Yuma Public Library

On a spring day in April--sometime in the waning years of the 14th century--29 travelers set out for Canterbury on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett. Among them is a knight, a monk, a prioress, a plowman, a miller, a merchant, a clerk, and an oft-widowed wife from Bath. Travel is arduous and wearing; to maintain their spirits, this band of pilgrims entertains each other with a series of tall tales that span the spectrum of literary...

As soon as Anne Shirley arrived at the snug, white farmhouse called Green Gables, she knew she wanted to stay forever. But would the Cuthberts send her back to the orphanage? Anne knows she's not what they expected -- a skinny girl with decidedly red hair and a temper to match. If only she could convince them to let her stay, she'd try very hard not to keep rushing headlong into scrapes or blurt out the very first thing she had to say. Anne was...

It was the time of the French Revolution - a time of great change and great danger. It was a time when injustice was met by a lust for vengeance, and rarely was a distinction made between the innocent and the guilty. Against this tumultuous historical backdrop, Dickens' great story of unsurpassed adventure and courage unfolds.Unjustly imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastille, Dr. Alexandre Manette is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, and safely transported...

A coming-of-age story about Eugene Gant, a restless and energetic character whose passion to experience life takes him from his small, rural hometown in North Carolina to Harvard University and the city of Boston.

Called "the veriest trash" by a member of the Concord, Massachusetts Library Board that banned the novel when it was first published, Huckleberry Finn has come to be viewed, as H.L. Mencken put it, as "one of the great masterpieces of the world." Ernest Hemingway wrote that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn....There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." A daringly ironic...

"A triumphant Caesar enters Rome after defeating the sons of his old enemy, Pompey. Jealousy and fear over Caesar's reforms reveal a brewing conspiracy to assassinate him. As the plot thickens, Caesar's wife is plagued by terrible nightmares and begs him not to go to the Capitol. But Caesar shrugs off her fears and is accompanied to the Senate by the conspirators thus sealing his fate. Caesar's loyal friends rally to avenge his death and preserve...

"Black Beauty is a perennial children's favourite, one which has never been out of print since its publication in 1877. It is a moralistic tale of the life of the horse related in the form of an autobiography, describing the world through the eyes of the creature. In taking this anthropomorphic approach, the author Anna Sewell broke new literary ground and her effective storytelling ability makes it very easy for the reader to accept the premise that...

"Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is considered by many readers to be the Great American Novel. But most don't know that since its appearance in 1851, it has been revised in substantial ways that alter its original meaning. Melville's masterpiece is described as a "fluid text": it exists in multiple versions, each revealing shifting intentions. The new Longman Critical Edition offers unprecedented access to the revisions that Melville made, the further...

A uge sea monster has attacked and wrecked several ships from beneath the sea. Professor Aronnax bravely joins a mission to hunt down the beast. He goes aboard the Nautilus, a secret submarine helmed by the mysterious Captain Nemo. At first, the mission is exciting, as Nemo takes Aronnax on a voyage around the underwater world. But when things start to go wrong, Aronnax finds there's no escape from the Nautilus. He is now Captain Nemo's captive -...