Cabbages and Kings (1904) is a novel by American writer O. Henry. Inspired by his experiences as a fugitive in Honduras, the interconnected stories that make up Cabbages and Kings-the title refers to a line from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass-address themes of revolution, imperialism, exploitation, and greed. The novel is significant not only for launching O. Henry's career as a successful professional writer, but for coining the term "banana...

An intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and shared dream that make an individual's existence meaningful.

Reworking an ancient legend, Steinbeck created a powerful parable of modern man's preoccupation with materialism, money, and power. The story is of Keno, a poor fisherman who finds a great, luminous pearl. Although he is sure the fortune it represents will solve all of his problems, Keno eventually realizes that the pearl has marked his life forever.

The powerful drama of Willy Loman & his tragic end. Ever since it was first performed in 1949, Death of a Salesman has been recognized as a milestone of the American theater. In the person of Willy Loman, the aging, failing salesman who makes his living riding on a smile and a shoeshine, Arthur Miller redefined the tragic hero as a man whose dreams are at once insupportably vast and dangerously insubstantial. He has given us a figure whose name has...

Kim is the son of an Irish soldier born under British Imperial rule in 19th century India. Left in the care of a half-caste woman, Kim is free to explore the back allies and bazaars of Lahore . But when he meets with his father's old regiment he trades his native clothes for European suits and abandons his free wheeling life for the trappings of a secret agent.

The Heart of the Matter, tells the story of a good man enmeshed in love, intrigue, and evil in a West African coastal town. Scobie is bound by strict integrity to his role as assistant police commissioner and by severe responsibility to his wife, Louise, for whom he cares with a fatal pity.--

Stegner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is the story of four generations in the life of an American family. A wheelchair-bound retired historian embarks on a monumental quest: to come to know his grandparents, now long dead. The unfolding drama of the story of the American West sets the tone for Stegner's masterpiece. Four generations in the life of an American family are chronicled as retired historian Lyman Ward, confined to a wheelchair, decides...

Jacob Flanders, a sensitive young man raised in Edwardian England, discovers as an adult that his life is lacking, but his search for fulfillment is sidetracked by the outbreak of World War I.

Recounts the story of Martin Eden, a young seaman struggling to obtain social and intellectual recognition as a writer.

Here are the humane and hard-hitting dispatches that John Steinbeck filed for the New York Herald Tribune at the height of World War II. While in England, Steinbeck tells stories of a bomber crew's courage, of the London blitz, of a goat that is an RAF mascot, and of the song "Lili Marlene." Later he is sent to North Africa and then joins a special-operations unit assignmed diversionary action along the coast of Italy. He eats and drinks with...