CLASSICS

There's nothing quite like "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Described by "The Times" on its first publication in 1865 as 'an excellent piece of nonsense', this inspired tale of a young...

This enthralling collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures comprises the first two volumes of short stories as they were originally gathered together in book form. Initially published in The Strand magazine,...

Few authors' names conjure up such an air of ghoulish terror as that of Edgar Allan Poe.Although best known for his classic gothic horror tales such as 'The Pit and...

There can be few people who have not heard of Rudyard Kipling's classic "Jungle Book", although most will know the name from the Walt Disney movie rather than the original...

Cervantes' tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant, tilts at windmills and battles with sheep in the service of the lady of his dreams, Dulcinea del Toboso, has fascinated...

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,...

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 crime...

Editedand with an Introduction by Dr Keith Carabine, Chairperson of the Joseph Conrad Society of Great Britain.As these three specially commissioned stories amply demonstrate, Conrad is our greatest writer of...

With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Preston, University of Nottingham.Illustrations by S.L. Fildes and Hablot K. Browne (Phiz).Dickens's final novel, left unfinished at his death, is a tale of...

The Kama Sutra (the 'science of love') is one of the world's greatest books. Written between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, it is a magnificent treatise on sexual conduct...

With an Introduction and Notes by Phillip Mallett, Senior Lecturer in English, University of St Andrews.Educated beyond her station, Grace Melbury returns to the woodland village of little Hintock and...

The father of science fiction, Jules Verne, invites you to join the intrepid and eccentric Professor Liedenbrock and his companions on a thrilling and dramatic expedition as they travel down...

Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury.Wessex Tales was the first collection of Hardy's short stories, and they reflect the experience of...

Introduction and Notes by Norman Vance, Professor of English, University of Sussex.Jude Fawley is a rural stone mason with intellectual aspirations. Frustrated by poverty and the indifference of the academic...

Introduced by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.In this notorious late novel, Lawrence's pagan imaginings burgeon. Kate Leslie, an Irish widow touring Mexico, becomes gradually involved with...

With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Merchant. Canterbury Christ Church College.The tough-mindedness of the social satire in and its air of palpable integrity give this novel a special place...

With an Introduction and Notes by Lionel Kelly, University of Reading.In 1915, Lawrence's frank representation of sexuality in The Rainbow caused a furore and the novel was seized by the...

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.These lively, varied and thought-provoking science-fiction stories (from the era of Jules Verne and H....

With a new Introduction by Professor Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D.This selection of a hundred of O. Henry's succinct tales displays the range, humour and humanity of a perennially popular short-story...

With an Introduction and Notes by Claire Seymour, University of Kent at Canterbury.The Return of the Native is widely recognised as the most representative of Hardy's Wessex novels. He evokes...

When Richard Hannay, the hero of "The Thirty-nine Steps", is recalled by the Head of British Intelligence from the Western Front at a critical moment in the battle for France,...

With an Introduction and Notes by Pat Righelato, University of Reading.Daisy Miller is one of Henry James's most attractive heroines: she represents youth and frivolity. As a tourist in Italy,...

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...

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue.The Professor is Charlotte Brontes first novel, in which she audaciously inhabits the voice and consciousness of a man, William Crimsworth. Like...

With an Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.This anthology of tales by Rudyard Kipling contains some of the most memorable and popular examples of the...

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr John Bowen, Department of English, University of Keele.Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz).Martin Chuzzlewit is Charles Dickens' comic masterpiece about which his biographer,...

With an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury.The Diary of a Nobody is so unassuming a work that even its author,...

With an Introduction and Notes by Jeff Wallace, University of Glamorgan.These stories of myth and resurrection, of uncanny events and violent impulse, were with one exception written and published in...

With an Introduction and Notes by Deborah Wynne, Chester College. Illustrated by Marcus Stone.Our Mutual Friend, Dickens' last complete novel, gives one of his most comprehensive and penetrating accounts of...

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,...

Chosenand 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 stories includes favourites...

With an Introduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent at CanterburyJames Hogg's most ambitious prose work, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, is now widely...

In the renowned translation by Edward FitzGerald, with an introduction by Professor Cedric Watts.Here is Edward FitzGerald's original translation of the Rubaiyat, the collection of poems attributed to the Persian...

Introduction and Notes by Dr Claire Seymour, University of Kent at Canterbury.The proverbial phrase 'life's little ironies' was coined by Hardy for his third volume of short stories. These tales...

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Carole Jones, freelance writer and researcher.George Eliot's final novel, Daniel Deronda (1876), follows the intertwining lives of the beautiful but spoiled and selfish...

Introduction and Notes by Robert Hampson, Royal Holloway College, University of London.Nostromo is the only man capable of the decisive action needed to save the silver of the San Tome...

Andrew Lang draws on his classical learning to recount the Homeric legend of the wars between the Greeks and the Trojans. Paris, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Hector, Ulysses, the Amazons...

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, Calico Pie and The Pobble Who Has No Toes, together with Edward Lear's crazy limericks, have entertained adults and children alike for over 100 years.This...

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...

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb was written to be an 'introduction to the study of Shakespeare', but are much more entertaining than that. All of Shakespeare's best-loved...

When the Cuthberts send to an orphanage for a boy to help them at Green Gables, their farm in Canada, they are astonished when a talkative little girl steps off...

Motherless Sara Crewe was sent home from India to school at Miss Minchin's. Her father was immensely rich and she became 'show pupil' - a little princess. Then her father...

This book contains over forty of the best-loved fairy stories, retold by Flora Annie Steel, and beautifully illustrated by Arthur Rackham.Favourites such as Jack the Giant-killer, Jack and the Beanstalk,...

Molly is desperately disappointed when, instead of the longed-for silver bangle, her Aunt Phoebe sends her a small, grey, pumpkin-shaped pincushion for her birthday. But at night, when the full...

Katy Carr is untidy, tall and gangling and lives with her brothers and sisters planning for the day when she will be "beautiful and beloved, and amiable as an angel".An...

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...

Robin Hood is the best-loved outlaw of all time.In this edition, Henry Gilbert tells of the adventures of the Merry Men of Sherwood Forest - Robin himself, Little John, Friar...