for masters of the Italian Renaissance like Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, among many others. In 1877 he published "The Renaissance: Studies in...

Story of Egdon Heath and Eustacia Vye in late nineteenth century Wessex, England. Set in the vast, brooding heathlands of England, it lays bare the frailties of human love.

While out on a walk, Eleanor Trewynn, her niece Megan, and her neighbor Nick spot a young, half-drowned Indian man floating in the water. Delerious and concussed, he utters a cryptic message about his family being trapped in a cave and his mother dying. The young man, unconscious and unable to help, is whisked away to a hospital while a desperate effort is mounted find the missing family in time. The local police inspector presumes that they are refugees...

"Adept at showing character through witty dialogue, Dunn paints an amusing picture of a small town that readers will want to visit again soon." -Publishers Weekly on Manna From Hades Eleanor Trewynn is a recently retired widow who has moved to the small village of Port Mabyn in Cornwall. Neither frail nor retiring, after a lifetime of traveling the world, she's ready for an uneventful life with her dog and friends in this quiet town. Unfortunately,...

In this atmospheric, intriguing historical mystery brimming with psychological tension, an unexpected inheritance plunges beloved British mystery author Josephine Tey into a disturbing puzzle of dark secrets eerily connecting the present and the past.When Josephine Tey unexpectedly inherits Red Barn Cottage from her estranged godmother, the will stipulates that she must personally claim the house in the Suffolk countryside. But Josephine is not the...

From the author of The Jungle Book comes a magical fantasy story, rich in historical detail and filled with intrigue and excitementUna and Dan, reciting Shakespeare on a summer's evening in rural Sussex, unwittingly summon the elf Puck. They are taken on a fantastic journey through Britain's past, their magical companion plucking from history an array of fascinating characters for them to meet: Parnesius, a Roman centurion who manned Hadrian's wall;...

The disregard of a dying woman's bequest, a girl's attempt to help an impoverished clerk, and the marriage of an idealist and a materialist intersect at an estate called Howards End. There, the lives of three families become entangled. The Wilcoxes, who own the estate, are a wealthy family who made their fortune in the American colonies. The Schlegel siblings-Margaret, Helen, and Tibby-are lively socialites whose spirited and active lifestyles are...

Originally published in 1859, "Adam Bede" is the first novel by George Eliot, which was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Eliot was one of the leading British writers of the Victorian era, as well as a noted journalist, poet, and translator. "Adam Bede" concerns a small, tight-knit, and fictional rural community called Hayslope and the romantic drama that develops between four of its young residents: the title character Adam, a young carpenter, the...