(Hardback)

Edward Lear, the 20th child of a London stockbroker, entered the household of Lord Stanley as little more than a servant, but his sense of humour soon made him welcome above stairs and he began to amuse the children with comic drawings and rhymes. This book was first published in 1846.

(Hardback)

Perhaps one of the most popular of Stevenson's works, A Child's Garden Of Verses, first published in 1885, is regarded universally as one of the greatest recollections of childhood in verse.

(Hardback)

The story of Scrooge, a miser who becomes a different man when he is presented with visions of past, present and future by Marley's ghost. First published on 17th December 1843, it had, by Christmas Eve of that year, sold 6000 copies at a price of five shillings.

(Hardback)

The most popular of all ghost stories was first published on 17 December 1843, and by Christmas Eve 6, 000 copies had been sold at a published price of five shillings.

(Hardback)

A damsell in distress - an Almost Blandings novel set in Belphi Castle, Hampshire and a two week house party for the son-and-heir's 21st.

(Hardback)

(Hardback)

One of Hemingway's finest novels, A FAREWELL TO ARMS was published in 1929 when the author was at the height of his power, It draws on his own experiences serving with the Italins in World War One when he was severely wounded in action and awarded the Croce de Guerra.

(Hardback)

Contains stories that include "The Fat of the Land", "Scratch Man", "The Right Approach", "Jeeves Makes An Omelette", "The Word In Season", "Big Business", "Leave It To Algy", "Joy Bells For Walter", "A Tithe For Charity", and "Oofy, Freddie and the Beef Trust".

(Hardback)

In this comic novel - dedicated to Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in the stage version - Jimmy Pitt, man-about-town and former newspaper hound, takes a bet that he cannot commit burglary.

(Hardback)

Set in the Caucasus, the scene of Russia's military campaigns in the 19th century, this is both an adventure story and a sardonic look at the heroic ideals of the author's contemporaries - which makes it all the more ironic that the main character, Pushkin, (like the author) was killed in a duel.

(Hardback)

In the comic masterpiece which established him one of the greatest writers in the English language, Naipaul follows the fortunes of Mr Biswas, the outsider who refuses to conform to the customs of his grander in-laws whose house he lives in. Finally finding a house of his own, he triumphs over the smaller minds who would repress him.

(Hardback)

When James Boswell persuaded Samuel Johnson to embark on a tour of Boswells native Scotland in 1773, the adventure resulted in two magnificent books, Johnsons Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and BoswellsJournal of a Tour to the Hebrides.

(Hardback)

Set in British India in the 1920s, this book looks at racial conflict. The characters struggle to overcome their own differences and prejudices, but when the Indian Dr Aziz is tried for the alleged assault of Adela Quested even the strongest inter-racial friendships come under pressure.

(Hardback)

Blandings Castle lacks its usual balm for the Earl of Emsworth, as his stern sister Lady Constance Keeble is once more in residence. With a painting of reclining nude at the centre of numerous intrigues, Gally's genius is once again required to sort things out.

(Hardback)

A classic novel which follows Stephen Dedalus as he progresses from boyhood to his coming of age in Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century, describing his sexual awakening, his intellectual development and his rebellion against Roman Catholicism. From the author of Dubliners, Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake.

(Hardback)

The action of the novel takes place at the fictional "Beckford College", a private school for boys; the title alludes to the arrival at the school of a mischievous young boy called Farnie, who turns out to be the uncle of the older "Bishop" Gethryn, a prefect, cricketer and popular figure in the school.

(Hardback)

These stories of the 19th-century Russian rural landscape and the difficult life of those who inhabited it were universally popular with the reading public at large and contributed in no small measure to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861.

(Hardback)

Famous for the character of Sidney Carton who sacrifices himself upon the guillotine' it is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done '- the novel is also a powerful study of crowd psychology and the dark emotions aroused by the Revolution, illuminated by Dickens' lively comedy

(Hardback)

This powerful twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear centers on a wealthy Iowa farmer who decides to divide his farm among his three daughters. Ambitiously conceived and stunningly written, A Thousand Acres spins the most fundamental themes of truth, justice, love, and pride into a universally acclaimed masterpiece.

(Hardback)

Writing just after the French and American revolutions, Mary Wollstonecraft firmly established the demand for womens emancipation in the context of the ever-widening urge for human rights and individual freedom that followed in the wake of these two great upheavals.

(Hardback)

The American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne was a friend of the poet Longfellow and had much earlier suggested they collaborate on a story for children based on the legend of Pandora's Box, but this never materialized.

(Hardback)

A story which evokes a bygone rural life, and is charged with a personal passion that intensifies the novel's outer dramas of seduction and betrayal and inner dramas of moral growth and redemption.

(Hardback)

Set in the dramatic northern landscape made familiar by the author's more famous sisters, this title tells the story of Helen Graham, a mysterious single woman who rents the semi-ruinous Hall of the title.

(Hardback)

From the Eastern folk tales that make up the vast collection known as THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS certain stories - of Aladdin, Sindbad and Ali Baba - have become everlasting favourites with children and a magical ingredient of Christmas pantomine.