and... and... and...

With an Introduction and Notes by Stuart Hutchinson, University of Kent at Canterbury. The Diamond as Big as the Ritz is an ominous fable about the pursuit of great wealth. Readers will be transported

With an Introduction and Notes by Hugh Epstein, Secretary of the Joseph Conrad Society of Great Britain. 'Then the vision of an enormous town presented itself, of a monstrous town...a cruel devourer o

eng With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue Elizabeth Barrett Browning was such an acclaimed poet in her own lifetime that she was suggested as a candidate for the Poet Laureateship when Wo

With an Introduction by Antonia Till. William Wordsworth (1771-1850) is the foremost of the English Romantic poets. He was much influenced by the events of the French Revolution in his youth, and he d

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Nicola Bradbury, University of Reading. Jane Austen teased readers with the idea of a 'heroine whom no one but myself will much like', but Emma is irresistible. 'H

In these 'scientific romances' H. G. Wells sees the present reflected in the future and the future in the present. His aim is to provoke rather than predict. The Sleeper falls into a trance, waking up

A Room of One's Own (1929) has become a classic feminist essay and perhaps Virginia Woolf's best known work; The Voyage Out (1915) is highly significant as her first novel. Both focus on the place of

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. 'The worst parts were the great masses of flesh of the monstrous Worm, in all its red and sickening aspect...The sight was horrible enough, but, with the a

Translated by Constance Garnett with an Introduction by A.D.P. Briggs.In 1869 a young Russian was strangled, shot through the head and thrown into a pond. His crime? A wish to leave a small group of v

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. 'In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and right behind, another wicked fearful self, so like me my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not kno

With an Introduction by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury 'Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very har

When Jerry, Jimmy and Cathy discover a tunnel that leads to a castle, they pretend that it is enchanted. But when they discover a Sleeping Princess at the centre of a maze, astonishing things begin to

The magical Peter Pan comes to the night nursery of the Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael. He teaches them to fly, then takes them through the sky to Never-Never Land, where they find Red Indi

Edgar Poe was born the son of itinerant actors on January 19th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusets. Abandoned by his father and the later death of his mother, he was taken into the foster care of John Allan

Tom, a poor orphan, is employed by the villainous chimney-sweep, Grimes, to climb up inside flues to clear away the soot. While engaged in this dreadful task, he loses his way and emerges in the bedro

The magical Peter Pan comes to the night nursery of the Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael. He teaches them to fly, then takes them through the sky to Never-Never Land, where they find Red Indi

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Claire Seymour, University of Kent at Canterbury. The Turn of the Screw is the classic ghost story for which James is most remembered. Set in a country house, it i

By the time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had completed the twelve stories for The Strand Magazine that are gathered together in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, he was already growing tired of his most famous creation, but the financial incentive to continue was too great. So began the second series of stories, known as The Memoirs; these introduced such notable characters as Holmes' indolent brother, Mycroft, and Holmes' most dangerous adversary, Professor James Moriarty, the 'Napoleon of Crime'. The collection included such stories as 'The Adventure of the Resident Patient' and 'The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter', which Doyle would list later as amongst his favourites. It was to Moriarty that was delegated the task of ending the career of the world's finest consulting detective in a final, fatal encounter at The Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland in the concluding tale, 'The Final Problem'.

This volume contains a generous selection of the tales of H. G. Wells, some of them famous, some forgotten.They demonstrate his immense imaginative energy, his originality, his prophetic genius, and h

Virginia Woolf's second novel, Night and Day (1919), portrays the gradual changes in a society, the patterns and conventions of which are slowly disintegrating; where the representatives of the younger generation struggle to forge their own way, for '...life has to be faced: to be rejected; then accepted on new terms with rapture'. Woolf begins to experiment with the novel form while demonstrating her affection for the literature of the past. Jacob's Room (1922), Woolf's third novel, marks the bold affirmation of her own voice and search for a new form to express her view that 'the human soul ...orientates itself afresh every now & then.It is doing so now. No one can see it whole therefore.' Jacob's life is presented in subtle, delicate and tantalising glimpses, the novel's gaps and silences are as replete with meaning as the wicker armchair creaking in the empty room.

With an Introduction and Notes by Martin Scofield. Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800) constituted a quiet poetic revolution, both in its attitude to its subject-matter and its anti-conventional language.

What Katy Did at School and What Katy Did Next continue the story of the high-spirited and rebellious American girl, Katy Carr, and her family, who first appeared in What Katy Did. What Katy Did at Sc

The four novels gathered here constitute the complete longer works of one the most brilliant and original American writers. West's vision of American modernity is terrifyingly comical and diagnoses th

With an Introduction by Pat Righelato, University of Reading.The child of parents who divorce, remarry and then embark on adulterous affairs, Maisie Farange survives by her intelligence and spirit. Fo

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. The Gothic novel, featuring dark tales of tragedy, romance, revenge, torture and ancient villainies, tinged with horror and the supernatural, became the vo

Chosen and Introduced by Dr Keith Carabine, University of Kent at Canterbury and Chairperson of the Joseph Conrad Society of Great Britain. This specially commissioned selection of Conrad's short stor

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) is the most important of Britain's nineteenth-century philosophers. His writings and activities were many and varied. The works reprinted in this volume were first publish

Selected and Introduced by David Stuart Davies. The Shadows of Sherlock Holmes is a fascinating collection of stories featuring detectives, criminal agents and debonair crooks from the golden age of c

Edited and with an Introduction by Aidan Arrowsmith, Manchester Metropolitan University. The literary and dramatic work of J.M. Synge is most famous for the 'riots' provoked by his 1907 play The Playb

With an Introduction by Dr Tim Cook. Robert Browning (1812-1889) represents the intellectual and argumentative strand in English poetry in contrast to the more ornate style of Spenser and Tennyson. Hi

eng With an Introduction by Nicola Bradbury, University of Reading Une Vie (1883) and Bel-Ami (1885) seem almost diametrically opposed in tone and temper. The 'Life' of the first is poignantly restric

With an Introduction and Notes by Stuart Hutchinson. Following on from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884-5) Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894) became one of Mark Twain

With an Introduction and revised translation by Adrianne Tooke. Sentimental Education has been described both as the first modern novel and as a novel to end all novels. Weaving a poignant love story

Melville's short stories are masterpieces. The best are to be appreciated on more than one level and those presented here are rich with symbolism and spiritual depth. Set in 1797, Billy Budd, Foretopm

With an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, University of Kent at Canterbury. Housman's melodic and memorable poems have been popular for over a century. He writes typically of lost love, of the

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) began his celebrated diary on 1st January 1660 immediately prior to the Restoration of Charles II to the throne and the subsequent loosening of the rigid moral and social code

Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (revised by Moya Longstaffe).With an Introduction and Notes by Moya Longstaffe. The Red and the Black has been hailed as the first great 'realist' novel of the nine

The Coral Island - A Tale of the Pacific Ocean - opens with the shipwreck on a Pacific Island of the young friends Ralph Rover and Jack Martin and Peterkin Gray. Despite the pleasurable presence of de

The sixty-four poems in A Child's Garden of Verses are a masterly evocation of childhood from the author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped. They are full of delightful irony, wit and the fantasy worlds

With an Introduction and Notes by David Ellis, University of Kent at Canterbury. In the first part of this famous work, published in 1821 but then revised and expanded in 1856, De Quincey vividly desc