Stevenson's gift as an author and poet for children lay partly in his lack of condescension towards them, and he preserved a large element of the child in his own personality. He wrote many of these p
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
Set in the Caucasus, the scene of Russia's military campaigns in the 19th century, this is both an adventure story and a sardonic look at the heroic ideals of the author's contemporaries - which makes
Together with Voltaire, Diderot was a remarkable figure of the French Enlightenment, as a philosopher, journalist and novelist. In this book, a young girl's enforced enclosure in a convent gives Dider
First published in 1792, this book was written in a spirit of outrage and enthusiasm. In an age of ferment, following the American and French revolutions, Mary Wollstonecraft took prevailing egalitari
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
Long suppressed in its native land, this account of strange doings in Moscow in the 1930s provides us with the essence of the sceptical, trenchant, unadulterated voice of dissent.
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 mock autobiography, in which the hero wrestles with the impossibility of explaining anything without explaining everything. In the process he explores every conceivable fictional device in a brillia
A story of passionate love, travail and final triumph. The relationship between the heroine and Mr Rochester is only one episode, albeit the most important, in a detailed fictional autobiography in wh
Wilkie Collins' sixth novel took the fashionable world by storm on its appearance in 1860, when everything from dances to dresses was named after the "woman in white". Nicholas Rance is the author of
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
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
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
In this account of a disillusioned soul failing to come to terms with reality, the novelist recreates the Byronic anti-hero in the context of post-revolutionary France where the church, politics and s
Set in the bleak, magical Wessex landscape so familiar from Hardy's early work, Tess's cruel story reveals circumstances slowly closing in on her as she attempts to grasp a few moments of happiness wi
Set in British India in the 1920s, this book looks at racial conflict. The characters struggle to overcome their own differences and prejudices, but when the Indian Dr Aziz is tried for the alleged as
This complex tale of self-discovery -- considered by the author to be his best work -- traces the path of an aging idealist, Lambert Strether. Arriving in Paris with the intention of persuading his yo
John Maude and Betty Silver are in love, but when John turns out to be heir to the principality of Mervo, a small Mediterranean island not a thousand miles from Monte Carlo, he finds himself ensnared
In a classic plot, Vicky Underwood is parted from her fiance, Jeff Bennison, which means that her uncle, Galahad Threepwood, has to engineer a complicated plot to bring them back together.
Follows the adventures of an Argentinean writer living in Paris with his lover and a circle of bohemian friends, and consists of 155 short chapters that the author advises us to read out of order.
First published in 1956, this collection of articles covers Wodehouse's feelings on United States, his adopted homeland all collected into one edition. Features a collection of articles originally fro
"In time for Halloween: a one-of-a-kind hardcover collection of poems from ancient times to the present about ghosts, zombies, and vampires. EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY POCKET POETS. This selection of poems f
Originally published as a serial in Chums under the pseudonym of Basil Windham, The Luck Stone is thoroughly Wodehouse with his trademark sticky situations, quirky characters, sly humour and wit, and
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her
One morning, Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect. His family is understandably perturbed and he finds himself an outsider in his own home.
Set in Lombardy during the Spanish occupation of the late 1620s, this title tells the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, prevented from marrying by the petty tyrant Don Rodrigo, who desires L
Clarence Chugwater is not a Boy Scout for nothing. It is summer 1909 and everyone is too interested in the Test Match to notice that England has been invaded by the Germans. And the Russians. And the
An obsessive German professor and his nephew travel towards the earth's core in the steps of a medieval explorer beneath an Icelandic volcano where they discover a lost world.
In order to save his reputation and the honour of his house at school after he shames himself by running away from a fight between fellow pupils and toughs from the local town, a studious schoolboy ta
London has the greatest literary tradition of any city in the world. Its roll-call of story-tellers includes cultural giants who changed the way the world thought about writing, like Shakespeare, Defo
Whether set against the open ocean or tiny mountain streams, in ancient China, tropical Tahiti, Paris under siege, or the vast Canadian wilderness, this title features stories that cast wide and strik
In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the English countryside and into his past...
Contains two centuries of short fiction about the most majestic of domesticated animals. In this book, Arthur Conan Doyle makes a famous thoroughbred disappear (or does he?), while Saki spins an amusi
Returning to Turkey from exile in the West, the secular poet Ka is driven by curiosity to investigate a surprising wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden by the government to wear their head
In forms as various as the melodramas of old Scottish ballads and the hard-boiled poems of twentieth-century noir, this title assembles some of the most colourful villains and victims ever to be immor
A poet in a former life, Archy has been reincarnated as a cockroach who types by diving headfirst onto a typewriter (and is famously unable to operate the shift key to produce capital letters); his si
Hana, a Canadian nurse, exhausted by death, and grieving for her own dead father; the maimed thief-turned-Allied-agent, Caravaggio; Kip, the emotionally detached Indian sapper - each is haunted in dif
