Adesida, Dotun
Baraka, Ahmed
Binx, Eugene
Biswas, Rakesh
Brown, Dr. Glen
Chambers, Eric
Chambers, Lesley
Chappel, T. A.
Culling, Peter
Falit, Joseph E.
Fawcett, Shaun
Fitzgerald-Clarke, Michael
Fleming, Suzanne
Gheorghiu, Cristache
Huchu, Tendai
Jacobsen, Heidi
Knapp, Artie
Kumar, G. Ram
Lay, Vicheka
Litt, Dr. Jerome Z.
Miller, Harley
Maffey, Laura
Maffey, Riccardo
Milazzo, Ronald
Minya, Dzimba
Neo
Okonkwo, Ikechukwu
Patterson, R.J.
Rinaldi, Jacquie
Roberts, Ella
Sharp, Ian
Sooriyarachchi, Janaki
Spudich, Giulietta
Taylor, Roy
Thompson, Tantse
Turley, Keith
Watson, Rob
Williams, Keith
Yarbrough, Alan
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Famous Affinities of History
by Lyndon Orr
Remarkable love stories that are known to human history including: The Story of Antony and Cleopatra,
Abelard and Heloise,
Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester,
Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Bothwell,
Queen Christina of Sweden and the Marquis Monaldeschi,
King Charles II. and Nell Gwyn,
Maurice of Saxony and Adrienne Lecouvreur,
The Story of Prince Charles Edward Stuart,
The Empress Catharine and Prince Potemkin,
Marie Antoinette and Count Fersen,
The Story of Aaron Burr,
George IV. and Mrs. Fitzherbert,
Charlotte Corday and Adam Lux,
Napoleon and Marie Walewska,
The Story of Pauline Bonaparte,
The Story of the Empress Marie Louise and Count Neipperg,
The Wives of General Houston,
Lola Montez and King Ludwig of Bavaria,
Leon Gambetta and Leonie Leon,
Lady Blessington and Count D'Orsay,
Byron and the Countess Guiccioli,
The Story of Mme. de Stael,
The Story of Karl Marx,
Ferdinand Lassalle and Helene von Donniges,
The Story of Rachel.
  
The Age of Innocence
by Edith Wharton
Wharton's story of the upper classes of Old New York, and Newland Archer's impossible love for the disgraced Countess Olenska, is a perfectly wrought book about an era when upper-class culture in this country was still a mixture of American and European extracts, and when "society" had rules as rigid as any in history.
The Age of Innocence is one of the great society novels of the twentieth century, published in 1920. New York in the early part of the last century was a place of rigid social structures, infringed at the trespasser's risk. The Age of Innocence's portrayal of the power of the great families of New York is both scathing and inspired. Wharton withdrew from New York social life as she aged and this is reflected in her bitter take on the grasping American socialites. It is well worth reading this novel alongside James' Washington Square, which provides a more psychological, but no less critical, view of the same social milieu.
The Tale of Genji
by Murasaki Shikibu
Widely acknowledged as the world's first novel, this astonishingly lovely book was written by a court lady in Heian Japan and offers a window into that formal, mannered world. Genji, a man of passionate impulses and a lover of beauty, is the favorite son of the Emperor, though his position at court is not entirely stable. He follows his wayward longings through moonlight-soaked gardens and jeweled pavilions, with mysterious women such as the Lady of the Orange Blossoms, the Akashi lady, and his own father's Empress. Among the novel's chief delights are the portraits of the women in Prince
Genji's life. These women are individually described, with their aristocratic refinements,
talents in the arts of music, drawing, and poetry, and love for the beauties of nature.
As the work nears its conclusion, the tone becomes more mature and somber, shaded by Buddhist
judgments on the fleeting joys of earthly existence. This version is translated by Edward G. Seidensticker, who has translated a number of other great Japanese writers such as Mishima and Kawabata.
