NCW Libraries

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." With this famous declaration, Jane Austen launches into the story of the five Bennet sisters, a story that on first reading is full of suspense, surprise and, ultimately, satisfaction, and which on re-reading commands a deeper admiration for the author's remarkable skill in managing a deceptively complex plot to its triumphant conclusion....

Set in the Georgian period, about 20 years before the Regency, "These Old Shades" features two of Heyer's most memorable characters: Justin Alastair, the Duke of Avon, and Leonie, whom he rescues from a life of ignominy and comes to love and marry.

At the dawn of the French revolution, masses of hungry peasants burn the chateaux of aristocrats throughout France. After the death of his estranged family, an 18 year-old nobleman, the Marquis Marcel de la Croix, is forced to raise the royalist banner, despite his own revolutionary leanings. The wreck of his family fortress becomes a bastion for newly disenfranchised aristocrats, and Marcel and his fiery associate, Pierre Lafont, lead a rebel group...

A 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. Pyle compiled the traditional Robin Hood ballads as a series of episodes of a coherent narrative. For his characters' dialog, Pyle adapted the late Middle English of the ballads into a dialect suitable for children. The novel is notable for taking the subject of Robin Hood, which had been increasingly popular through the 19th century, in a new direction that influenced later writers,...

"En 1761, en un soleado día de septiembre, un rey y una reina se conocieron por primera vez. Se casaron en cuestión de horas. La princesa alemana Carlota de Mecklemburgo-Strelitz era guapa y terca, y poseía una inteligencia feroz; unos atributos que no eran precisamente los que la corte británica buscaba para la esposa del rey Jorge III. Sin embargo, su ferocidad y su independencia eran justo lo que necesitaba, porque Jorge tenía secretos., unos...