Young Nanda Brookenham fights to preserve her honesty in the brilliant but corrupt world of her parents, in a story of innocence betrayed but preserved. Its scene construction and dialogue point to Ja
One of the Wessex tales, this tells the story of the brooding, and sometimes brutal Michael Henchard and the women with whom he searches for happiness in the harsh world of 19th-century rural England.
Written during World War II and published in 1945, this is a sharp and celebrated satire on dictatorship. Orwell conveys his bleak message of man's inhumanity to man, and beast's to beast through star
Set in Yorkshire, and first published in 1911, this is the story of two spoilt and lonely children who regain happiness by restoring a neglected garden. It was inspired by the rose garden in Great May
After he is wrongly accused of a crime and expelled from his community, weaver Silas Marner becomes a miser and a recluse. A strange sequence of events, and the appearance of a small child, transforms
Although Plato's celebrated work of philosophy describes a society which to some seems the ideal human community and to others like a totalitarian nightmare, it also raises enduring questions about po
First published in 1922, and modelled on Homer's "Odyssey", this is Joyce's account of one day in 1904 in the life of Dublin. It is an earthy story which focuses on the humble Lionel Bloom and his sen
While in the service of India's Nizam of Hyderbad, Marmaduke Pickthall converted to Islam, and, with the help of Muslim theologians and linguists, produced this English interpretation of the Holy Kora
From the author of MIDDLEMARCH and SILAS MARNER, a story of frustrated intelligence and longing, featuring the intelligent Maggie, who yearns to be loved, and her brother Tom, who is forced to study.
Hardy's last novel is the story of a young working man destroyed by the partial fulfilment of his dreams. He is torn between his desires for the life of the body and the life of the mind, as represent
James' novel featuring a complex and bizarre battle between two wives - the shy Maggie, who marries an Italian prince, and the prince's former mistress, who marries Maggie's widowed father. Determined
This is a three-volume boxed set of Tolstoy's historical chronicle of Russia's struggle with Napoleon. The novel is an affirmation of life itself, focusing on the lives of individuals and the physical
This volume presents a complete text of all Milton's verse. Coleridge linked Milton and Shakespeare as the greatest of English poets, and even in our time Milton continues to exert a powerful influenc
Stevenson's great adventure story, set in the 18th century, was conceived in the Scottish Highlands, where the author and his 12-year-old stepson amused themselves by making a map that showed the loca
A story of passion and political intrigue in which the young and impulsive Fabrizzio finds himself caught between the love of two women and the wars of their aristocratic factions. "The Charterhouse o
Two of Stevenson's historical novels set against the Scottish landscape and featuring psychological studies of individuals. The unfinished "Weir of Hermiston", on which the author was working at the t
Summoned to take up the position of a land surveyor to the mysterious lord of a castle, the character known as K. finds himself in a bitter and baffling struggle to contact his new employer and go abo
Lizzie Eustace can manipulate men and flatter powerful women, and she's determined to make her way in the world by whatever means she can. This comedy of a society adventuress and her necklace is one
Portraying social life in fashionable Bath and centred around Catherine Morland, this novel ridicules the popular tales of romance and terror and contrasts with these the normal realities of life.
The sole survivor of a shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe is stranded on an uninhabited island far away from any shipping routes. With patience and ingenuity, he transforms his island into a tropical paradise
The story of the mysterious indictment, trial and reckoning forced upon Joseph K is one of twentieth century's master parables which has influenced many writers since. Rendering the absurd and the ter
This novel, considered by Lawrence to be his best, centres on the characters of Birkin (a self portrait), Gerald, the son of a colliery owner, and the two women, Gudrun and Ursula. The text has been c
Tells the story of Basil Ransom, a bemused and handsome lawyer from the American South who battles with the earnest feminists of Boston for the soul of the beautiful Verena Tarrant, whom he hopes to m
This is a classic story of one man's tragic failure and eventual redemption, told under the circumstances of high adventure at the margins of the known world.
Left by harrowing circumstances to fend for herself in the great capital of a foreign country, Lucy Snowe, the narrator and heroine of "Villette", achieves by degrees an authentic independence from bo
Tells the story of two sisters with opposing temperaments and romantic inclinations exemplifies the distilled spirit of classicism in English literature.
First published in 1814, this is a study of three families - the Bertrams, the Crawfords and the Prices - in which Jane Austen uses the unlikely heroine, Fanny Price, to explore the social and moral v
In these three sea stories, based on his own experience, the author invests his portraits of mundane steamers and their crews with epic qualities of fortitude and courage in the face of overwhelming n
A tale of quiet lives in an early 19th-century English provincial town which engages the reader at every level, from the author's chronicle of everyday details to the most exacting philosophical and m
Elizabeth Bennet is at first determined to dislike Mr. Darcy, who is handsome and eligible. This misjudgment only matched in folly by Darcy's arrogant pride. Their first impressions give way to truer
This is the story of fatal attraction and its consequences. The American narrator's highly-strung wife falls for his bluff, inarticulate English friend. Retrospectively piecing the story together, the
Published in 1913, this is a fictionalized account of Lawrence's love for his mother. It traces Paul Morel's childhood, his growing into adolescence and adulthood, and the frustrations of his love for
In this novel of obsessive passion the author tells stories of Old Goriot and the ungrateful daughters he adores; young Rastignac, a country lad determined to make his way in Paris; and Vautrin, his s
The talented and beautiful Isabel Archer, courted by several suitors and enriched by her dying uncle, chooses to marry the cold and ambitious Gilbert Osmond. The heroine soon discovers to her cost tha
Describes a band of frustrated revolutionary exiles in Geneva. This book is a study of individuals under pressure, and it remains a telling account of the fugitive life - especially in its portrait of
Though now enshrined as major masterpieces of American literature, Twain's classic tales of childhood remain as fresh as when they were first written. Vivid and funny, the stories chronicle journeys f
Alone in the social world of New York high society in the late 19th century, with little but her wit and beauty to support her, Lily Bart pays the ultimate price for defying convention and the hostess
The first products of Joyce's maturity, these stories look sideways to the tender realism of Chekhov and forward to Joyce's later work "Portrait of the Artist". In the most celebrated tale, "The Dead"
