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
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
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
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
First published in 1516, "Utopia" depicts an imaginary society free of private property, sexual discrimination and religious intolerance. Its radical humanism has had a dramatic effect on modern histo
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
Set in the years before and after Waterloo, the novel tells the parallel stories of two schoolfriends - the quiet, long-suffering Amelia and her brilliant, scheming friend, Becky Sharp. The novel port
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
A bitter-sweet tale of quiet lives in the small and apparently timeless world of mid-19th century Sicilian nobility. Through the eyes of his princely protagonist, the author chronicles the details 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
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
Famed as a wit and bon viveur, Oscar Wilde lived up to his reputation. This selection of plays, poems and prose writings, introduced by Terry Eagleton, includes "The Importance of Being Earnest", "Lad
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
Doctor Zhivago is the epic novel of Russia in the throes of revolution and one of the greatest love stories ever told. Yuri Zhivago, physician and poet, wrestles with the new order and confronts the c
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
This selection of stories by Katherine Mansfield has been chosen by Claire Tomalin and emphasize the stronger, feminist side of her writing rather than the popular, more sentimental view. The 21 stori
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"
This is a documentary-style account of political unrest and personal travail in a late 19th-century French coalfield. Despite the grimness of his subject and the accuracy of his description, Zola tell
Uses the narrative of a mock travel writer to explore exotic and imaginary locations. This book mounts a scathing attack on the morals, politics and learning of the 18th century, culminating in possib
