These nine novels are "the best of the best"—great writing by some of the most brilliant literary minds of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Samuel Johnson's biography of Richard Savage raises the life of a scoundrel to the level of great art; George Eliot profoundly influenced Henry James with her horror story, The Lifted Veil; Le Fanu writes a "sinister but gracious" supernatural Gothic; Nightmare Abbey is Thomas Love Peacock's satire on his friends, the Romantic poets Shelley, Coleridge, and Byron.

These, with other short novels in this collection, represent the pinnacle of achievement in their genre.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.