When Cyril, Anthea, Robert and Jane accidentally destroy a carpet in their London home with fireworks, their parents replace it with a second-hand one. Upon unfurling it, the children find an egg insi
An accidental fall from the swing seems to threaten Katy's hopes for the future, but she struggles to overcome her difficulties with good humour and vitality. This edition is beautifully illustrated b
Shortly before his death at the age of twenty, the young literary sensation Raymond Radiguet compiled a volume of his poetry, composed between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Presented here, this p
When the young Ishmael gets on board Captain Ahab's whaling ship, little does he suspect that the mission on which he is about to embark is the fulfilment of his master's obsessive desire for revenge
Originally told by Rudyard Kipling to his children at bedtime, this compendium of witty tales imagines how animals came to be as they are now. Discover how the massive whale got a tiny throat by swall
"Awareness of Dracula" as a masterly gothic thriller has increased ever since its publication in 1897, and the novel is regarded as one of the most seminal horror stories of ever written, having inspi
Partly autobiographical, and the prototype for many later Romantic works in its depiction of the sensitive, tortured Romantic hero, Goethe's seminal classic is a timeless masterpiece of world literatu
With his birth itself a monumental exploit in itself, it is clear that the giant Pantagruel is destined to great things, and the novel that bears his name chronicles his the remarkable life of the exu
When the mysterious and eccentric Miss Charlotte arrives in the village of Saint-Anatole to take over the tiny library, the locals are surprised to find out that she does things differently. Wearing a
When strange things are reported to be floating in rivers in rural Vermont after a flood, old myths about hill-dwelling monsters who abduct humans resurface in subsequent debates, much to the annoyanc
When professor of phonetics Henry Higgins wages with Colonel Pickering that he could teach even a gutter-mouthed flower seller how to speak like a duchess, little does he expect that his social experi
Saddened with his country’s loss of freedom, disillusioned with life and racked with loneliness and ennui, university student Jacopo Ortis can only find some comfort in the company of his friends and
For two and a half thousand years The Art of War has been the core text of military strategy and planning, providing leaders with enduring insights into tactics, psychology, discipline and the nature
A wonderful story for children and an allegory for adults about the absurdity of war, presented here with an introduction and guide to the text by Lemony Snicket. Starving after a harsh winter, the be
On a visit to a provincial town to see his sister Nina who is suffering from cancer, Alexei Laptev, who works for his father’s Moscow haberdashery business, falls in love with Yulia, the daughter of h
When the newly ordained priest Francesco Vela becomes the incumbent of the parish of Soana, a small village in Ticino, he is tasked with bringing back into the Catholic fold a family of shepherds, the
While spending the summer in the resort of Grand Isle with her husband and children, Edna Pontellier begins a process of self-discovery that is accelerated after she meets the charming Robert Lebrun.
When the young nobleman Des Grieux lays eyes on the beautiful and charming lower-class Manon Lescaut, he immediately falls in love with her and runs away with her to Paris, incurring the wrath of his
First published in French magazines in the 1960s, the essays and interviews collected in this volume tackle two of Sartre’s most enduring concerns as a philosopher: politics and literature. With regar
When Sara Crewe is brought from India to attend Miss Minchin’s boarding school for girls in London, she arrives looking rather like a princess, with trunks full of the finest clothes. Yet, despite hav
Babel, Alan Burns’s fourth critically acclaimed novel, contains all the hallmarks of the aleatoric style he helped to define – shot through with seemingly random newspaper headlines, poems, snatches o
Of unknown date, and surviving in a tenth-century manuscript, Beowulf is the tale of a young Geatish hero and his struggle with three deadly foes, beginning with the dread monster Grendel, who has bee
“There was an Old Derry down Derry,Who loved to see little folks merry;So he made them a Book,And with laughter they shookAt the fun of that Derry down Derry.”First published in 1846 under the pseudon
In 1890, the thirty-year-old Chekhov, already knowing that he was ill with tuberculosis, undertook an arduous eleven-week journey from Moscow across Siberia to the penal colony on the island of Sakhal
When Darwin set sail at the end of 1831, it was only with a vague notion that all life forms, both present and extinct, were more strongly related than the Christian version of the world's creation pu
“In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven… two idle apprentices, exhausted by the long, hot summer, and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran away from their employe
“Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown.”Rich in allegory and symbolism, and suffused with darkness and tragedy, satire and touching humour, these tales,
With Sherlock Holmes's reputation as the scourge of the criminal underworld preceding him, the ingenious detective, with the aid of Dr Watson, is confronted in these stories by some of his most fiendi
Having grown up in London and rural southern England, Margaret Hale moves with her father to the northern industrial city of Milton. She is shocked by the poverty she encounters and dismayed by the un
Against the backdrop of growing discontent in Paris, Doctor Manette is released from the Bastille after eighteen years of unjust imprisonment and begins a new life in England with his devoted daughter
In contrast with the epic scope of the Rougon-Macquart novels, Zola's short stories are concerned with the everyday aspects of human existence and the interests of ordinary people.From the cruel irony
First published in 1797, The Italian, with its archetypal villain Schedoni, its intense romance and its sublime depiction of landscape, is the masterpiece of Gothic fiction.Enlisted by the Marchesa di
One of the classics of American children's literature, Daddy-Long-Legs tells the tale of Judy Abbott – an ebullient orphan beginning a college degree with the aim of becoming a writer – through her le
John Dolittle is a highly respected doctor in the village of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, yet he loves animals so much that his house is soon full of them. With all his patients scared away, and the expense
The Vita Nuova, with its unusual blend of prose and poetry, is universally recognized as Dante's early masterpiece and provides an indispensable prequel to The Divine Comedy. Set in thirteenth-century
An orphan child full of mischief, Jack lives with his crotchety widow aunt in eighteenth-century England. His naughtiness knows no limits, and when one day he goes a step too far, Aunt Constance decid
The most widely staged dramatist after Shakespeare, Chekhov left a deep mark both on the development of Russian literature and world theatre, with plays that were remarkable not just for their dialogu
Anne is an orphan with a penchant for daydreaming and distinctive flaming-red hair that catches the eye of everyone she meets. She is overjoyed to be sent to Green Gables, the Cuthberts' farm, which s
When an army of invading Martians lands in England, panic and terror seize the population. As the aliens traverse the country in huge three-legged machines, incinerating all in their path with a heat
On the eve of the Crimean War, the young, headstrong Yelena, the daughter of aristocratic Russian parents, falls in love with a revolutionary from Bulgaria named Insarov. Facing the wrath and disappro
