This is a story of love, sin, guilt, and redemption played out against the stark background of Puritan New England.

Follows the fates of five interrelated families--American, German, Russian, English and Welsh--as they move through the world-shaking dramas of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.

As the interminable case of 'Jarndyce and Jarndyce' grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, the destitute little crossing-sweeper. A savage, but...

A black woman recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas teenage days in northern slums