Three of the finest of the author's numerous short stories include the romantic title tale, the comic "The Distracted Preacher," and "The Three Strangers," a tribute to community life.

"Witty, compelling." — The Boston Globe. Gripped by an overwhelming obsession, Charles Strickland, a conventional London stockbroker, decides in midlife to desert his wife, family, business, and civilization for his art. One of Maugham's most popular works, The Moon and Sixpence is a riveting story about an uncompromising and self-destructive man who forsakes wealth and comfort to pursue the life of a painter. Drifting from Paris to Marseilles, Strickland eventually settles in Tahiti, takes a mistress, and in spite of poverty and a long, terminal illness, produces his most passionate and mysterious works of art. Loosely based on the life of Paul Gauguin, Maugham's timeless masterpiece is storytelling at its best — an insightful work focusing on artistic fixation that propels the artist beyond the commonplace into the selfish realm of genius.

Originally published: London: Macmillan, 1912.

An English astronomer, in company with an artilleryman, a country curate, and others struggle to survive the invasion of Earth by Martians in 1894

A collection of twenty-one traditional tales collected by the Grimm brothers.

Written early in the 2nd century, Plutarch's Lives offers richly detailed and anecdotal profiles of some of the ancient world's mightiest and most influential figures, including those of Alexander the Great, Cicero, and Julius Caesar.

Classic 1845 novel offered a powerful indictment of dehumanizing effects of industrialization. Thomas Gradgrind raises his children in strict observance of practicality, only to see them fall into lives of desperation and despair.