Pride and Prejudice is a story set in the English countryside outside of London during the early 19th century which centers on the life of Elizabeth Bennet, the second of five sisters who are all unmarried. When a wealthy and sociable young gentleman, Charles Bingley, rents the nearby manor of Netherfield Park the opportunity to find husbands presents itself. While attending a ball the Bennets meet Charles Bingley and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy...

Life is hard for Moll Flanders. As a teenager, Moll is seduced and marries young. When her husband dies a few years later, leaving Moll and her children without support, Moll embarks on a quest to find a man with money.

Sent by his fiancée to seek her son who has run away with an entrancing Parisian woman, Lambert Strether finds himself nearly as bewitched by the culture and women of Europe as his would-be son-in-law. Strether gets chased or dragged across provincial France by a slew of influences intent either on drawing the pair of bachelors home to Boston or showing him the world, and winds up testing his patience along with his own illusions.

When a mysterious stranger with a scar on his cheek dies, young Jim Hawkins ends up with a mysterious map of an island. He imagines that he is off to a wonderful sea adventure that will lead to a huge treasure. But once he sets sail with Dr. Livesey and the one-legged Long John Silver, the dream turns out to include greed, mutiny, and murder. - Back cover. To help students experience the joys and benefits of reading, Townsend Press presents the Townsend...

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. Hear his own thoughts in his autobiography.