CLASSICS

A plane crashes on an uninhabited island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land...

'I have lately written...a tale, to illustrate an opinion of mine, that a genius will educate itself.'Mary Wollstonecraft is best known for her pioneering views on the rights of women...

Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love is one of the funniest, sharpest novels about love and growing up ever written. 'Obsessed with sex!' said Jassy, 'there's nobody so obsessed as...

Written when Orwell was a struggling writer in his twenties, the book documents his 'first contact with poverty': sleeping in bug-infested hostels and doss houses, working as a dishwasher in...

THE SCIENCE FICTION CLASSIC, NOW A MAJOR BBC DRAMA"For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man...

Franz Kafka's classic 1915 novella remains one of the most widely read works of fiction in the world. This Norton Critical Edition is based on Susan Bernofsky's acclaimed new translation,...

'I value fame almost as much as if I had been born a hero'. (Preface to The Lucky Chance).Aphra Behn (1640-89) achieved both fame and notoriety in her own time,...

When Miss Milner announces her passion for her guardian, a Catholic priest, she breaks through the double barrier of religious vocation and society's standards of `proper' womanly behaviour. Her love...

The Female Quixote (1752), a vivacious and ironical novel parodying the style of Cervantes, portrays the beautiful and aristocratic Arabella, whose passion for reading romances leads her into all manner...

When Tess D'urbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be...

'you are to understand, Mr. Pip, that the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a profound secret...'Young Pip lives with his sister and her husband the...

Set against the lush backdrop of 1830s Jamaica, Jean Rhys's powerful, haunting story was inspired by the first Mrs. Rochester, in Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre". Born into an oppressive, colonialist...

Accessible translations for GCSE students. The translated extracts from Virgil: Selections from the Aeneid, are linked by commentaries which continue the narrative and discuss points in the text needing explanation.

In this extraordinary collection of twenty tales, Richard Ford, a master short-story writer in his own right, has selected his personal favourites from among more than two hundred of Chekhov's...

This revised Norton Critical Edition is based on the first edition text (dated 1818, but likely issued in late 1817). The editor has spelled out ampersands and made superscript letters...

The Arden Shakespeare is the established edition of Shakespeare's work. Justly celebrated for its authoritative scholarship and invaluable commentary, Arden guides you a richer understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's plays.This...

Discover Jane Austen's most beloved classic. When Elizabeth Bennet meets Mr Darcy, she is repelled by his overbearing pride and prejudice towards her family. But the Bennet girls are in...

Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose...

Recounting the adventures of Don Quixote and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, Cervantes' satirical romance (1605-1615) is one of the most enduringly popular classics ever written. The work was originally...

'Who has not Tristram Shandy read? Is any mortal so ill bred?' So wrote the young James Boswell in the spring of 1760, when Sterne's comic novel was received with...

Henry V, the climax of Shakespeare's sequence of English history plays, is an inspiring, often comic celebration of a young warrior-king. But it is also a study of the costly...

Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than...

Pip's life as an ordinary country boy is destined to be unexceptional until a chain of mysterious events lead him away from his humble origins and up the social ladder....

Born and abandoned in Newgate Prison, Moll Flanders is forced to make her own way in life. She duly embarks on a career that includes husband-hunting, incest, bigamy, prostitution and...

The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor: Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers - A...

'Pamela under the Notion of being a Virtuous Modest Girl will be introduced into all Familes,and when she gets there, what Scenes does she represent? Why a fine young Gentleman...

A gripping tale of violent jealousy, sexual passion and treachery, Honore de Balzac's Cousin Bette is translated from the French with an introduction by Marion Ayton Crawford in Penguin Classics.Poor,...

Guy de Maupassant's scandalous tale of an opportunistic young man corrupted by the allure of power, Bel-Ami is translated with an introduction by Douglas Parmee in Penguin Classics.Young, attractive and...

This volume completes the acclaimed Clarendon Edition of the Novels of the Brontes. "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall", Anne Bronte's second (and last) novel, was published in June 1848, less...

Depicting the fatal clash between material desires and the liberating power of human passions, Honore de Balzac's Eugenie Grandet is translated with an introduction by M.A. Crawford in Penguin Classics.In...