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
Baron Munchausen’s absurd adventures have entertained adults and children alike for more than two centuries. First published in England in 1785, his traveller’s tales soon became as well known as thos
After the Summer Concert fiasco, Mr Kay resolves to remove Fenn from office and puts his house into special measures, co-opting Kennedy, second prefect of Blackburn's, as reluctant troubleshooter with
Northern Lights introduces Lyra, an orphan, who lives in a parallel universe in which science, theology and magic are entwined. Lyra's search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving
"The Decameron" (subtitle: "Prencipe Galeotto") is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a medieval allegorical work bes
Takes you to a world where bicycles listen to conversations, inventors search for methods of 'diluting' water, and characters play truant while novelists sleep; a world where spiteful fairies wreak ha
Filled with compelling drama, earthy humour and remarkable insight, this book traces three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with
The Honourable Galahad Threepwood has decided to write his memoirs and England's aristocrats are all diving for cover, not least Galahad's formidable sister Lady Constance Keeble who fears that her br
The story of Macon 'Milkman' Dead, heir to the richest black family in a midwestern town, as he makes a voyage of rediscovery, travelling southwards geographically and inwards spirituality. Through th
Originally published as a serial in the children's monthly magazine ST NICHOLAS, LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY was Frances Hodgson Burnett's first children's novel and on its publication in book form in Octo
The story of a half-caste boy, part-Indian and part-Irish, who journeys throughout the subcontinent with an aged llama in search of religious enlightenment. Considered Kipling's masterpiece, the plot
Although Plato's celebrated work of philosophy describes a society which to some seems the ideal human community and to others like a totalitarian nightmare, it also raises enduring questions about po
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
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
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
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
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
Benvenuto Cellini is an artist-craftsman, one of the greatest sculptors in the renaissance, passionately devoted to art, the worshipper and frequenter of the great men of his time, the 'divine' Michel
Contains further stories of members of the Drones Club and several adventures related by the Oldest Member of the golf club. This title contains stories including: "The Shadow Passes", "Bramley is so
Typical - just when Bertie thinks that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world, things start to go wrong again... Only one man can save the day - the inimitable Jeeves.
The thought of being cooped up in Blandings Castle with Clarence, the Earl of Emsworth, Galahad and Freddie, appalled Colonel Wedge. But the arrival of Tipton Plimsoll, a rich young American, brighten
Jeeves suggests a small bottle of champagne in the library. Bertie Wooster's happiness seeems to know no bounds until destiny comes in through the French window. When confusion and panic reign, disast
Brings together hundreds of poems by Japanese writers from the fifteenth century to the twentieth, with modern examples from Europe and America. This book is dominated by four great masters - Basho, B
Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralysed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail and mu
Contents Words And Music: 1. Quiet Subversive John Updike; 2. A Sonnet Setting Alexander Goehr; 3. Brooksmith by Henry James Daniel Stern; 4. Recollections Robert Tear; 5. Afterwards Al Alvarez; 6. On
Contains Shakespeare's later Comedies - The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, As you Like it, Twelfth Night, All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure.
Foreshadowing his later detailed accounts of the Soviet prison-camp system, Solzhenitsyn's classic portrayal of life in the gulag is all the more powerful for being slighter and more personal than tho
The everyman Signet Shakespeare series continues with the first volume of Comedies containing THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. LOVES LABOUR'S LOST, ROMEO AND
This classic story of a Swiss family - pastor, wife and four sons -shipwreaked on an uninhabited island (most fortunately blessed with an unlikely profusion of natural resources) was written by a Swis
Bringing together Mishima's preoccupations with violence, desire, religious life and the history of Japan, this novel is based on an actual incident, the burning of a celebrated temple. The novel is a
Every child's bookshelf should start with a collection of nursery rhymes so that these fantastic and nonsensical verses (some so old their meaning is long forgotten) are among the first magical words
Set in the Central Europe of old, this anti-war novel features a simple soldier whose determination to survive brings into question the powerful social and political institutions he confronts. A portr
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.
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
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
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
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
When mild-mannered and unremarkable academic Roland Mitchell stumbles upon a letter written by Victorian poet Randolph Ash to a mysterious woman with whom he seems to be infatuated, he is determined t
Three American sisters leave their chicken farm on Long Island for a holiday in Europe. In France they encounter the charming but penniless Marquis de Maufringneuse, his writer son Jeff, and the marqu
Chesterton wrote some of the best nonsense and satirical verse in the language. In this book, the main bias of the selection, however, will be towards Chesterton's non-fictional prose, where, the auth
