tung by the critical reception and lack of commercial success of his previous two works, Moby-Dick and Pierre, Herman Melville became obsessed with the difficulties of communicating his vision to readers. His sense of isolation lies at the heart of these later works. "Billy Budd, Sailor," a classic confrontation between good and evil, is the story of an innocent young man unable to defend himse…
An omnibus edition of four of America's most influential and thought-provoking novels includes The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, and Billy Budd by Herman Melville. Reprint. An adulteress, a runaway boy, a terrified soldier, and a maltreated sailor-all the heroes of these must-read novels have beco…
From the time she is sent to pick up the guest conductor, Amelia Bedelia's normal confusion causes quite an uproar at the school concert.'
Emil Sinclair is a young boy raised in a bourgeois home, amidst what is described as a Scheinwelt, a play on words that means "world of light" as well as "world of illusion". Emil's entire existence can be summarized as a struggle between two worlds: the show world of illusion (related to the Hindu concept of maya) and the real world, the world of spiritual truth. In the course of the novel, ac…
Clifford saves the day! A reading comprehension book