Upward Mobility and the Common Good - Toward a Literary History of the Welfare State

362 Belisle Street is a homeowner's dream. A nice neighborhood, close to schools, new hardwood þoors, unique original detail. So why then, wonders real estate agent Glenn Darnley, won't this charming property stay off the market? Perhaps the clawed feet of the antique bathtub look a little too threatening. Or maybe it's the faint hospital-like smell of the room off the top of the stairs. It's possible that the haunting music that pours out from under the steps keeps the residents awake at night.

In the three parts of Susie Moloney's hair-raising novel The Dwelling, ownership of 362 Belisle changes four times -- with Glenn Darnley brokering each deal. The Þrst occupants are a young couple, Rebecca and Daniel Mason, who have big dreams of wealth and success. It doesn't take long for them to realize that they're not welcome in their new house. After a ghostly seduction and a violent confrontation, the property is once again for sale. Next comes Barbara Parkins, a divorcée, and her unhappy young son, Petey. Lonely and looking for companionship, the two Þnd comfort in some new, playful young friends. When the Parkins family leaves, the house is sold again. Last, ownership goes to Richie Bramley, a drunken writer and lost soul. But like the others, he can't settle down in this house -- which has a mind, and a heart, of its own.

For Glenn, however, the house is a dream, always warm and welcoming. The þoors gleam, and sun pours in through the windows. Owners come -- and 362 Belisle makes sure owners go. It's waiting patiently for its beloved to realize how much it loves her. It's waiting for Glenn, the very special person who can Þnally turn this house into a home.

A Christmas Proposal

Dr. Oliver Hay-Smythe seemed to have met a modern-day Cinderella! Ever since Bertha's father had remarried, the kindhearted woman had been put upon by her family. She appeared to live in her stepsister's shadow, stuck doing the housework and wearing hand-me-downs! The doctor was about to change all that. In fact, he was about to change Bertha's entire world.

Winter Wedding

Some people might think Emily Seymour was a bit prim and proper. But she preferred to think of herself as sensible; she was a staff nurse, after all. Unfortunately, all the good sense in the world couldn't stop her from falling in love with Professor Renier Jurres-Romeijn, though he barely seemed to notice her. He was too busy making plans for a winter wedding. But who was his intended bride?

A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, and demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem the doomed characters.