The Mysteries of Udolpho
by Ann Ward Radcliffe
A best-seller in its day and a potent influence on Sade, Poe, and other purveyors of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic horror, The Mysteries of Udolpho remains one of the most important works in the history of European fiction. After Emily St. Aubuert is imprisoned by her evil guardian, Count Montoni, in his gloomy medieval fortress in the Appenines, terror becomes the order of the day. With its dream-like plot and hallucinatory rendering of its characters' psycological states, The Mysteries of Udolpho is a fascinating challenge to contemporary readers.
The Bravo of Venice
by Matthew G. Lewis, Heinrich Zschokke
Matthew Gregory Lewis, who professed to have translated this romance out of the German, very much, I believe, as Horace Walpole professed to have taken The Castle of Otranto from an old Italian manuscript, was born in 1775 of a wealthy family. His father had an estate in India and a post in a Government office. His mother was daughter to Sir Thomas Sewell, Master of the Rolls in the reign of George III. She was a young mother; her son Matthew was devoted to her from the first. As a child he called her "Fanny," and as a man held firmly by her when she was deserted by her husband. From Westminster School, M. G. Lewis passed to Christ Church, Oxford. Already he was busy over tales and plays, and wrote at college a farce, never acted, a comedy, written at the age of sixteen, The East Indian, afterwards played for Mrs. Jordan's benefit and repeated with great success, and also a novel, never published, called The Effusions of Sensibility, which was a burlesque upon the sentimental school. He wrote also what he called "a romance in the style of The Castle of Otranto," which appeared afterwards as the play of The Castle Spectre.
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
For over 150 years, Pride And Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen herself called this brilliant work her “own darling child.” Pride And Prejudice, the story of Mrs. Bennet's attempts to marry off her five daughters is one of the best-loved and most enduring classics in English literature. Excitement fizzes through the Bennet household at Longbourn in Hertfordshire when young, eligible Mr. Charles Bingley rents the fine house nearby. He may have sisters, but he also has male friends, and one of these -- the haughty, and even wealthier, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy -- irks the vivacious Elizabeth Bennet, the second of the Bennet girls. She annoys him. Which is how we know they must one day marry. The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and Darcy is a splendid rendition of civilized sparring. As the characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, Jane Austen's radiantly caustic wit and keen observation sparkle.
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë lived the greater part of her tragically breif life in an austere, isolated parsonage on the Yorkshire Moors with her two sisters, Charlotte and Anne and their alcoholic brother, Branwell. The girls’ contacts with the outside world were brief and un-happy, they fought a continual, and hopeless battle against failing health-yet their combined will-power, energy and talent resulted in a stream of letters, poems and novels, including from Emily Brontë, this classic masterpiece Wuthering Heights.
To Sir Phillip, With Love
by Julia Quinn
After reading this superb post-Regency-era romance, the fifth in Quinn's Bridgerton siblings series, it's easy to see why the author's previous book, Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, landed on RWA's Top 10 Favorite Books of 2002 list. Quinn is a consummate storyteller. Her prose is spry and assured, and she excels at creating indelible characters like chatty Eloise Bridgerton and Sir Phillip Crane, the protagonists of this unconventional effort. The novel opens as Eloise, a 28-year-old "spinster," flees London to visit her secret pen pal, Phillip, a troubled botanist and widower. The two plan to see if they are compatible, but Eloise's hopes plummet when she discovers that Phillip is not the romantic charmer of her dreams, but a grumpy father of twins. She agrees to remain for a fortnight, however, and as she interacts with him and his unruly children, she learns that he has a good heart, even if he is an emotionally distant father. Weighty issues such as abuse and discipline threaten to overshadow their relationship at times, but Eloise's sunny disposition brightens the novel, as does the arrival of her four brothers. Quinn's characters possess endearing quirks and flaws, and their easy banter is loaded with wit and warmth. Indeed, readers will likely find themselves rereading certain passages-if not the entire book-in order to prolong their connection to this charismatic clan.
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