In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected
The Penguin English Library Edition of Emma by Jane Austen 'I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall' Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Wood
Presents a story woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a Russian spy working for the police, and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho.
Shiva Naipaul was the brother of V. S. Naipaul and author of Firefles and The Chip-Chip Gatherers. Fireflies, his first novel, published in 1970 and longlisted for the 'Lost Man Booker Award' in 2010,
When Maude Slocum - beautiful, frightened and angry - comes to Lew Archer's office with a poison pen letter intended for her husband, he reluctantly agrees to help her. As he follows the Slocums aroun
The Penguin English Library Edition of Howards End by E. M. Forster 'The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer. We
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë 'She looked so like herself that I knew not how to bear it' In this sensational, hard-hitting and passionate tale of m
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 'Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, - stern and wild ones, - and they had made her strong, but taug
L'Abbé C is a shocking, unnerving narrative about the intense and terrifying relationship between twin brothers. Charles is a modern libertine, dedicated to vice and depravity, while Robert is a pries
Set against the backdrop of Europe's slide into Fascism, this title provides an account of depravity and violence. Exploring the dark forces beneath the surface of civilization, it is torn between ide
Lieutenant James Churchill and his colleagues find themselves questioning their purpose. Are they for death or against it? These men of action travel between the barracks, the lunatic asylum and the h
In these three works of erotic prose Georges Bataille fuses sex and spirituality in a highly personal and philosophical vision of the self. My Mother is a frank and intense depiction of a young man's
A philosopher, essayist, novelist, pornographer and fervent Catholic who came to regard the brothels of Paris as his true 'churches', Georges Bataille ranks among the boldest and most disturbing of tw
A mummy is stolen from a small town museum along with some Roman coins and a soaking wet man collapses in fourteen year old Peter Furneaux's living room bleeding from the head. What was a suspected st
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Confidence - Man and Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville 'Life is a pic-nic en costume; one must take a part, assume a character, stand ready in a sensible
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells 'Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks shelter
The Penguin English Library Edition of Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope 'What! to come here a stranger, a young, unknown, and unfriended stranger, and tell us, in the name of the bishop his maste
The Penguin English Library Edition of Evelina by Frances Burney 'O Sir, how much uneasiness must I suffer, to counterbalance one short morning of happiness!' In this comic and sharply incisive satire
The gripping story of the First Crusade, as witnessed by contemporary writersThe fall of Jerusalem in 1099 to an army of exhausted and starving western European soldiers was one of the most extraordin
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Warden by Anthony Trollope 'It was so hard that the pleasant waters of his little stream should be disturbed and muddied ... that his quiet paths should be m
The Penguin English Library Edition of Persuasion by Jane Austen 'Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth; and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been the
The Penguin English Library Edition of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë 'The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself' Passionate, poetic and revoluti
The Penguin English Library Edition of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 'A parish child - the orphan of a workhouse - the humble, half-starved drudge - to be cuffed and buffeted through the world, desp
The Penguin English Library Edition of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift 'Fifteen hundred of the Emperor's largest horses, each about four inches and an half high, were employed to draw me towards
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot If life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie? Tragic and moving, The Mill on the Floss is a novel of grand pas
The Penguin English Library Edition of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville 'The frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft compl
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe '... an agility astounding, a strength superhuman, a ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive,
The Penguin English Library Edition of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells 'Death!' I shouted. 'Death is coming! Death!' In this pioneering, shocking and nightmarish tale, naïve suburban Londoners in
The Penguin English Library Edition of Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon 'Lady Audley uttered a long, low, wailing cry, and threw up her arms above her head with a wild gesture of despair
The Penguin English Library edition of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell 'How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?' Elizabeth Gas
Jane Austen's timeless works of romantic fiction have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and adored writers in the English language. Now any fan of Austen's sparkling literary satires c
Passionate, free-thinking and unconventional, Miss Brodie is a teacher who exerts a powerful influence over her group of 'special girls' at Marcia Blaine School. They are the Brodie set, the creme de
Marlow, a seaman, tells of a journey up the Congo. His goal is the troubled European and ivory trader Kurtz. Worshipped and feared by invaders as well as natives, Kurtz has become a godlike figure, hi
Three men and a dog decide to head for a restful vacation on the Thames. Anticipating peace and leisure, they encounter, in fact, the joys of roughing it, of getting their boat stuck in locks, of bein
Mr Pooter is a man of modest ambition, content with his clerkly lot. So why is he always in trouble with disagreeable tradesmen, young clerks and wayward friends? And what is he to do about his son Lu
On 15 November 1959, the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, a wealthy farmer, his wife and their two young children were found brutally murdered. Blood all over the walls, the telephone lines cut, and onl
A notice in The Times addressed to 'Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine' advertises a 'small mediaeval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of Apr
Into the insular town of 1930s Ferrara, a new doctor arrives. Fadigati is hopeful and modern, and more than anything wants to fit into his new home. But his fresh, appealing appearance soon crumbles w
