CLASSICS

'Such a strange book! Imagine a novel with a little swarthy governess for heroine, and a middle-aged ruffian for hero.' Sharpe's London Magazine (June 1855) Jane Eyre is an orphan...

Smurov, a fussily self-conscious Russian tutor, shoots himself after a humiliating beating by his mistress' husband. Unsure whether his suicide has been successful or not, Smurov drifts around Berlin, observing...

It was in 1887 that the ascetic, gaunt and enigmatic detective, Sherlock Holmes, made his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet. From 1891, beginning with The Adventures of Sherlock...

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...

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is acknowledged as the greatest dramatist of all time. He excels in plot, poetry and wit, and his talent encompasses the great tragedies of Hamlet, King Lear,...

Rudolph Rassendyll's life is interrupted by his unexpected and personal involvement in the affairs of Ruritania whilst travelling through the town of Zenda. He is shortly on the way to...

It is 1948 and a young American couple arrive in France for a holiday, full of anticipation and enthusiasm. But the countryside and people are war-battered, and their reception at...

Perhaps his most famous work, Emile Zola's Therese Raquin is a dark and gripping story of lust, violence and guilt, set in the gloomy back streets of Paris. This Penguin...

Pursued by the twin demons of drink and madness, Branwell Bronte created a private world that was indeed infernal. As a bold and gifted child, his promise seemed boundless to...

This complete critical edition of Chaucer's poetry and prose has, as the Cambridge Review prophesied when it first appeared, become the standard edition of Chaucer for all who are seriously...

First published in 1905, THE HOUSE OF MIRTH shocked the New York society it so deftly chronicles, portraying the moral, social and economic restraints on a woman who dared to...

Linda Burnell dreams, listless and distant, whilst downstairs her mother sets in order the family's new home in the New Zealand countryside. Her vigorous and exhausting husband, Stanley, is at...

May 7th -- There were days last winter when I danced for sheer joy out in my frost-bound garden in spite of my years and children. But I did it...

'The classic literal-metaphorical journey' GuardianA classic meditation on artistic creation and the quest for spiritual transcendence from the Nobel Prize-winning author of SiddharthaIn the aftermath of the Great War, a...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID BRADSHAWAnthony Beavis is a man inclined to recoil from life. His past is haunted by the death of his best friend Brian and by his...

In this sequel to his war memoirs Milligan is now on Civvy street and a jazz trumpeter in the Bill Hall Trio, playing at venues ranging from the Hackney Empire...

In these three witty and fantastical stories, Italo Calvino explores the sensory aptitudes of the body in taste, hearing and smell. 'Each story continues Calvino's lifelong campaign to add more...