From Austen to Zola, from medieval to the modern day - all genres are catered for between the covers of these coveted classics.
Classics Books
HarperCollins Publishers The Hobbit
Book SynopsisThe definitive edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's most beloved book, sporting a facsimile of his original cover design and complete with colour plates of his own paintings, brand new reproductions of all his drawings, and colour versions of both maps.Bilbo Baggins enjoys a quiet and contented life, with no desire to travel far from the comforts of home; then one day the wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves arrive unexpectedly and enlist his services as a burglar on a dangerous expedition to raid the treasure-hoard of Smaug the dragon. Bilbo's life is never to be the same again.Seldom has any book been so widely read and loved as JRR Tolkien's classic tale, The Hobbit. Since its first publication in 1937 it has remained in print to delight each new generation of readers all over the world, and its hero, Bilbo Baggins, has taken his place among the ranks of the immortals: Alice, Pooh, ToadTrade Review‘The Hobbit belongs to a very small class of books which have nothing in common save that each admits us to a world of its own. Its place is with Alice and The Wind in the Willows.’ Times Literary Supplement ‘One of the best loved characters in English fiction… a marvellous fantasy adventure’ Daily Mail ‘Finely written saga of dwarves and elves, fearsome goblins and trolls… an exciting epic of travel, magical adventure, working up to a devastating climax’ The Observer
£19.80
HarperCollins Publishers The Grass is Singing
Book SynopsisThe Nobel Prize-winner Doris Lessing's first novel is a taut and tragic portrayal of a crumbling marriage, set in South Africa during the years of Arpartheid.Set in Rhodesia, The Grass is Singing' tells the story of Dick Turner, a failed white farmer and his wife, Mary, a town girl who hates the bush and viciously abuses the black South Africans who work on their farm. But after many years, trapped by poverty, sapped by the heat of their tiny house, the lonely and frightened Mary turns to Moses, the black cook, for kindness and understanding.A masterpiece of realism, The Grass is Singing' is a superb evocation of Africa's majestic beauty, an intense psychological portrait of lives in confusion and, most of all, a fearless exploration of the ideology of white supremacy.Trade Review‘Original and striking…full of those terrifying touches of truth, seldom mentioned but instantly recognised.’ New Statesman ‘Doris Lessing responds more passionately than most writers to people or situations: often she responds with hate or rancour, but always with passion. In “The Grass is Singing”, you can feel the dynamo-like throb of a formidable talent; by its side, most novels of 1950 look like crochet-work.’ The Times ‘“The Grass is Singing” focuses on the blighted life of a woman whose spirit is destroyed by a disastrous marriage and by an environment to which she couldn’t respond. More than any other white African writer of her generation, Doris Lessing is aware of the seductive cruelty of colonialism, and is one of our strongest, fiercest voices against injustice, racism and sexual hypocrisy.’ Independent on Sunday
£8.54
HarperCollins Publishers The Dice Man This book will change your life
Book SynopsisThe cult classic that can still change your lifeLet the dice decide!This is the philosophy that changes the life of bored psychiatrist Luke Rhinehart and in some ways changes the world as well.Because once you hand over your life to the dice, anything can happen.Entertaining, humorous, scary, shocking, subversive, The Dice Man is one of the cult bestsellers of our time.Trade Review‘Touching, ingenious and beautifully comic’Anthony Burgess ‘Hilarious and well-written… sex always seems to be an option’Time Out ‘Brilliant… very impressive’Colin Wilson
£9.49
Everyman Crime And Punishment
Book SynopsisDostoesky's drama of sin, guilt and redemption transmutes the sordid story of an old woman's murder by a desperate student into the nineteenth century's profoundest and most compelling philosophical novel. Grim in theme and setting, the book nevertheless seduces by its combination of superbly drawn characters, narrative brilliance and manic comedy.
