Begun when the author was only eighteen and conceived from a nightmare, Frankenstein is the deeply disturbing story of a monstrous creation which has terrified and chilled readers since its first publication in 1818. The novel has thus seared its way into the popular imagination while establishing itself as one of the pioneering works of modern science fiction. ... |
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The Best of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twenty of the very best tales from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fifty-six short stories featuring the arch sleuth. Basing his selection around the author’s own twelve personal favourites, David Stuart Davies has added a further eight sparkling stories to Conan Doyle’s "Baker Street Dozen", creating a unique volume which distils the pure essence of the world’s most famous detective. Within these pages the reader will encounter the greatest collection of villains and the weirdest and most puzzling mysteries ever seen in print. And there at the centre, in a London ... |
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Dickens wrote of David Copperfield: "Of all my books I like this the best". Millions of readers in almost every language on earth have subsequently come to share the author's own enthusiasm for this greatly loved classic, possibly because of its autobiographical form. Following the life of David through many sufferings and great adversity, the reader will also find many light-hearted moments in the company of a host of English fiction's greatest stars including Mr Micawber, Traddles, Uriah Heep, Creakle, Betsy Trotwood, and the Peggoty family. Few readers, arriving at the end of David Copperfield, will ... |
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The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906) are world famous animal stories. Set in Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s, The Call of the Wild is about Buck, the magnificent cross-bred offspring of a St Bernard and a Scottish Collie. Stolen from his pampered life on a Californian estate and shipped to the Klondike to work as a sledge dog, he triumphs over his circumstances and becomes the leader of a wolf pack. The story records the "decivilisation" of Buck as he answers 'the call of the wild', an inherent memory of primeval origins to which he instinctively responds. In contrast, ... |
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Hans Christian Andersen is the best-loved of all tellers of fairy tales. This collection of over forty of Andersen’s most popular stories includes The Mermaid, The Real Princess, The Red Shoes, The Little Match Girl, The Snow Queen, The Tinder Box, The Ugly Duckling and many more. It is delightfully illustrated in black-and white by those remarkable brothers, Charles, Thomas and William Heath Robinson. ... |
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Jonathan Swift's classic satirical narrative was first published in 1726, seven years after Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (one of its few rivals in fame and breadth of appeal). As a parody travel-memoir it reports on extraordinary lands and societies, whose names have entered the English language: notably the minute inhabitants of Lilliput, the giants of Brobdingnag, and the Yahoos in Houyhnhnmland, where talking horses are the dominant species. It spares no vested interest from its irreverent wit, and its attack on political and financial corruption, as well as abuses in science, continue to resonate in our own ... |
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War and Peace is a vast epic centred on Napoleon's war with Russia. While it expresses Tolstoy 's view that history is an inexorable process which man cannot influence, he peoples his great novel with a cast of over five hundred characters. Three of these, the artless and delightful Natasha Rostov, the world-weary Prince Andrew Bolkonsky and the idealistic Pierre Bezukhov illustrate Tolstoy's philosophy in this novel of unquestioned mastery. This translation is one which received Tolstoy's approval. ... |
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Although the shortest of George Eliot's novels, Silas Marner is one of her most admired and loved works. It tells the sad story of the unjustly exiled Silas Marner - a handloom linen weaver of Raveloe in the agricultural heartland of England - and how he is restored to life by the unlikely means of the orphan child Eppie. Silas Marner is a tender and moving tale of sin and repentance set in a vanished rural world and holds the reader's attention until the last page as Eppie's bonds of affection for Silas are put to the test. ... |
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Walt Whitman's verse gave the poetry of America a distinctive national voice. It reflects the unique vitality of the new nation, the vastness of the land and the emergence of a sometimes troubled consciousness, communicated in language and idiom regarded by many at the time as shocking. Whitman's poems are organic and free flowing, fit into no previously defined genre and skilfully combine autobiographical, sociological and religious themes with lyrical sensuality. His verse is a fitting celebration of a new breed of American and includes "Song of Myself", "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", the ... |
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Shelley's short, prolific life produced some of the most memorable and well-known lyrics of the Romantic period. But he was also the most radical writer in the English literary tradition of his day, a fiery political visionary committed to social change and progress. The generous selection in this volume represents the wide range of his writing, both poetry and prose. Arranged chronologically, the accompanying introductory essays set Shelley's works in their historical, social and political context. They provide a vivid insight into the life and times of this volcanic spirit whose inspiring voice called on the ... |
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The Black Death is sweeping through Europe. In Florence, plague has carried off one hundred thousand people. In their Tuscan villas, seven young women and three young men tell tales to recreate the world they have lost, weaving a rich tapestry of comedy, tragedy, ribaldry and farce. Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron recasts the storytelling heritage of the ancient and medieval worlds into perennial forms that inspired writers from Chaucer and Shakespeare down to our own day. Boccaccio makes the incredible believable, with detail so sharp we can look straight into the lives of people who lived six hundred years ago. ... |
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"Treasure Island" is a tale of pirates and villains, maps, treasure and shipwreck. When young Jim Hawkins finds a packet in Captain Flint's sea chest, he could not know that the map inside it would lead him to unimaginable treasure. Shipping as cabin boy on the Hispaniola, he sails with Squire Trelawney, Captain Smollett, Dr. Livesey, the sinister Long John Silver and a frightening crew to "Treasure Island". There, mutiny, murder and mayhem lead to a thrilling climax. ... |
