Books published by publisher SIGNET

“The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—SalonIt Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press. Called “a message to thinking Americans” by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here is a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today’s news. With an Introduction by Michael Meyer and an Afterword by Gary Scharnhorst

Three horror icons come together in one indispensable tome—with an introduction by Stephen King. “Within the pages of this volume you will come upon three of the darkest creations of English nineteenth-century literature; three of the darkest in all of English and American literature, many would say…and not without justification…These three creatures, presented together for the first time, all have a great deal in common beyond their power to go on frightening generation after generation of readers…but that fact alone should be considered before all others.”—From the Introduction by Stephen King A scientist oversteps the bounds of conscience and brings to life a tortured creation. A young adventurer succumbs to the night world of a diabolic count. A man of medicine explores his darker side only to fall prey to it. They are legendary tales that have held readers spellbound for more than a century. The titles alone—Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—have become part of a universal language that serves to put a monster’s face on the good-and-evil duality of our very human nature. And the authors—Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Robert Louis Stevenson—equally as mythic, are still possessed of an inventive and subversive power that can shake a reader to this day with something far more profound than fear. They gave root to the modern horror novel, and like the creatures they invented, they’ve achieved immortality.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., presents a seminal volume of four classic slave narratives, including the 1749 texts of The Life of Olaudah Equiano, the last edition corrected and published in his lifetime. The collection also includes perhaps the best known and most widely read slave narrative--Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, as well as two narratives by women: The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, and Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Jacobs as Linda Brent. This edition also features an updated introduction by Professor Gates.

Daniel Defoe’s classic tale of a solitary castaway’s survival and triumph, widely considered to be the first English novel.“I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwrecked, came on shore on this dismal unfortunate island, all the rest of the ship’s company being drowned. In despair of any relief, I saw nothing but death before me…” Thus Crusoe begins his journal in Daniel Defoe’s classic novel: the vividly realistic account of a solitary castaway’s triumph over nature—and over the fears, self-doubt and loneliness that are parts of human nature. For almost three centuries, Robinson Crusoe has remained one of the best known and most read tales in modern literature, a popularity owing as much to the enduring freshness and immediacy of its style as to its widely acknowledged status as the very first English novel.

THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF ALL TIME—NOW WITH A NEW AFTERWORD. Homer’s Odyssey has been called “the first novel,” “the first expression of the mind in literary form,” and “the best story ever written.” Whether fans of suspense, fantasy or human drama, readers of all ages thrill to Homer’s vibrant picture of Odysseus on his decade-long journey, as he meets the lotus-eaters, cunningly flees Cyclops, angers his gods, resists the sexy Sirens, narrowly escapes Scylla and Charybdis, averts his eyes from Medusa, docks in exotic cities—all the while struggling to make it home to his wife and son. Adventure on the high seas, legendary romance, tests of endurance, betrayal, heroism—the saga has all these and more, imagined by the most famous bard of all time. But, as Aristotle pointed out, “his greatness was that he himself was nowhere to be found in his story. His characters were everywhere.” Blind and possibly illiterate, Homer has still “in loftiness of thought surpass’d”* any storyteller since 900 B.C.E. *John Dryden

In the post-Napoleonic era, Edmond Dantès, a young sailor from Marseilles, is poised to become captain of his own ship and to marry his beloved. But spiteful enemies provoke his arrest, condemning him to lifelong imprisonment. Then Edmond’s sole companion in prison reveals his secret plan of escape and a letter with directions to hidden riches on the island of Monte Cristo—a treasure trove that will eventually fund Edmund’s dream of creating a new identity for himself: the mysterious and powerful Count of Monte Cristo.In The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas employed all the elements of compelling drama—suspense, intrigue, love, vengeance, rousing adventure, and the triumph of good over evil—that contribute to this classic story’s irresistible and timeless appeal.

