Showing results for "DVD" in Historical Romance

Emma, a comic novel by Jane Austen, was published in December 1815. The main character, Emma Woodhouse, is described in the opening paragraph as "handsome, clever, and rich" but is also rather spoiled. Emma schemes to find a suitable husband for her pliant friend Harriet, only to discover that she understands the feelings of others as little as she does her own heart.

Great Expectations is one of Charles Dickens’ greatest critical and popular successes. The first-person narrative relates the coming-of-age of Pip (Philip Pirrip). Reared in the marshes of Kent by his disagreeable sister and her sweet-natured husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery, the young Pip one day helps a convict to escape. Later he is sent to live with Miss Havisham, a woman driven half-mad years earlier by her lover's departure on their wedding day. Her other ward is the orphaned Estella, whom she is teaching to torment men with her beauty.

The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, is an American romance written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and is generally considered to be his masterpiece. Set in Puritanical Boston in the 17th century, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth after committing adultery, refuses to name the father, and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne explores the issues of grace, legalism, sin, and guilt.

Catherine Morland goes to Bath for the season as the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Allen, and there she meets the eccentric General Tilney, his son Henry Tilney and his daughter Elanor Tilney. Catherine is invited to the Tilney's home, Northanger Abbey, where she imagines numerous gruesome secrets surrounding the General and his house. Henry proves that her suspicions have no substance, and while she is still recovering from the humiliation, she finds herself ordered out of the house by the General.

First published in 1813, this is Jane Austen's most popular novel. It portrays life in the genteel rural society of the day, and tells of the initial misunderstandings and later mutual enlightenment between the lively and quick-witted Elizabeth Bennet and the proud and haughty Fitzwilliam Darcy.