Wild passion leads to tragedy as love is perverted by marriage. But the concerns of mortals are belittled by the sombre, immemorial presence of Egdon Heath, perhaps Hardy's finest evocation of his nat
Letters by the 18th century blue-stocking grande dame, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She was a duke's daughter, who married the English ambassador in Constantinople, and the friend of Swift and Pope, who
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 story of Hester Prynne, taken in adultery, arraigned by her puritan community and abandoned by her husband and her lover. Combining moral force, austere beauty and psychology, it is a narrative wh
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
Lewis Carroll's two Alice stories are renowned for their fantastic plots and use of nonsense. The edition, containing both stories, features John Tenniel's original illustrations.
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
These tales bring together a band of pilgrims who represented most of the occupations and social groups of the time. The diversity of the narrators in turn made possible a varied collection of tales i
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
One of the most "modern" of 18th-century novels, this book tells the story of two libertines and the innocent characters they plot to destroy. When their plans go astray they turn against one another
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
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
A novel, in which Charles Gould returns to South America determined to make a success of the inheritance left to him by his father, the San Tome mine. But his dreams are thwarted as the country is plu
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
A portrayal of genius possessed, through the biography of the composer Adrian Leverkuhn, narrated by his friend Zeitblom in the years 1943-45, as Germany faces ruin.
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
How can the individual be both free and happy? What are freedom and happiness and how do they relate to each other? These are the questions that Mill aims to answer from both a political and a philoso
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 autobiography includes the record of a sexual and spiritual quest, exploring the deepest recesses of the author's mind while narrating the farcical comedy of errors which was his life. P.N. Furba
The legendary origin of the Roman nation which tells the story of the Trojan Prince Aeneas who escaped with some of his men after Troy fell and sailed to Italy under the protection of the goddess Venu
This complete and unabridged edition contains a biography of the author and a new introduction and afterword. Anne falls in love with Wentworth, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no ho
The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (AD 121-180) embodied in his person that ideal figure of antiquity, the philosopher-king. His "Meditations" reveal a mind of exceptional clarity and origina
Comprises such sacred books of India as the hymns of the "Rig-Veda", the world's first recorded poems, the stirring pantheistic speculations of the "Upanishads" and the "Bhagavad-Gita", a cosmic drama
John Keats began writing at the age of 18, and by the time he died, seven years later in 1821, he had produced a substantial number of poems. This collection contains his work - his narratives, sonnet
The fable of the scientist who creates a man-monster is one of the best known horror stories ever. It has fascinated readers ever since it was first published in 1818.
A collection of Stevenson's short stories found in one volume. Titles include "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", "Markheim", "Lodging for the Night", "Thrawn Janet", "The Body Snatcher" and "The Misadventures o
The author was well aware that the seemingly parochial power struggles that determine the action of Barchester Towers actually went to the heart of mid-Victorian English society, and had, in other tim
A story which evokes a bygone rural life, and is charged with a personal passion that intensifies the novel's outer dramas of seduction and betrayal and inner dramas of moral growth and redemption.
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
This narrative chronicles the decline of the American South through the experiences of Benjy Compson, who struggles to articulate his vision of life. William Faulkner is the author of "As I Lay Dying"
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
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.
These stories of the 19th-century Russian rural landscape and the difficult life of those who inhabited it were universally popular with the reading public at large and contributed in no small measure
A mixture of reality and illusion, this is the story of the besotted Don Quixote and his down-to-earth companion, the faithful Sancho Panza, who set out to right the world's wrongs in knightly combat.
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