“One of the major autobiographies of the African-American tradition.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.“It has been painful to me, in many ways, to recall the dreary years I passed in bondage. I would gladly forget them if I could. Yet the retrospection is not altogether without solace; for with these gloomy recollections come tender memories of my good old grandmother, like light fleecy clouds floating over a dark and troubled sea.”One of the most memorable slave narratives, Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl illustrates the overarching evil and pervasive depravity of the institution of slavery. In great and painful detail, Jacobs describes her life as a Southern slave, the exploitation that haunted her daily life, her abuse by her master, the involvement she sought with another white man in order to escape her master, and her determination to win freedom for herself and her children. From her seven years of hiding in a garret that was three feet high, to her harrowing escape north to a reunion with her children and freedom, Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl remains an outstanding example of one woman’s extraordinary courage in the face of almost unbeatable odds, as well as one of the most significant testimonials in American history.

This tragic novel of sin and redemption is Hawthorne's masterpiece of American fiction.An ardent young woman, her cowardly lover, and her aging vengeful husband—these are the central characters in this stark drama of the conflict between passion and convention in the harsh world of seventeenth-century Boston. Tremendously moving and rich in psychological insight, this dramatic depiction of the struggle between mind and heart illuminates Hawthorne's concern with our Puritan past and its influence on American life.With an Introduction by Brenda Wineappleand an Afterword by Regina BarrecaThis edition includes an early Hawthorne story that contains the germ of The Scarlet Letter.

Sage, storyteller, and wit, Washington Irving created such staples of American fiction as the stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” He earned his preeminence in early American literature with the masterpieces in miniature collected here: dozens of stories, travel essays, biographical discourses, and literary musings. “His influence on American writers is unquestioned,” wrote Edgar Allan Poe, and his stories have proved as enduring as the Catskill Mountains the author immortalized.“Exceptional talent….I am one of his most ardent admirers. I admired Mr. Irving’s work so much, in fact, that I gave it the ultimate praise; I ‘borrowed it.’”—Edgar Allan Poe With an Introduction by Wayne Franklin

The classic novel of hope, redemption, and the indomitable human spirit, from beloved novelist George Eliot.In this heartwarming classic by George Eliot, a gentle linen weaver named Silas Marner is wrongly accused of a heinous theft actually committed by his best friend. Exiling himself to the rustic village of Raveloe, he becomes a lonely recluse. Ultimately, Marner finds redemption and spiritual rebirth through his unselfish love for an abandoned child who mysteriously appears one day in his isolated cottage. Somber, yet hopeful, Eliot’s realistic depiction of an irretrievable past, tempered with the magical elements of myth and fairy tale, remains timeless in its understanding of human nature and has been beloved for generations.With an Introduction by Frederick R. Karl and an Afterword by Kathryn Hughes

Anthem is Ayn Rand’s classic tale of a dystopian future of the great “We”—a world that deprives individuals of a name or independence—that anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was one—the great WE.In all that was left of humanity there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice. In an age that had lost all trace of science and civilization, he had the courage to seek and find knowledge. But these were not the crimes for which he would be hunted. He was marked for death because he had committed the unpardonable sin: He had stood forth from the mindless human herd. He was a man alone. He had rediscovered the lost and holy word—I.“I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals, and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up to these possibilities.”—Ayn Rand

For more than one hundred years H. G. Wells’ classic science fiction tale of the Martian invasion of Earth has enthralled readers with a combination of imagination and incisive commentary on the imbalance of power that continues to be relevant today.No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own....So begins The War of the Worlds, the science fiction classic that first proposed the possibility of intelligent life on other planets and has enthralled readers for generations. This compelling tale describes the Martian invasion of earth. When huge, tireless creatures land in England, complete chaos erupts. Using their fiery heat rays and crushing strength, the aliens just may succeed in silencing all opposition. Is life on earth doomed? Will mankind survive? A timeless view of a universe turned upside down, The War of the Worlds is an ingenious and imaginative look into the possibilities of the future and the secrets yet to be revealed.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY KARL KROEBER AND AN AFTERWORD BY ISAAC ASIMOV