The Phantom of the Opera (1910) is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. Originally serialized in Le Galois, the novel was inspired by legends revolving around the Paris Opera from the early nineteenth century. Originally, a journalist, Leroux turned to fiction after reading the works of Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. Despite its lack of success relative to Leroux's other novels, The Phantom of the Opera has become legendary through several...

"'Madame Bovary' has a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone: it holds itself with such a supreme unapproachable assurance as both excites and defies judgment." —Henry James "Ever since 'Madame Bovary', the art of the novel has been considered equal to the art of poetry." —Milan Kundera "From the narrative point of view, the most perfect book is 'Madame Bovary' by Flaubert." —Giorgio de Chirico "Stylistically...

"I see that it is by no means useless to travel, if a man wants to see something new." Jules Verne's classic novel Around the World in Eighty Days follows the adventures of Phileas Fogg and his faithful valet Passepartout as they attempt to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days or less. A wealthy English gentleman, Fogg spends most of his time at his club. One day he got involved in an argument over a newspaper article stating that with the opening...

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is a French Romantic, Gothic novel by Victor Hugo. The title refers to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, on which the story is centered. The story begins on Epiphany (6 January), 1482, the day of the Feast of Fools in Paris, France. Quasimodo, a deformed hunchback who is the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, is introduced by his crowning as the Pope of Fools.
Esmeralda, a beautiful Gypsy street dancer with a kind and generous...

Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Verne's masterpiece. Published in French as L'Île Mystérieuse in 1874, this novel is a sequel to Verne's earlier Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas. After hijacking a balloon from a Confederate camp, a band of five northern prisoners escape the American...

"If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?" - CANDIDE Candide is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. It is the absurdly melodramatic story of a young man, Candide, living a sheltered life who clings desperately to "the best of all possible worlds," one which is abruptly interrupted by a series of painfully disillusioning events that set him off on a wide-ranging journey....

"In four beautifully woven parts, Mukasonga spins a marvelous recounting of the clash between ancient Rwandan beliefs and the missionaries determined to replace them with European Christianity. When a rogue priest is defrocked for fusing the gospels with the martyrdom of Kibogo, a fierce clash of cults ensues. Swirling with the heady smell of wet earth and flashes of acerbic humor, Mukasonga brings to life the vital mythologies that imbue the Rwandan...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. 'From that hour we had no further occasion for the exercise of reason, or judgment, or skill, or contrivance. We were henceforth to be hurled along, the playthings of the fierce elements of the deep.' In Verne's science-fiction classic, Professor Lidenbrock chances upon an ancient manuscript and pledges to solve the mysterious coded message that lies within it. Eventually...

A child imagines and counts all the things he can do as he grows from age one to age twenty-five, including climbing a tree with fourteen branches to reach a tree house big enough for fifteen bears.

"South of France, 1950: A solitary vagabond walks through the villages, towns, valleys, and foothills of the region between northern Provence and the Alps. He picks up casual work along the way, and spends the winter as the custodian of a walnut oil mill. He also picks up a problematic companion: a card sharp and con man, whom he calls "the Artist." The action moves from place to place, and episode to episode, in truly picaresque fashion. Everything...