The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

No man is impervious to the poisons of the crown... Having murdered his wife and exiled his mistress, King Louis X of France becomes besotted with Princess Clemence of Hungary and makes her his new Queen and embarks on an ill-fated war against Flanders. Where his father, Philip IV, was strong, Louis is weak, and the ambitions of his proud, profligate barons threaten his power and the future of a kingdom once ruled by an Iron King.

"A sweeping tale about an illustrious family that builds itself a fabulous vacation retreat on the French Riviera--a replica of an ancient Greek palace in which they seek perfection and beauty until being caught in the tragedies of 20th-century European history. The story of the villa and its glamorous inhabitants, infused with a love story about a youth who undergoes an initiation of many sorts, is a Greek epic for the modern era"--

"A Sengalese soldier loses his mind in the trenches of World War I"--

"The rebellions within an interracial family play out against the countercultural rebellions of the 1960s in this sexy, stylish, sophisticated new novel by the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny and In the Country of Others"--

"'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...

"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....

The story of Valjean, the ex-convict who rises against all odds from galley slave to mayor, and the fanatical police inspector who dedicates his life to recapturing Valjean.

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...