£15.30
Wordsworth Editions Ltd The House of the Dead / The Gambler
Book SynopsisTranslated by Constance Garnett with an introduction by Anthony Briggs. Dostoevsky's fascination for mental breakdown and violence (20 murders in his four main novels) was based on his own life, and these two unmistakably autobiographical works bear this out. The House of the Dead is fiction, but based on his four years in a Siberian prison. An educated upper-class man is condemned to live among criminals and brutal guards, with arbitrary punishments, lousy food, disgusting living conditions, hard toil and many floggings. Somehow he avoids bitterness and recrimination; faith in humanity survives. With its breadth of characterisation, acute sense of detail and strong narrative interest, this work can still shock, entertain and inspire. In The Gambler we see the Russian community in a German spa town. Drawn to the casino, Alexey becomes obsessed with roulette. In a gripping story, full of psychological interest, his growing mania eclipses even his interest in Polina, a heroine of demonic and vibrant sexuality. Dostoevsky himself was rescued from a similar gambling obsession by the young stenographer who took down this work at his dictation and married him soon afterwards.
£5.62
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Orlando
Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Merry M. Pawlowski, Professor and Chair, Department of English, California State University, Bakersfield. Virginia Woolf's Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Costantinople, awakes to find that he is a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.
£5.62
Wordsworth Editions Ltd North and South
Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Dr Patsy Stoneman, University of Hull. Set in the mid-19th century, and written from the author's first-hand experience, North and South follows the story of the heroine's movement from the tranquil but moribund ways of southern England to the vital but turbulent north. Elizabeth Gaskell's skilful narrative uses an unusual love story to show how personal and public lives were woven together in a newly industrial society. This is a tale of hard-won triumphs - of rational thought over prejudice and of humane care over blind deference to the market. Readers in the twenty-first century will find themselves absorbed as this Victorian novel traces the origins of problems and possibilities which are still challenging a hundred and fifty years later: the complex relationships, public and private, between men and women of different classes.
£5.62
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Ulysses (Collector's Edition)
Book SynopsisJames Joyce’s astonishing masterpiece, Ulysses, tells of the diverse events which befall Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus in Dublin on 16 June 1904, during which Bloom’s voluptuous wife, Molly, commits adultery. Initially deemed obscene in England and the USA, this richly-allusive novel, revolutionary in its Modernistic experimentalism, was hailed as a work of genius by W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway. Scandalously frank, wittily erudite, mercurially eloquent, resourcefully comic and generously humane, Ulysses offers the reader a life-changing experience.
£8.54
HarperCollins Publishers Five Little Pigs Poirot
Book SynopsisAgatha Christie's ingenious murder mystery, now presented as a sumptuous special edition hardback.Beautiful Caroline Crale was convicted of poisoning her husband, yet there were five other suspects: Philip Blake (the stockbroker) who went to market; Meredith Blake (the amateur herbalist) who stayed at home; Elsa Greer (the three-time divorcee) who had roast beef; Cecilia Williams (the devoted governess) who had none; and Angela Warren (the disfigured sister) who cried wee wee wee' all the way home.It is sixteen years later, but Hercule Poirot just can't get that nursery rhyme out of his mindTrade Review‘Despite only five suspects, Mrs Christie as usual puts a ring through the reader’s nose and leads him to one of her smashing last-minute showdowns.’Observer ‘The answer to the riddle is brilliant.’Times Literary Supplement ‘A brilliant piece of detective fiction, in which character plays an important part.’Daily Telegraph ‘Straightforward bamboozling from start to finish.’New Statesman ‘As usual, Mrs Christie hoaxes us with a double twist at the denouement, and provides excellent entertainment.’Punch ‘Agatha Christie never fails us, and her Five Little Pigs presents a very pretty problem for the ingenious reader.’ Manchester Guardian
£13.49
Oxford University Press The Wendigo and Other Stories
