Books published by publisher SDE Classics

It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants.Humans vs. Martians. Conventional weapons vs. the dreaded Heat-Ray and poisonous black smoke. It's not the survival of one person at stake. It is the survival of all humanity.A classic unlike anything the world had yet to see, The War of the Worlds takes you into late 19th century England where a full-scale Martian invasion has begun.

The fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.Misfortune strikes young Robinson Crusoe, whose first time out at sea as a sailor results in a shipwreck. Not discouraged, Crusoe again sets out only for his ship to be overthrown by pirates and Crusoe himself enslaved. A narrow escape allows him again to set out to sea when he is then shipwrecked on a desert island. Here he discovers a near hopeless struggle for survival as he fights to secure a way home.

Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.Mischief and mayhem abound wherever the eponymous Tom Sawyer goes. From tricking his local peers into completing his household chores to cleverly acquiring a Sunday School prize to impress the father of his love interest, Tom Sawyer embodies the witty and lively spirits of young 19th century boys. Without delay, join Tom in his adventures in Tomfoolery!

Fifteen men on the Dead Man's ChestYo-ho-ho, and a bottle of Fun!All aboard the Hispaniola in this timeless adventure novel that has kept children and adults alike entertained for decades upon decades.A cryptic treasure map given to him by a mysterious sailor prompts a teenager named Jim Hawkins to sail from one end of the sea to the other. In pursuit of these buried riches, young Jim encounters a secret mutiny, a marooned seaman, and the unforgettable Long John Silver!So put down the rum and come pick up the fun!

...for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.An American masterpiece, Moby-Dick takes you on an epic voyage aboard the Pequod, where Captain Ahab’s obsession with the whale named "Moby Dick" drives the crew and his ship further and further into a spiral of madness. Considered a classic today, Moby-Dick was not as appreciated during Melville’s lifetime, where it even went out of print for many decades. Not until Melville’s 100 year anniversary of his birth year did a revival into his work bring Moby-Dick back into the forefront of American Literature.

What good would the moon be to men? Even of their own planet what have they made but a battleground and theatre of infinite folly? Small as his world is, and short as his time, he has still in his little life down there far more than he can do.A chance meeting forms an unlikely friendship between a London businessman (Mr. Bedford) and a physicist (Mr. Cavor), who is developing a new material, aptly named “cavorite,” that negates the force of gravity. Soon the material is tested successfully and the two men build a ship that capable of transporting them to the Moon!What awaits our two enterprising men destined for the surface of the Moon?

In presence of Nature's grand convulsions man is powerlessAfter five union soldiers escape imprisonment by commandeering a hot air balloon, a great storm blows them haphazardly for days. Soon, they arrive to an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Turmoil and confusion abound on the island as the castaways’ complications are always mysteriously solved.Will they discover the secret of the island?

They use everything about the hog except the squeal.Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant, finds work to support his struggling family in Brown’s Slaughterhouse in Chicago. The conditions are poor and the morale is even poorer. The workers of the slaughterhouse face a depravity that worsens with each passing day.Though Upton Sinclair’s motivation was to showcase the poor working conditions of industrial workers, The Jungle caught the public’s eye for its ways of exposing the health violations and unsanitary practices commonly found in the meat packing industry. The book led directly to the passage of The Meat Inspection Act of 1906.

Love is like a tree; it sprouts forth of itself, sends its roots out deeply through our whole being, and often continues to flourish greenly over a heart in ruins.In 1482 Paris during Louis XI’s reign, kind-hearted and compassionate Esmeralda is a young gypsy street dancer and the object of many men’s desire, but not all men have noble intentions with the young woman. The deceitful Claude Frollo tricks a deformed hunchback named Quasimodo, who resides in the Notre Dame Cathedral, to help kidnap Esmeralda, but the plan is foiled by another of Esmeralda’s suitors. Without hesitation, Esmeralda recognizes the good in Quasimodo, and soon the two form a strong bond.A central focal point to the story, The Notre Dame Cathedral, became a hotly debated topic during its renovation in the early 19th century. Victor Hugo wrote The Hunchback of Notre-Dame to showcase the value of the gothic architecture of medieval time.

To the destruction of what is.London, 1886: Adolf Verloc, by day he is a small shop owner who lives uneventfully with his wife, his mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law. By night, he is an agent provocateur. The unnamed country in which employs his clandestine life has found his service record to be lacking, and in order to redeem himself, they offer him a new and dangerous mission. One of terrorist machinations, this new mission finds Adolf convincing a group of local Anarchists to detonate a bomb at the Greenwich Observatory.

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner