Émile Zola was one of the most important, though controversial, French novelists of the late nineteenth century, and founder of the Realist movement. In 1871 Zola began to write his most notable series of novels, the "Rougon-Macquart Novels", that relate the history of a fictional family under the Second Empire. As a strict naturalist, Zola was greatly concerned with science, especially the problems of evolution and heredity vs. environment. However,...

"Published just years before the French Revolution, Laclos's great novel of moral and emotional depravity is a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. Aristocrats and ex-lovers Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont embark on a sophisticated game of seduction and manipulation to bring amusement to their jaded lives. While Merteuil challenges Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, he is also occupied with the conquest...

Daunted by the singular sexual tastes and dark secrets of the beautiful, tormented young entrepreneur Christian Grey, Anastasia Steele has broken off their relationship to start a new career with a Seattle publishing house.

Elaine is a beautiful young witch who is determinded to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment, she makes spells and potions in order to woo and seduce the men she meets. However, her spells work too well, leaving her with a string of hapless victims. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved will driver her to the brink of madness and murder.

The '20s never roared louder than in this sumptuously romantic retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age classic. Robert Redford stars as Jay Gatsby, who had once loved beautiful, spoiled Daisy Buchanan (Mia Farrow), then lost her to a rich boy. But now Gatsby is mysteriously wealthy... and ready to risk everything to woo Daisy back. A winner of two Academy Awards, THE GREAT GATSBY features a stellar cast and an elegant script by Francis Ford Coppola....

Isolated in a remote mansion in a central European forest, Laura longs for companionship until a carriage accident brings another young woman into her life: the secretive and sometimes erratic Carmilla. As Carmillas actions become more puzzling and volatile, Laura develops bizarre symptoms, and as her health goes into decline, Laura and her father discover something monstrous.

In this vivid reimagining of the French classic Les Liaisons Dangereuses, it's the summer when Jackie Robinson breaks Major League Baseball's color barrier and a sweltering stretch has Harlem's elite fleeing the city for Westchester County's breezier climes, two predators stalk amidst the manicured gardens and fine old homes. Heiress Mae Malveaux rules society with an angel's smile and a heart of stone. She made up her mind long ago that nobody would...

Originally performed and published in 1675, this five-act play parodies the vices and hypocrisies of Restoration London. The plot centers on the eponymous country wife, Margery, whose suspicious husband, Mr. Pinchwife, keeps her isolated. On a rare outing to the theater, Margery encounters the aptly named Mr. Horner. A notorious rake who feigns impotence to trick his way into the intimate company of married ladies, Horner soon schools Margery in the...