Book Synopsis''See!...The woods are alive! Already the Great Ones are there, and the dance will soon begin! The salve is here! Anoint yourself and come!''One of the greatest writers of the strange and weird, Algernon Blackwood evolved from a teller of ghost stories to a pioneering master of such emergent fictional modes as cosmic horror and nature Gothic. In tales whose settings range from the eerie North Woods of Canada to the mysterious sands of the Egyptian desert, Blackwood blurs the boundaries between human and nonhuman, living and dead, beckoning the reader into strange borderlands where alien forces lurk, waiting for the chance to break through into our world.This new selection of Blackwood''s shorter fiction constitutes the most comprehensive critical edition of his work to date. Included here are such undisputed classics as ''The Wendigo'', ''The Willows'', and ''Ancient Sorceries'', as well as two superbly unsettling novellas, ''The Man Whom the Trees Loved'' and ''A Descent into Egypt'', and ten other stories short and long, drawn from collections spanning Blackwood''s long writing career. Aaron Worth''s introduction and notes situate these tales in the context of Blackwood''s own upbringing in an evangelical Victorian household, as well as in relation to such topics as late-imperial British history and the emergence of modern ecological thought.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Algernon Blackwood The Wendigo and Other Stories Explanatory Notes
£9.45
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Mrs Dalloway
Book SynopsisVirginia Woolf's singular technique in Mrs Dalloway heralds a break with the traditional novel form and reflects a genuine humanity and a concern with the experiences that both enrich and stultify existence. Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party. Her thoughts and sensations on that one day, and the interior monologues of others whose lives are interwoven with hers gradually reveal the characters of the central protagonists. Clarissa's life is touched by tragedy as the events in her day run parallel to those of Septimus Warren Smith, whose madness escalates as his life draws toward inevitable suicide.
£8.54
Pan Macmillan Child of God
Book SynopsisCormac McCarthy was the author of many acclaimed novels, including Blood Meridian, Child of God and The Passenger. Among his honours are the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His works adapted to film include All the Pretty Horses, The Road and No Country for Old Men the latter film receiving four Academy Awards, including the award for Best Picture. McCarthy died in 2023 in Santa Fe, NM at the age of 89.Trade ReviewA powerful and talented writer, able to elicit compassion for his protagonist however terrible his action. * Sunday Times *A reading experience so impressive, so "new", so clearly well made that it seems almost to defy the easy aesthetic categories . . . Accomplished in rare, spare, precise yet poetic prose. * New Republic *McCarthy charts the terrible decline of Lester Ballard with passion, tenderness, eloquence, and a humour which, at its best, is attuned perfectly to the bitter wryness of the South. * Times Literary Supplement *
£9.49
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Northanger Abbey
Book SynopsisIntroduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent. Northanger Abbey tells the story of a young girl, Catherine Morland who leaves her sheltered, rural home to enter the busy, sophisticated world of Bath in the late 1790s. Austen observes with insight and humour the interaction between Catherine and the various characters whom she meets there, and tracks her growing understanding of the world about her. In this, her first full-length novel, Austen also fixes her sharp, ironic gaze on other kinds of contemporary novel, especially the Gothic school made famous by Ann Radcliffe. Catherine's reading becomes intertwined with her social and romantic adventures, adding to the uncertainties and embarrassments she must undergo before finding happiness.
£5.62
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Frankenstein
Book SynopsisFrankenstein is the classic gothic horror novel which has thrilled and engrossed readers for two centuries. Written by Mary Shelley, it is a story which she intended would ‘curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart.’ The tale is a superb blend of science fiction, mystery and thriller. Victor Frankenstein driven by the mad dream of creating his own creature, experiments with alchemy and science to build a monster stitched together from dead remains. Once the creature becomes a living breathing articulate entity, it turns on its maker and the novel darkens into tragedy. The reader is very quickly swept along by the force of the elegant prose, the grotesque, surreal imagery, and the multi-layered themes in the novel. Although first published in 1818, Shelley’s masterpiece still maintains a strong grip on the imagination and has been the inspiration for numerous horror movies, television and stage adaptations.
