Full AspenCat Catalog

In a world dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, eighteen-year-old Amani dreams of having an adventure and traveling beyond her isolated home. But when adventure comes, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and taken to become a body double for the cruel and hated half-Vathek Princess Maram.

Set before the Civil War, in the first half of the nineteenth century, this novel of Mark Twain's delves into the ironies of racial prejudice. A young would-be lawyer, Wilson, sets out to solve a murder using the (at that time) unproven method of fingerprinting. Thought to be a simpleton or 'puddenhead', he eventually makes his critics look like puddenheads themselves. The main focus of the novel, however, deals with the identities of two young...

"On an autumn day, in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, two boys were born in England, one to a poor family by the name of Canty who lived in Offal Court, not far from London Bridge, and the other to a wealthy and high-placed family by the name of Tudor. Young Tom Canty, unwanted, unloved, began his day-dreaming early in order to forget the petty stealing to which he was forced by his cruel rogue of a father--and the royal Court and young...