Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking,...

"The Spinning Jenny was invented in 1770, and with that, a new era of manufacturing and industry changed lives everywhere within a generation. A world filled with unrest wrestles for control over this new world order: A mother's husband is killed in a work accident due to negligence; a young woman fights to fund her school for impoverished children; a well-intentioned young man unexpectedly inherits a failing business; one man ruthlessly protects...

A young Gascon nobleman, d'Artagnan, sets off for Paris in hopes of joining the Musketeers. He proves himself fighting with them and earns a place in their ranks. With d'Artagnan the three preserve the honor of the king and thwart the schemes of Cardinal Richelieu.

Raised during the rise of industry, Louisa, shows poor choices in later life result from too practical an upbringing, cares nothing about what happens to her.

"Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by Charles Dickens, and was first published as a serial 1837?9. The story is of the orphan Oliver Twist, who starts his life in a workhouse and is then apprenticed with an undertaker. He escapes from there and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets, which is led by the elderly criminal Fagin. Oliver Twist is notable for Dickens's...

In Georgia's Swallow Hill turpentine camp in 1932, Rae Lynn Cobb, disguised as a man, hides out from those who would wrongly accuse her for murdering her husband and struggles to survive harsh, brutal conditions with the help of two individuals with their own tragic pasts.

"Ladies of the Canyons tells the true stories of a group of remarkable women whose lives were transformed by the people and landscape of the American Southwest in the first decades of the twentieth century"--Provided by publisher.

Seduced by her employer's son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to "the land beyond the seas," Van Diemen's Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long...

Academy Award nominated filmmaker Steve James' fascinating and complex portrait of contemporary Chicago delivers a deep, multifaceted look into the soul of a quintessentially American city, set against the backdrop of its history-making 2019 mayoral election, and the tumultuous 2020 summer of COVID-19 and social upheaval following the police killing of George Floyd.