£5.62
Simon & Schuster The Metamorphosis
Book SynopsisEnriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.So begins The Metamorphosis, one of the most recognizable opening lines in literature. The story of Gregor Samsa, a young man who, after transforming overnight into a giant, beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, and a quintessentially alienated man. One of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction, The Metamorphosis is a harrowing yet absurdly comic meditation on inadequacy, guilt, and isolation. A work in which, in the words of Vladimir Nabokov, &
£7.59
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Persuasion
Book SynopsisWhat does persuasion mean - a firm belief, or the action of persuading someone to think something else? Anne Elliot is one of Austen's quietest heroines, but also one of the strongest and the most open to change. She lives at the time of the Napoleonic wars, a time of accident, adventure, the making of new fortunes and alliances.
£8.54
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Black Beauty
Book SynopsisAnna Sewell’s Black Beauty was an immediate success on its publication in 1877, and has gone on to sell an estimated 50 million copies. Black Beauty is a horse with a fine black coat, a white foot and a silver star on his forehead. Seen through his eyes, the story tells of his idyllic upbringing and the hardship and cruelty he suffers subsequently, before finding security and happiness in a new home. Black Beauty is one of the most popular children’s books ever written.
£4.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Lady in the Lake
Book Synopsis''Everything was quiet and sunny and calm. No cause for excitement whatever. It''s only Marlowe, finding another body. He does it rather well by now. Murder-a-day Marlowe, they call him . . .''Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired to find a missing woman. Derace Kingsley''s wife ran away to Mexico to get a divorce and marry a hunk named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband says. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything. But when Marlowe next encounters Lavery, he''s denying nothing - on account of the two bullet holes in his heart. Now Marlowe''s on the trail of a killer, who leads him out of smoggy Los Angeles all the way to a murky mountain lake . . .The Lady in the Lake is Raymond Chandler''s fourth novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe.''Chandler''s best novels carry the crime story to levels of artistry that have rarely been matched'' Daily Mail''Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence'' Daily Telegraph ''One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain'' Sunday Times''Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes'' Anthony BurgessTrade ReviewChandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious -- Robert B. Parker * The New York Times Book Review *Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since -- Paul AusterRaymond Chandler is a star of the first magnitude -- Erle Stanley Gardner[T]he prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision -- Joyce Carol Oates * New York Review of Books *Raymond Chandler is a master * New York Times *Philip Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye * Los Angeles Times *Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence * Daily Telegraph *Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner. . . A great artist * The Boston Book Review *
£7.99
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Gulliver's Travels
Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury. 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 times.
£5.35
HarperCollins Publishers Tully
Book SynopsisThe astonishing debut novel from international number one bestselling author Paullina Simons, beautifully repackagedTully Makker is a tough young woman from the wrong side of the tracks and she is not always easy to like. But if Tully gives friendship and loyalty, she gives them for good, and she forms an enduring bond with Jennifer and Julie, school friends from very different backgrounds.As they grow into the world of the seventies and eighties, the lives of the three best friends are changed forever by two young men, Robin and Jack, and a tragedy which engulfs them all.Against the odds, Tully emerges into young womanhood, marriage and a career. At last Tully Makker has life under control. And then life strikes back in the most unexpected way of allTrade Review‘You’ll never look at life in the same way again. Pick up this book and prepare to have your emotions wrung so completely you’ll be sobbing your heart out one minute and laughing through your tears the next. Tully could be any one of us – a young woman who is strong, full of hope and carrying a lot of childhood baggage. Her experiences of pain, despair and betrayal are offset by moments of dazzling joy, love and, above all, friendship. Read it and weep – literally’ Company ‘A lovely and resonant evocation of that first great bond between woman…It’s deeply moving’ Anne Rivers Siddons ‘As a first novel this is quite astonishing’ Bookseller
£11.69
HarperCollins Publishers A Pocket Full of Rye
Book SynopsisA wealthy familyA fatal cup of teaRex Fortescue was enjoying his morning cup of tea when he met his untimely end.Suspicions naturally turn to his wife. He was filthy rich, after all.Then she too is found dead.Strange clues have Scotland Yard's finest minds scratching their heads. Poisoned marmalade. Dead blackbirds. A victim found with a pocketful of rye.It's up to Jane Marple to put the pieces of this strange puzzle togetherNever underestimate Miss MarpleCaptivating and addictive, Agatha Christie''s work never fails to delight.'Jean KwokThis is the best of the novels starring Christie's Miss Marple.'New York TimesTrade Review‘Without a doubt, the greatest mystery writer of all time’ – Ragnar Jonasson ‘A hundred years after her first novel, and we are all still standing in her shadow’ – Andrew Taylor ‘She gives us an insight into human nature that few, if any, have surpassed’ – Susan Lewis ‘Dame Agatha has sold more books than all besides Shakespeare and the Bible’ – David Baldacci ‘All crime fiction writers around the globe owe Agatha Christie a massive debt’ – Peter James ‘Reading a perfectly plotted Agatha Christie is like crunching into a perfect apple: that pure, crisp, absolute satisfaction.’ – Tana French
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.
£5.62
Alma Books Ltd Dead Souls
Book SynopsisA mysterious stranger named Chichikov arrives in a small provincial Russian town and proceeds to visit a succession of landowners, making each of them an unusual and somewhat macabre proposition. He offers to buy the rights to the dead serfs who are still registered on the landowner's estate, thus reducing their liability for taxes. It is not clear what Chichikov's intentions are with the dead serfs he is purchasing, and despite his attempts to ingratiate himself, his strange behaviour arouses the suspicions of everyone in the town.A biting satire of social pretensions and pomposity, Dead Souls has been revered since its original publication in 1842 as one of the funniest and most brilliant novels of nineteenth-century Russia. Its unflinching and remorseless depiction of venality in Russian society is a lasting tribute to Gogol's comic genius.Trade Review"Gogol was a strange creature, but then genius is always strange." - Vladimir Nabokov
£7.59
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Heart of Darkness
Book SynopsisIntroduction and Notes by Gene M. Moore, Universiteit van Amsterdam. Generally regarded as the pre-eminent work of Conrad's shorter fiction, Heart of Darkness is a chilling tale of horror which, as the author intended, is capable of many interpretations. Set in the Congo during the period of rapid colonial expansion in the 19th century, the story deals with the highly disturbing effects of economic, social and political exploitation of European and African societies and the cataclysmic behaviour this induced in some individuals. The other two stories in this book – Youth and The End of the Tether – concern the sea and those who sail upon it, a genre in which Conrad reigns supreme.Table of ContentsYouth: A Narrative Heart of Darkness The End of the Tether
£5.62
Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Last of the Mohicans
Book SynopsisIntroduction and Notes by David Blair. University of Kent at Canterbury. It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain and France struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for possession of the same lands and between the native peoples and white colonisers. Through these layers of conflict Cooper threads a thrilling narrative, in which Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of a British commander on the front line of the colonial war, attempt to join their father. Thwarted by Magua, the sinister 'Indian runner', they find help in the person of Hawkeye, the white woodsman, and his companions, the Mohican Chingachgook and Uncas, his son, the last of his tribe. Cooper's novel is full of vivid incident- pursuits through wild terrain, skirmishes, treachery and brutality- but reflects also on the interaction between the colonists and the native peoples. Through the character of Hawkeye, Cooper raises lasting questions about the practises of the American frontier and the eclipse of the indigenous cultures.
