The original CliffsNotes study guides offer a look into key elements and ideas within classic works of literature. CliffsNotes on Emma explores a satiric novel that stabs at manners and social classes, all the while delivering entertainment in a mild comic tone and sharing a lesson for the moralist. Following the heroine’s slow and bumpy growth from self-deception to self-knowledge, this study guide provides summaries and commentaries on each chapter within the three-volume plot structure. Other features that help you figure out this important work include Life and background of the author Introduction to and synopsis of the novel Critical analysis of plot, setting, point of view, characters, theme, and style Review questions and selected bibliography for further research Classic literature or modern-day treasure — you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

The Watsons is an abandoned novel by Jane Austen, completed by her niece. The story tells about the widowed priest and his six children, four of which are daughters wishing to get married t a rich man. Although one of the daughters, Emma, was raised by their rich childless aunt. As a result, she is better educated than her other three sisters and has different values. The pursuit for love and wealthy admirers and the opposition between sisters lead to mingled affairs, romantic love stories, and exciting adventures.

In this #1 international bestseller, a young woman leaves everything behind to work as a librarian in a remote French village, where she finds her outlook on life and love challenged in every way. Prudencia Prim is a young woman of intelligence and achievement, with a deep knowledge of literature and several letters after her name. But when she accepts the post of private librarian in the village of San Ireneo de Arnois, she is unprepared for what she encounters there. Her employer, a book-loving intellectual, is dashing yet contrarian, always ready with a critique of her cherished Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott. The neighbors, too, are capable of charm and eccentricity in equal measure, determined as they are to preserve their singular little community from the modern world outside. Prudencia hoped for friendship in San Ireneo but she didn't suspect that she might find love—nor that the course of her new life would run quite so rocky or would offer challenge and heartache as well as joy, discovery, and fireside debate. Set against a backdrop of steaming cups of tea, freshly baked cakes, and lovely company, The Awakening of Miss Prim is a distinctive and delightfully entertaining tale of literature, philosophy, and the search for happiness.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • A deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to visit a Black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting. "An instant classic." —Chicago Tribune A “majestic, moving novel...an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), from the critically acclaimed author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. "A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position as an important American writer." —Boston Globe "Enormously moving.... Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes." —Los Angeles Times “A quietly moving novel [that] takes us back to a place we've been before to impart a lesson for living.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Award-Winning Regency Romance from Bestselling Author Julie Klassen Emma Smallwood, determined to help her widowed father regain his spirits when his academy fails, agrees to travel with him to the distant Cornwall coast, to the cliff-top manor of a baronet and his four sons. But after they arrive and begin teaching the younger boys, mysterious things begin to happen and danger mounts. Who does Emma hear playing the pianoforte, only to find the music room empty? Who sneaks into her room at night? Who rips a page from her journal, only to return it with a chilling illustration? The baronet's older sons, Phillip and Henry, wrestle with problems--and secrets--of their own. They both remember Emma Smallwood from their days at her father's academy. She had been an awkward, studious girl. But now one of them finds himself unexpectedly drawn to her. When the suspicious acts escalate, can the clever tutor's daughter figure out which brother to blame...and which brother to trust with her heart?