Books in Immortal Classics series

David Copperfield is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published as a book in 1850. Many elements of the novel follow events in Dickens' own life, and it is probably the most autobiographical of his novels. In the preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens wrote, "like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield." The story traces the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity. David was born in Blunderstone, Suffolk, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, in 1820, six months after the death of his father. David spends his early years in relative happiness with his loving but frail mother and their kindly housekeeper, Peggotty. When he is seven years old his mother marries Edward Murdstone. David is given good reason to dislike his stepfather and has similar feelings for Murdstone's sister Jane, who moves into the house soon afterwards. Murdstone attempts to thrash David for falling behind in his studies. David bites him and soon afterwards is sent away to a boarding school, Salem House, with a ruthless headmaster, Mr. Creakle. The novel has been adapted into several plays and for the screen at least twelve times.

Robinson Crusoe is the most famous castaway story ever written, authored by Daniel Defoe, first published in1719. After a storm, Robinson suffers a shipwreck and strands on the desert “Island of Despair” with only a few tools and he has to learn how to survive for the next 26 years. The first edition credited the work's protagonist as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning numerous sequels and adaptations for stage, film, and TV.

The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 (published 1826) is a historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper. It is the second book of the Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy and the best known to contemporary audiences. The Pathfinder, published 14 years later in 1840, is its sequel. The Last of the Mohicans is set in 1757, during the French and Indian War (the Seven Years' War), when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America. During this war, both the French and the British used Native American allies, but the French were particularly dependent, as they were outnumbered in the Northeast frontier areas by the more numerous British colonists. The novel is primarily set in the upper New York wilderness, detailing the transport of the two daughters of Colonel Munro, Alice and Cora, to a safe destination at Fort William Henry. Among the caravan guarding the women are the frontiersman Natty Bumppo, the Major Duncan Heyward, and the Indians Chingachgook and Uncas, the former of whom is the novel's title character. The novel has consistently been one of the "most popular novels in English" since its publication and it remains widely read in American literature courses. It has been adapted numerous times and in different languages for films, TV movies and cartoons.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a wonderful story filled with adventure and unforgettable characters that no one who has read it will ever forget. It has consistently been amongst the most popular and most read books since it was first published in 1884. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective. It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. Huck struggles not only with the challenges of his strenuous journey, but also with the 19th century social climate and the role it forces on him regarding Jim. Throughout the story, Huck is in moral conflict with the received values of the society in which he lives, and while he is unable to consciously refute those values even in his thoughts, he makes a moral choice based on his own valuation of Jim's friendship and human worth, a decision in direct opposition to the things he has been taught.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891 and in book form in 1892. Though now considered a major nineteenth-century English novel and possibly Hardy's masterpiece, Tess of the d'Urbervilles received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England. Lecherous Alec d’Urberville arranges a job for Tess on his family's estate. While Tess is reluctant, it is her only income and she feels guilty about an accident involving the family’s horse. But sex pest Alec repeatedly tries to seduce Tess, finally taking advantage of her one night in the forest. Tess gives birth to his child and christens the boy Sorrow. Shortly after the birth, however, Sorrow dies. Tess is forced to seek work again, this time as a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy. It is during this happy period that Tess befriends three fellow milkmaids and a man named Angel Clare. Tess falls in love with Angel and they soon marry, but it is not until after the wedding that Tess confesses she has a past and lost her son: Rather than forgive her, Angel gives Tess money and boards a ship bound for Brazil. Once again Tess is faced with life on her own, forced to fight for her survival.

First published in 1820, today Ivanhoe has become legend and is by far the most popular of Sir Walter Scotts novels. It is the story of one of the remaining Saxon noble families at a time when the nobility in England was overwhelmingly Norman. It follows the Saxon protagonist, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who is out of favour with his father for his allegiance to the Norman king Richard the Lionheart. The story is set in 1194, after the failure of the Third Crusade, when many of the Crusaders were still returning to their homes in Europe. King Richard, who had been captured by Leopold of Austria on his return journey to England, was believed to be still in captivity. The legendary Robin Hood, initially under the name of Locksley, is also a character in the story, as are his "merry men". The character that Scott gave to Robin Hood in Ivanhoe helped shape the modern notion of this figure as a cheery noble outlaw. Having been adapted for the screen many times, Ivanhoe continues to boost interest in medieval history with its tale of knights in shining armour and it remains hugely popular with readers of all ages.

