The Red and the Black

Julien Sorel is a carpenter's son with a brilliant memory, a burning ambition, and no intention of staying poor — so he uses whatever's in reach, a tutoring position, a seduction, a seminary education he doesn't believe in, to claw his way into a class that would otherwise never let him in. Stendhal tracks every calculation and every moment of genuine feeling Julien can't quite suppress, in a nove...