A group portrait of a brilliant circle, at the centre of which Boswell captures the powerful, troubled and witty figure of Samuel Johnson. The book is also an intimate picture of domestic life, which
Poet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love, 'to fix once for all the perilous magic of nym
In this classic of American literature, Thoreau gives an account of his two years' experience of the 'simple life' in the woods, telling how he sought and found material and spiritual sustenance in th
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
This is the prose masterpiece of the Heian era of the 10th and 11th centuries, which is recognized as a great period in Japanese literature. It is an account of the intricate, exquisite, highly ordere
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.
A story which traces the history of a house and a family at the time of World War I. This is a picture of Edwardian England at its most opulent. Exploring the themes of love, honour and betrayal, this
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 second volume of Chekhov's stories draws from his work of the 1880s and 90s and comprises "A Daughter of Albion", "An Incident", "A Dreary Story", "The Duel", "The Chorus Girl", "Ward 6", "The Te
The moonstone is a yellow diamond of unearthly beauty brought from India and given to Rachel Verrinder as an eighteenth birthday present, but the fabled diamond carries with it a terrible curse.
Goncharov's gentle satire on the failings of 19th-century Russian gentry and bureaucracy turns into something deeper and richer than satire, as he probes the character of a protagonist whose constitut
An account of a man haunted by the Devil in the form of his own evil double. Hogg's 1824 novel, set in 17th century Scotland, anticipates Dostoevsky's great dramas of sin, self-accusation and damnatio
Includes poetry from every period in life, dealing with all the topics closest to author's heart: love, death, old age, ambition, the poet's craft, and of the history and destiny of Ireland.
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
Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales originally appeared in batches each Christmas in the mid-19th century, and Spink's English translation was first published in 1960. This edition has Heath Robinso
First published in Germany in 1812, these tales were collected by the two brothers Grimm from neighbouring villages and spinning rooms, and include Hansel and Gretel, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a
Kipling began these stories in Vermont, to amuse his daughter when they were living in his wife's home town. The comic explanations, such as how the camel got his hump and how the whale got his throat
Edward Lear, the 20th child of a London stockbroker, entered the household of Lord Stanley as little more than a servant, but his sense of humour soon made him welcome above stairs and he began to amu
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
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
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
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.
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
Born in 1469, Niccolo Machiavelli undertook diplomatic missions to various courts, before his imprisonment and exile. To quote his own words, this book discusses "what a principality is, what kinds th
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
