Mr. Pickwick, a convivial old gentleman, resolves that he and three other "Pickwickians"-Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, Mr. Augustus Snodgrass, and Mr. Tracy Tupman-should travel beyond London to add to their experiences of the quaint and curious phenomena of life. The friends traverse the countryside of Georgian England, where their comic misadventures include an encounter with highwaymen, romantic entanglements, and a challenge to a duel. Best of all, they...

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is exactly what it claims. Its multiple plots center around the inhabitants of a fictitious Midlands town and their evolving relationships to each other. It is critical of social class, ambition and marriage, and religion. It is commonly considered one of the masterpieces of English writing, and Virginia Woolf described it as "the magnificent book that, with all its imperfections, is one of the few

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Huck, in flight from his murderous father, and Jim, in flight from slavery, pilot their raft down the Mississippi River in search of freedom.