(Paperback, New edition)

Anne Elliot lives at the time of the Napoleonic wars, a time of accident, adventure, the making of new fortunes and alliances. A woman of no importance, she manoeuvres in her restricted circumstances as her long-time love Captain Wentworth did in the wars.

(Paperback, New edition)

Carved by Old Gepetto, Pinnochio has an enormous nose which grows longer whenever he tells a lie. He runs away and joins a circus but eventually the conscious of a talking cricket and Pinnochio's guardian fairy restore him to good behaviour, obedience and care for others.

(Paperback)

The garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has only one aim - that of finding a good match for each of her five daughters. In this, she is mocked by her cynical and indolent husband. This is an ironic novel of manners.

(Paperback)

From its first publication in 1816, "Rob Roy" has been recognised as containing some of Scott's finest writing and most engaging, fully realised characters.

(Paperback, New edition)

Shirley is a woman of independent means; her friend Caroline is not. Both struggle with what a woman's role is and can be. Their male counterparts - Louis, the powerless tutor, and Robert, his cloth-manufacturing brother - also stand at odds to society's expectations.

(Paperback)

A semi-autobiographical novel that explores the emotional conflicts through the protagonist, Paul Morel, and the suffocating relationships with a demanding mother and two very different lovers. It is a pre-Freudian exploration of love and possessiveness

(Paperback)

"Symposium" gives an account of the sparkling society that was Athens at the height of her empire. The other dialogues collected here under the title "The Death of Socrates" tell the tale of how Socrates was put on trial for impiety, found guilty and sentenced to death.

(Paperback)

A novel of hypocrisy and double standards. It tells of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor and dissipated villager, who learns that she may be descended from the ancient family of d'Urbeville. In her search for respectability her fortunes fluctuate wildly, and the story assumes the proportions of a Greek tragedy.

(Paperback, New edition)

Guy de Maupassant was a master of the short story. This collection displays his lively diversity, with tales that vary in theme and tone, ranging from tragedy and satire to comedy and farce.

(Paperback)

The diverse tales selected for this volume display the astonishing virtuosity of Rudyard Kipling's early writings

(Paperback, New edition)

Cavalier and Roundhead battle it out in the turbulent setting of the English Civil war. This book tells the tale of four orphans as they face adversity, survival in the forest, reconciliation and eventual forgiveness.

(Paperback)

This collection allows the reader to become familiar with the complete range of Mansfield's work from the early, satirical stories set in Bavaria, through the luminous recollections of her childhood in New Zealand, and through the mature, deeply felt stories of her last years.

(Paperback)

In a world where capitalism is no longer held in check by fear of a communist alternative, The Communist Manifesto (with Socialism Utopian and Scientific, Engels's brief and clear exposition of Marxist thought) is essential reading. The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 is Engels's first, and probably best-known, book.

(Paperback, New edition)

The victim of a miscarriage of justice, Edmund Dantes is fired by a desire for retribution and empowered by a stroke of providence. In his campaign of vengeance, he becomes an anonymous agent of fate.

(Paperback, New edition)

Includes stories such as: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,The Cut-Glass Bowl,May Day,The Rich Boy,Crazy Sunday,An Alcoholic Case,The Lees of Happiness,The Lost DecadeandBabylon Revisited.

(Paperback, UK ed.)

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. Kafka deals in dark and quirkily humorous terms with the insoluble dilemmas of a world which offers no reassurance, and no reliable guidance to resolving our existential and emotional uncertainties and anxieties.

(Paperback)

Set before the First World War, this title tells the tale of two wealthy and sophisticated couples, one English, one American, as they travel, socialise, and take the waters in the spa towns of Europe.

(Paperback)

Alexey Ivanovitch is a young tutor in the household of a general. He is both observer and actor in the tempest which surrounds his impoverished employer. Everyone is waiting for the death of Granny, the general's rich aunt, but so far from dying, she turns up alive and well, and makes her way to the casino...

(Paperback, New edition)

Set in 1482, this novel presents a meditation on love, fate, architecture and politics, as well as a recreation of the medieval world at the dawn of the modern age.

(Paperback)

Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum in Switzerland. As he becomes embroiled in the frantic amatory and financial intrigues which centre around a cast of brilliantly realised characters and which ultimately lead to tragedy, he emerges as a unique combination of the Christian ideal of perfection.

(Paperback, New edition)

A translation of Homer's poem of war which is a magnificent testimony to the power of the Iliad. This volume retells the story of Achilles, the great warrior, and his terrible wrath before the walls of besieged Troy, and the destruction it wreaks on both Greeks and Trojans.

(Paperback, New edition)

On one level this work is the story of an airman's discovery of a small boy from another planet in the desert and his stories of intergalactic travel, and on the other hand it is a thought-provoking allegory of the human condition.

(Paperback, New edition)

Set in the heart of the Wessex, this book charts the rise and downfall of a single 'man of character'. It's moving and contrived narrative is Shakespearian in its force, and features some of the author's episodes and passages of description.

(Paperback)

Describes the adventures of Odysseus, Greek warrior, as he strives to return to his home island of Ithaca after the Trojan War. This poem also describes his endurance, his love for his wife and son.