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In northern Alabama around 1874, a cotton mill from New England has brought into being Cottontown, a mill village where children work from morning till night. Hillard Watts, a former plantation overseer turned preacher, watches over these families. His small congregation calls him “the Bishop”. Meanwhile, Richard Travis, the mill's treasurer, is forever looking for new workers. Mixing humour, faith and melodrama, the book, published in 1906, pleads against child labour, sometimes with the dated outlook of its time. With the translation always in front of you, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In New York around 1913, Harvey Forbes, a young lieutenant with no fortune, comes back from the Philippines. At the theatre he meets Persis Cabot, a rich and very beautiful young woman whom everyone around her already sees married to Willie Enslee, the richest man in her circle. Persis does not love Willie, and she is drawn to this officer who lives only on his pay. Amid luxury motor cars, evenings at the theatre and fashionable dances, everyone watches and judges everyone else. In this world, one question decides everything: what will people say? This love story that defies convention is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

In the 1260s, England is torn apart between King Henry III and the barons led by Simon de Montfort. Hugh de Monthermer, a young knight, loves Lucy de Ashby, the daughter of a house once hostile to his own. Meanwhile, in Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood and his outlaws take the side of the barons. From village fairs to the Battle of Evesham, this novel of adventure and love brings a medieval civil war back to life, with the most famous of all outlaws at the heart of the action. Full of twists, it is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

In Chicago at the start of the twentieth century, Rose Stanton, a lively, independent student who means to study law, marries Rodney Aldrich, a wealthy lawyer she met by chance, within a few weeks. Settled in a fine house, surrounded by servants and then the mother of twins, she realises that she is expected to be a decorative wife, with no role and no real work. Rose wants a life of her own, and she fights for it, even trying to earn her own living in the world of the theatre. Published in 1916, this novel speaks about marriage and women's place with astonishing frankness. Its absorbing story and lively dialogue are a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.