CLASSICS

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is best known today as one of the Victorian period's leading exponents of supernatural fiction, and was described by M.R. James as standing 'absolutely in the...

Translated by Constance Garnett, with an Introduction by A. D. P. Briggs.As Fyodor Karamazov awaits an amorous encounter, he is violently done to death. The three sons of the old...

'There is only one book to a man,' Steinbeck wrote of East of Eden, his most ambitious novel. Set in the rich farmland of the Salinas Valley, California, this powerful,...

When David meets the sensual Giovanni in a bohemian bar, he is swept into a passionate love affair. But his girlfriend's return to Paris destroys everything. Unable to admit to...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'Baldwin's ground-breaking second novel, which established him as one of the great American writers of his timeDavid, a young American in...

With an Introduction and Notes by Keith Wren, University of Kent at Canterbury.The story of Edmund Dantes, self-styled Count of Monte Cristo, is told with consummate skill. The victim of...

Translated by Constance Garnett with an Introduction and Notes by Dr Keith Carabine, University of Kent at Canterbury.Crime and Punishment is one of the greatest and most readable novels ever...

William Golding's Lord of the Flies is a dystopian classic: 'exciting, relevant and thought-provoking' (Stephen King). When a group of schoolboys are stranded on a desert island, what could go...

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.James Joyce's astonishing masterpiece, Ulysses, tells of the diverse events which befall Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus...

Living overseas but writing, always, about his native city, Joyce made Dublin unforgettable. The stories in Dubliners show us truants, seducers, gossips, rally-drivers, generous hostesses, corrupt politicians, failing priests, amateur...

James Joyce's Ulysses first appeared in print in the pages of an American avant-garde magazine, The Little Review, between 1918 and 1920. The novel many consider to be the most...

Drifters in search of work, George and his childlike friend Lennie, have nothing in the world except the clothes on their back - and a dream that one day they...

Frankenstein is the classic gothic horror novel which has thrilled and engrossed readers for two centuries. Written by Mary Shelley, it is a story which she intended would 'curdle the...

Like George Orwell, Franz Kafka has given his name to a world of nightmare, but in Kafka's world, it is never completely clear just what the nightmare is. The Trial,...

Introduction and Notes by Laurence Davies, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.Living overseas but writing, always, about his native city, Joyce made Dublin unforgettable. The stories in Dubliners show us truants, seducers,...

Welcome to New London. Everybody is happy here. Our perfect society achieves peace and stability by dispensing with monogamy, privacy, money, family and history itself. Now everyone belongs. You can...

The Thought Police, Doublethink, Newspeak, Big Brother - 1984 itself: these terms and concepts have moved from the world of fiction into our everyday lives. They are central to our...

Like George Orwell, Franz Kafka has given his name to a world of nightmare, but in Kafka's world, it is never completely clear just what the nightmare is. The Trial,...

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. Introduction and Notes by E.B. Greenwood, University of Kent.Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm...

With an Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, University of Kent at Canterbury. Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz).Bleak House is one of Dickens' finest achievements, establishing his reputation as...

Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff...

A masterpiece of black humour from the renown comic and acclaimed author of 'At Swim-Two-Birds' - Flann O'Brien. A thriller, a hilarious comic satire about an archetypal village police force,...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'A Hay Festival and The Poole VOTE 100 BOOKS for Women SelectionMuriel Spark's classic The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie features...

Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of...

Few writers have had a more demonstrable impact on the development of the modern world than has Karl Marx (1818-1883). Born in Trier into a middle-class Jewish family in 1818,...

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies.'I saw him take a different shape before my eyes. His loose draperies fell about him...and there issued out of them a monstrous creature...

Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English Literature, is an ironic novel of manners. In it the garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has...

Translated by Constance Garnett, with an Introduction and Notes by Agnes Cardinal, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent.Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum...

'If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how...

___________________________________'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real...

In 1943, there was an urgent need for Animal Farm. The Soviet Union had become Britain's ally in the war against Nazi Germany, and criticism of Stalin's brutal regime was...

Dublin, 6 January: the Feast of the Epiphany, also known in Ireland as Women's Christmas or Nollaig na mBan. Gretta and Gabriel Conroy attend the annual dinner party hosted by...

The Catcher in Rye is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth, but it's relevant to all ages. The story is told by Holden Caulfield, a seventeen- year-old dropout who has...

Aesop's celebrated collection of fables has always been popular with both adults and children. These simple tales embody truths so powerful, the titles of the individual fables - the fox...

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a classic representation of the impoverished and politically powerless underclass of British society in Edwardian England, ruthlessly exploited by the institutionalized corruption of their employers...

`This was the original game of thrones' George R.R. Martin The royal house of France has fallen. Charles IV is dead, fulfilling the curse of the Templars once and for...

Flann O'Brien's innovative metafictional work, whose unruly characters strike out their own paths in life to the frustration of their author, At Swim-Two-Birds is a brilliant impressionistic jumble of ideas,...

Ravaged by years of war and civil conflict, Britain has changed its name to Airstrip One and become part of Oceania - one of the three totalitarian blocks dominating the...

Shocking and controversial when it was first published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer prize-winning epic remains his undisputed masterpiece. Set against the background of dust bowl Oklahoma and Californian migrant life,...

* 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY * 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century' SARAH WATERS * 'It's the book every writer wishes...

This collection comprises of Joyce's three novels, plus the short story collection Dubliners.Dubliners, about Joyce's native city, is faithful to his country, seeing it unflinchingly and challenging every precedent and...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Clarissa Dalloway is a woman of high-society - vivacious, hospitable and sociable on the surface, yet underneath troubled...

'Succeeds in inspiring a mysterious terror better than any other writer' M.R. JamesIn an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, Laura leads a solitary life with only her ailing...

"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart..." Crime and Punishment is one of the greatest and most readable novels ever written. From the...

"This is the original Game of Thrones." George R.R. Martin. 'No woman shall succeed in Salique land' Louis X is dead, poisoned, murdered, by the hand of Mahaut d'Artois. Her...

Under the feckless husbandry of Mr Jones, the Manor Farm has fallen into disrepair. Pushed into hardship, the animals decide to stage a revolt, and, led by two young pigs,...