One of the most popular American authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Pulitzer Prize winner Booth Tarkington was acclaimed for his novels set in small Midwestern towns. Penrod tells of a boy growing up in Indianapolis at the turn of the twentieth century. His friends and his dog accompany him on his many jaunts, from the stage as ?the Child Sir Lancelot,? to the playground, to school. They make names for themselves as ?bad boys? who always have the most fun. Nearly a century after it was first published to incredible popularity and acclaim, Penrod remains wildly funny and entertaining to adults and children alike.

Graham Greene's first published novel represented for the author “one sentimental gesture towards his own past, the period of ambition and hope.” It tells the story of Andrews, a young man who has betrayed his fellow smugglers and fears their vengeance. The Man Within offers a foretaste of Greene's recurring theme of religion and the individual's struggles against cynicism and the indifferent forces of a hostile world.