George Stade

A plague erupted. The victim suffers a two-month latent period during which he is infectious but shows no symptoms. The virus is spread by aerosol, so that millions of people are soon infected and infectious, but without knowing it. At the climax of the disease, there is what a character calls a rite of distribution. At the climax, the victim does what he or she most wanted or feared doing, the idea being that this kind of fear is laced with fascination....

"Uncle Tom's Cabin brought the evils of slavery to the consciences and hearts of the American people by its moving portrayal of slave experience. Harriet Beecher Stowe shows us in scenes of great dramatic power the human effects of a system in which slaves were property: the break up of families, the struggles for freedom, and the horrors of plantation labour. She brings into fiction the different voices of the emerging American nation; the Southern...

Set within the richly imagined confines of Puritan Boston, The Scarlet Letter is Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale of the social consequences of adultery and the subversive force of personal desire in a strict religious community.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

In "Heart of Darkness, Captain Marlowe must wend his way up the African Congo to recover the missing Colonel Kurtz in one of the greatest steamship adventures ever told. As Marlowe's ship Nellie scrapes along the Congo, the voyage into the human soul, like the morass of steaming foliage along the banks, becomes increasingly dark and perilous. In addition to the Marlowe tales "Heart of Darkness and "Youth, this new volume includes Conrad's classic...

Linguists, philologists, and restorers of ancient texts, the Brothers Grimm practically invented the science of folklore with the publication of Kinder-und Hausmarchen (1812-1815), which became popularly known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Comprising 120 of their best-loved tales, this new Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales includes criticism, reception, discussion questions, and legacies, to appeal to readers of all ages. --from Publisher's...