De Conte is a fictionalized version of Joan of Arc's page Louis de Contes, and provides narrative unity to the story. He is presented as an individual who was with Joan during the three major phases of her life - as a youth in Domremy, as the commander of Charles' army on military campaign, and as a defendant at the trial in Rouen. The book is presented as a translation by Alden of de Conte's memoirs, written in his later years for the benefit of...

During his service in the Civil War a young Union soldier matures to manhood and finds peace of mind as he comes to grips with his conflicting emotions about war.

The son of a legendary Civil War marine, Zachary O'Hara struggles to keep the marines a viable part of the nation's military and falls in love with heiress Amanda Kerr, a relationship that is threatened by a painful secret.

The Fiery Cross is the fifth book in a series written by Diana Gabaldon about Clare Fraser, who can travel through time by touching stones (think Stonehenge). The first time she time traveled, it was an accident. She traveled two-hundred years backward to the 1740s and met the love of her life, Jamie Frasier, a Scottish highlander. Their love story has developed through out each of the books as Gabaldon details the historical setting that surrounds...

The Tin Drum, one of the great novels of the twentieth century, was published in Ralph Manheim's outstanding translation in 1959. It became a runaway bestseller and catapulted its young author to the forefront of world literature. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the original publication, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, along with Grass s publishers all over the world, is bringing out a new translation of this classic novel. Breon Mitchell, acclaimed...

When the Duke of Avon encounters a mistreated young boy on the streets of Paris, he employs the lad as his page. As the duke's closest friends ponder his actions, the precocious Léon soon becomes the talk of the aristocracy. Léon cannot believe his good fortune after being saved from a brutal beating by his older brother. He follows the duke around like a loyal puppy, a constant source of amusement for the duke, who is seen by himself-and by society-as...

Eschewing the "great man" theory of history, Tolstoy shows how events are determined by large numbers of people whose actions coalesce at any moment in history to determine the course of events. Arguing that the closer people are to a situation the more they believe they have exercised free will, and the farther away people are from that situation the more they realize that their actions were already determined by past events, Tolstoy demonstrates...

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors. It's just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. Set during World War II in Germany, Markus...

In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true. Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two. This was a terrible plan. Contained within this volume is an 1890s America that might have been: a bayou overrun by feral hippos and mercenary hippo...

"Boris Pasternak's Widely acclaimed novel comes gloriously to life in a magnificent new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhnosky, the award-winning translators of war and Peace and Anna Karenina, and to whom The New York Review of Books declared, "the English-speaking world is indebted." First published in Italy in 1957 amid international controversy--the novel was banned in the Soviet Union Until 1988, and Pasternak declined the Nobel...