North and South is a social novel by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. Along with Wives and Daughters and Cranford, it is one of her best known novels and has been adapted for television twice, in 1975 and 2004. The latter version renewed interest in the novel and gained it a wider audience. North and South is set in the fictional industrial town of Milton in the North of England. Forced to leave her home in the tranquil rural south, Margaret Hale settles with her parents in Milton where she witnesses the brutal world wrought by the industrial revolution and employers and workers clashing in the first organised strikes. Sympathetic to the poor whose courage and tenacity she admires and among whom she makes friends, she clashes with John Thornton, a cotton mill manufacturer who belongs to the nouveaux riches and whose contemptuous attitude to workers Margaret despises. Gaskell based Milton on Manchester, where she lived as the wife of a Unitarian minister.

The moving, humane tragedy of a deeply flawed and self-destructive man, The Mayor of Casterbridge is the story of Michael Henchard, who sells his wife and baby daughter at a country fair in a fit of drunken anger. Over the following years he establishes himself as a respected pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but cannot escape his shameful past - or himself and eventually his past catches up with him. Subtitled 'The Life and Death of a Man of Character', Hardy's intense drama, tragically played out against the rituals of a close-knit Wessex town, is one of his greatest and most popular works.

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (commonly known simply as Moll Flanders) is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1722. It purports to be the true account of the life of the eponymous Moll, detailing her exploits from birth until old age. Born in Newgate Prison, twelve years a prostitute, five times a wife (once to her own brother), twelve years a thief and eight years an exiled convict in Her Majesty's colony of Virginia. Daniel Defoe's amazing tale presents life in the prisons, alleyways and underworlds of eighteenth-century London, and gives us Moll - scandalous, unscrupulously cunning and utterly irresistible. The novel was the basis of a musical that premiered in 1993 and has been adapted for the screen several times.

Dombey and Son is the seventh novel by Charles Dickens. It tells the story of Paul Dombey, powerful head of the House of Dombey. He wants a son and when a daughter (Florence) is born he despises her. His second child, a son (Paul), is weak and sickly and dies a child. Paul's first wife dies with the birth of Paul Jr and he remarries. His second wife, Edith, does not love him and eventually runs away with Mr. Carker, a manager at the firm. With Carker gone, Paul is incapable of managing the business and it fails. In the end Paul is reconciled with his daughter, living with her family, and doting on his grandchildren. As with most of Dickens' work, a number of socially significant themes are to be found in this book. In particular the book deals with the then-prevalent common practice of arranged marriages for financial gain. Other themes to be detected within this work include child cruelty, familial relationships, and as ever in Dickens, betrayal and deceit and the consequences thereof. Another strong central theme is that of pride and arrogance, of which Paul Dombey senior is the extreme exemplification in Dickens' work.

The Thirty-Nine Steps is a fast-paced adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan. It first appeared as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine in August and September 1915 before being published in book form in October that year by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of sticky situations. The Thirty-Nine Steps is one of the earliest examples of the 'man-on-the-run' thriller archetype subsequently adopted by Hollywood as an often-used plot device. In The Thirty-Nine Steps, Buchan holds up Richard Hannay as an example to his readers of an ordinary man who puts his country’s interests before his own safety. The story was a great success with the men in the First World War trenches. One soldier wrote to Buchan, "The story is greatly appreciated in the midst of mud and rain and shells, and all that could make trench life depressing." The novel formed the basis for a number of film adaptations, notably: Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 version; a 1959 colour remake; a 1978 version which is perhaps most faithful to the novel; and a 2008 version for British television.

Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar is a novel written by Jules Verne in 1876. Critics consider it one of Verne's best books. Davidow wrote, "Jules Verne has written no better book than this, in fact it is deservedly ranked as one of the most thrilling tales ever written." Michael Strogoff, a 30-year-old native of Omsk, is a courier for Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Tartar Khan (prince), Feofar, incites a rebellion and separates the Russian Far East from the mainland, severing telegraph lines. Rebels encircle Irkutsk, where the local governor, a brother of the Tsar, is making a last stand. Strogoff is sent to Irkutsk to warn the governor about the traitor Ivan Ogareff, a former colonel, who was once demoted and exiled and now seeks revenge against the imperial family. He intends to destroy Irkutsk by setting fire to the huge oil storage tanks on the banks of the Angara River. On his way to Irkutsk, Strogoff meets the beautiful Nadia Fedor, who has been granted permission to join her father at his exile in Irkutsk. Michael is supposed to travel under a false identity, but he is discovered by the Tartars when he meets his mother in their home city of Omsk. Michael, his mother and Nadia are taken prisoner by the Tartar forces, but he escapes and the drama comes to a suprising ending. The book has been adapted several times for films and as a TV-series.