Notes: Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful but love-starved Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and the small but effective society she fought so hard to attain in Hong Kong, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love. This 1925 novel was made into a film in 2006 starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton.

Notes: Set against the background of the Black Death of 1348, the hundred linked tales in Boccaccio's masterpiece are peopled by nobles, knights, nuns, doctors, lawyers, students, artists, peasants, pilgrims, servants, spendthrifts, thieves, gamblers, police--and lovers, both faithful and faithless. "Virgin Territory", to be released in September 2007, relates ten of these tales.

Notes: Wilbur the pig is desolate when he discovers that he is destined to be the farmer's Christmas dinner until his spider friend, Charlotte, decides to help him. A classic for two generations so far, "Charlotte's Web" has been adapted as an animated movie and again in 2006 as a live action movie starring Dakota Fanning.

Notes: Lawyer Atticus Finch defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white woman. Through the eyes of Atticus's children, Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unanswering honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930's. This classic novel was adapted in 1962 into an equally classic movie starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch.

Notes: Jane Austen's comic classic portrays Emma Woodhouse finding her match-making skills sadly misdirected as she learns humility and self-knowledge at the same time as she discovers love. Adapted numerous times over the years, the 1995 film "Clueless" was a catalyst for a surge in popularity of classics adapted into teen movies.

Notes: Rich in playful double entendres, digressions, formal oddities, and typographical experiments, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman provoked a literary sensation when it first appeared in England in a series of volumes from 1759 to 1767. An ingeniously structured novel (about writing a novel) that fascinates like a verbal game of chess, Tristram Shandy is the most protean and playful English novel of the eighteenth century and a celebration of the art of fiction. The movie "Tristram Shandy - A Cock and Bull Story" was released in 2006.

Notes: Set in 17th-century Paris, the action revolves around the emotional problems of the noble, swashbuckling Cyrano, who, despite his many gifts, feels that no woman can ever love him because he has an enormous nose. Secretly in love with the lovely Roxane, Cyrano agrees to help his inarticulate rival, Christian, win her heart by allowing him to present Cyrano's love poems, speeches, and letters as his own work. Adapted many times throughout the years for both fim and television, Jose Ferrer and Gerard Depardieu are the most well-known Cyranos. Steve Martin adapted the play into "Roxanne" in 1987.

Notes: One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode of the Trojan War. At its center is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his conflict with his leader Agamemnon. Interwoven in the tragic sequence of events are powerfully moving descriptions of the ebb and flow of battle, the besieged city of Ilium, the feud between the gods, and the fate of mortals. The most recent big screen adaptation was "Troy" in 2004, starring Brad Pitt.

Notes: Shakespeare creates a powerful drama of a marriage that begins with fascination, with elopement, and with intense mutual devotion and that ends precipitately with jealous rage and violent deaths. Othello was adapted most recently as "O" starring Mekhi Phifer and Julia Stiles.

Notes: Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead and subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a richer life than that traditionally allowed women in Victorian society. "Jane Eyre has been adapted numerous times, including a Masterpiece Theatre version in 2006 and a feature film in 1996.