CLASSICS

Sense and Sensibility is a delightful comedy of manners in which the sisters Elinor and Marianne represent these two qualities. Elinor's character is one of Augustan detachment, while Marianne, a...

Considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with...

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...

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...

George Orwell is a difficult author to summarize. He was a would-be revolutionary who went to Eton, a political writer who abhorred dogma, a socialist who thrived on his image...

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...

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the classic detective chiller. It features the world's greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes, in his most challenging case. The Baskerville family is haunted by a...

' ... once again Mr Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents.'.Evil masterminds beware!...

'Surely no man would take up my profession if it were not that danger attracts him.' In The Casebook, you can read the final twelve stories that Sir Arthur Conan...

'Doctor Watson, Mr Sherlock Holmes' - The most famous introduction in the history of crime fiction takes place in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, bringing together Sherlock...

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...

Having firmly established the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in the novels A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was retained...

Introduction and Notes by Dr Ian Littlewood, University of Sussex.Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English Literature, is an ironic novel of manners....

Introduction and Notes by John S. Whitley, University of Sussex.Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling...

With an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at CanterburyThis selection of Carroll's works includes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through...

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies.Father Brown, one of the most quirkily genial and lovable characters to emerge from English detective fiction, first made his appearance in The Innocence...

Considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with...

Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury.Set in Hardy's Wessex, Tess is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its challenging...

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr. Jacqueline Belanger, University of Cardiff.A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man represents the transitional stage between the realism of Joyce's Dubliners...

With an Introduction and Notes by David Herd, Lecturer in English and American Literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury and co-editor of 'Poetry Review'.Moby Dick is the story...

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex.The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare's works. The Textual...

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex.The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare's Series presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare's works. The textual...

With an Introduction and Notes by Stuart Hutchinson, University of Kent at Canterbury.Tom Sawyer, a shrewd and adventurous boy, is as much at home in the respectable world of his...

Introduction and Notes by Dr Ella Westland, University of Exeter.Illustrations by George Cruickshank.Dickens had already achieved renown with The Pickwick Papers. With Oliver Twist his reputation was enhanced and strengthened....

With an Introduction and Notes by John M.L. Drew, University of Buckingham.Wilde's only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its...

Introduction and Notes by Professor Stephen Arkin, San Francisco University.'Young women who have no economic or political power must attend to the serious business of contriving material security'. Jane Austen's...

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex.The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series, with Henry V and The Merchant of Venice as its...

With an Introduction and Notes by Owen Knowles, University of Hull.Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven by acquisitive greed and soulless materialism, in...

Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue, Canterbury Christ Church University College.Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor...

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex.Julius Caesar is among the best of Shakespeare's historical and political plays. Dealing with events...

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...

Introduction and Notes by Dr Adrienne Gavin, Canterbury Christ Church University College. Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz).Dickens wrote of David Copperfield: 'Of all my books I like this the...

With an Introduction and Notes by Adam Roberts, Royal Holloway, University of London.Homer's great epic describes the many adventures of Odysseus, Greek warrior, as he strives over many years to...

With an Introduction and Notes by Lionel Kelly, University of Reading.The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906) are world famous animal stories. Set in Alaska during the...

With an Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury.Jonathan Swift's classic satirical narrative was first published in 1726, seven years after Defoe's Robinson Crusoe...

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...

Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury.This is a troubling story of crime, sin, guilt, punishment and expiation, set in the...

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex.The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series, with Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and The Merchant of...

Introduction and Notes by Dr Ian Littlewood, University of Sussex.Adultery is not a typical Jane Austen theme, but when it disturbs the relatively peaceful household at Mansfield Park, it has...

'My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know'. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes first introduced Arthur Conan Doyle's brilliant detective to the...

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex.Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of the greatest tragic dramas the world has known. Macbeth himself,...

Translated by P. A. MotteuxWith an Introduction and Notes by Stephen Boyd, University College, CorkCervantes' tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant, tilts at windmills and battles with sheep...

Introduction and Notes by Susan Jones, St Hilda's College, Oxford.First published in 1900, Lord Jim established Conrad as one of the great storytellers of the twentieth century. Set in the...

A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Dickens' greatest historical novel, traces the private lives of a group of people caught up in the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the...

With an Introduction and Notes by Keith Wren. University of Kent at Canterbury.One of the most celebrated and popular historical romances ever written, The Three Musketeers tells the story of...

Generally considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's finest novel, The Great Gatsby is a consummate summary of the "roaring twenties", and a devastating expose of the "Jazz Age". Through the...

Introduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent.Northanger Abbey tells the story of a young girl, Catherine Morland who leaves her sheltered, rural home to enter the busy, sophisticated...

Introduction and Notes by David Blair, Rutherford College, University of Kent.The Moonstone, a priceless Indian diamond which had been brought to England as spoils of war, is given to Rachel...