Books in Caxton Classics series

Nine Greek biographies illustrate the rise and fall of Athens, from the legendary days of Theseus, the city's founder, through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, and Alcibiades, to the razing of its walls by Lysander.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Through the pages of this book stalks the mightiest of the wilderness villains, a free-booter and a bully, a bandit who knows nothing of fear and who faces every animal and routs him, taking his kills and appropriating his hunting grounds. Kin to the weasel, Carcajou the wolverine has the weasel's terrible strength and cunning one hundred times multiplied. So little is known of him that he has scarcely found his way in his haunts in the Colorado Rockies. Here he tells the vivid story of his deeds, weaving into a thrilling tale what happens when Carcajou, the unconquerable, "tangles" with a strong young Indian trapper and his pet grizzly named Mister Jim.

RUFUS is a wildlife story laid in the Rocky Mountains of the West. It is the story of a young bobcat and his struggle to survive in the wilderness. The reader first meets Rufus as a lone, wandering youngster who has just left his mother and now has to depend upon himself for food and shelter. Now that he is out on his own, Rufus begins living his life the only way he knows how, by hunting. He stakes out a territory and becomes a skillful hunter, preferring to make his meals of brush rabbits and fat mice. Rufus, like all other wild animals is forced to obey the laws of the wild that decree that the strong shall survive to maintain the balance of nature. As Rufus grows and matures he has number of exciting adventures including an encounter with a party of hunters and a pack of hounds, a flash flood, the raiding of a sheep camp, an avalanche, a struggle with a porcupine, a narrow excape from a pack of hungry gray wolves, and the search for a mate. Eventually Rufus finds a mate and settles down to the responsibilities of a family. He now must find food for more than just himself. Feeding a family becomes a real struggle as times become difficult when a rabbit plague occurs and forces the bobcat family to exist at the starvation level. Throughout this thrilling story, Mr. Montgomery's observations and descriptions paint an interesting and accurate picture of the habits and traits of a bobcat and his family. RUFUS is a book to be read and enjoyed by nature lovers of all ages.

There was a time when there were many wild horses on our western ranges. They had their beginnings mostly from horses shipped into this country by the Spanish explorers. Bands of horses were allowed to run loose so that they could forage for grass. Many of them simply deserted the camp and trail herds and became wild. Later on, economic changes added to these wild bands. When a railroad was built into the Comstock Lode country in Nevada, the Wells' Fargo freight and passenger stages had to give up the log trail routes. This left them with a lot of fine horses which they could not sell. Many were just turned loose to become wild horses. Trouble came to the wild herds when meat hunters found they could get good prices for wild horses from processors of dog and cat food. All the horses cost the meat hunters was the trouble of catching them. With trucks and planes available, the slaughter began. Today wild stallions like Big Red are faced with a desperate problem: how to save the small bands of mares they still have in their harems. This is the story of one wild stallion and his mares. Like the bison which were exterminated on the wild range, Big Red faces extermination finally given to a few herds of buffalo.

This is a story of a dog wrongfully branded as a "Killer," but always having had the confidence and trust of his master, which trust eventually proved to be well founded. This book is a worthy successor to "White Fang". Albert Payson Terhune, the well known author and dog lover, says in the foreword to the book "An author who not only knows dogs but can make his readers see in the hero of the tale the lovable whimsical traits of their own dogs, has a ready and eager following. "Such a man most, emphatically is the author of 'Broken Fang'...I like 'Broken Fang' ...I like it much." All lovers of animals, both young and old, will enjoy reading this fascinating book.

The high-spirited work of a young Dickens, The Pickwick Papers is the remarkable first novel that made its author famous and that has remained one of the best-known books in the world. In it the inimitable Samuel Pickwick, his well-fed body and unsinkable good spirits clad in tights and gaiters, sallies forth through the noisy streets of London and into the colorful country inns of rural England for a series of sparkling encounters with love and misadventure. From the wit of cockney bootblack Sam Weller to the unforgettable Fat Boy and rascals like the amorous Mr. Jingle and the unscrupulous lawyers Dodson and Fogg, The Pickwick Papers reels with joyous fantasy, infectious good humor, and a touch of the macabre—a classic work that G. K. Chesterton called “the great example of everything that made Dickens great…[a] supreme masterpiece.”

This early work by Susan Coolidge was originally published in 1885 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. In 'A Little Country Girl', orphaned Candace makes the first long trip of her life alone and gets to know her three second cousins, girls of similar ages. A virtuous story about living a good and true life. Sarah Chauncey Woolsey was born on 29 January 1835, into a wealthy and influential New England Dwight family, in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Her time as a medical worker provided Woolsey with the experience and self-determination in order to embark on her writing career. She has subsequently become famous as a children's author, writing numerous books under the pseudonym of 'Susan Coolidge'. Woolsey is best known for her classic children's novel What Katy Did (published in 1872)

In The Sketch-Book (1820-21), Irving explores the uneasy relationship of an American writer to English literary traditions. In two sketches, he experiments with tales transplanted from Europe, thereby creating the first classic American short stories, Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Based on Irving's final revision of his most popular work, this new edition includes comprehensive explanatory notes of The Sketch-Book's sources for the modern reader.