The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler

 Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep is the definitive hardboiled detective story and Philip Marlowe the perfect expression of the cynical, world-weary gumshoe. Hired by the crippled General Sternwood to shake off a blackmailer, Marlowe also has to deal with the general's two rebellious daughters, the gamb...

Washington Square

Henry James

When timid and plain Catherine Sloper acquires a dashing and determined suitor, her father, convinced that the young man is nothing more than a fortune-hunter, decides to put a stop to their romance. This novel interweaves the public and private faces of nineteenth-century New York society; it is also a...