£5.35
Penguin Books Ltd Farewell My Lovely
Book Synopsis''I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room''Cynical Los Angeles Private Investigator Philip Marlowe always falls for a sob story. Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married - until Malloy was framed for armed robbery. Now he''s out and he wants Velma back. Marlowe meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood and, out of the generosity of his jaded heart, agrees to help. Dragged from one smoky bar to another, Marlowe''s search for Velma turns up plenty of gangsters with a nasty habit of shooting first and talking later. And soon what started as a search for a missing person becomes a matter of life and death . . .Farewell, My Lovely is Raymond Chandler''s second novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe.''Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence'' Daily Telegraph
£9.49
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Peter Pan: Includes Peter Pan in Kensington
Book SynopsisThe magical Peter Pan comes to the night nursery of the Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael. He teaches them to fly, then takes them through the sky to Never-Never Land, where they find wolves, Mermaids and... Pirates. The leader of the pirates is the sinister Captain Hook. His hand was bitten off by a crocodile, who, as Captain Hook explains 'liked me arm so much that he has followed me ever since, licking his lips for the rest of me'. After lots of adventures, the story reaches its exciting climax as Peter, Wendy and the children do battle with Captain Hook and his band. This edition also includes Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens which is the magical tale that first introduces Peter Pan, the little boy who never grows any older. He escapes his human form and flies to Kensington Gardens, where all his happy memories are, and meets the fairies, the thrushes, and Old Caw the crow. The fairies think he is too human to be allowed to stay in after Lock-out time, so he flies off to an island which divides the Gardens from the more grown-up Hyde Park - Peter's adventures, and how he eventually meets Mamie and the goat, are delightfully illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
£9.22
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Treasure Island
Book Synopsis‘Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!’ Treasure Island is a tale of pirates and villains, maps, treasure and shipwreck, and is perhaps the best adventure story ever written. 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.
£4.99
HarperCollins Publishers Beren and Lúthien
Book SynopsisPainstakingly restored from Tolkien's manuscripts and presented for the first time as a continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of Beren and Lúthien will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Dwarves and Orcs and the rich landscape and creatures unique to Tolkien's Middle-earth.The tale of Beren and Lúthien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths and legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale in the following year.Essential to the story, and never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren and Lúthien: for Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was an immortal Elf. Her father, a great Elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Lúthien. This is the kernel of the legend; and it leads to the supremely heroic attemTrade Review‘A seamless editorial construct, the capstone to a job Christopher Tolkien began with The Silmarillion’New Statesman ‘Critical moments are caught, as in The Children of Húrin, by Alan Lee’s nine outstanding colour plates’Times Literary Supplement Praise for The Children of Húrin:‘I hope that its universality and power will grant it a place in English mythology’Independent on Sunday ‘The darkest of all Tolkien’s tales. Alan Lee’s illustrations complement the writing splendidly’Times Literary Supplement
£8.54
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Lorna Doone
Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Dr Pamela Knights, Department of English Studies, Durham University. Lorna Doone, a Romance of Exmoor is an historical novel of high adventure set in the South West of England during the turbulent time of Monmouth's rebellion (1685). It is also a moving love story told through the life of the young farmer John Ridd, as he grows to manhood determined to right the wrongs in his land, and to win the heart and hand of the beautiful Lorna Doone. Continuously in print since its first publication in 1869, Lorna Doone has remained perennially popular with a wide readership ever since.
£5.35
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Devils
Book SynopsisTranslated by Constance Garnett with an Introduction by A.D.P. Briggs. In 1869 a young Russian was strangled, shot through the head and thrown into a pond. His crime? A wish to leave a small group of violent revolutionaries, from which he had become alienated. Dostoevsky takes this real-life catastrophe as the subject and culmination of Devils, a title that refers the young radicals themselves and also to the materialistic ideas that possessed the minds of many thinking people Russian society at the time. The satirical portraits of the revolutionaries, with their naivety, ludicrous single-mindedness and readiness for murder and destruction, might seem exaggerated - until we consider their all-too-recognisable descendants in the real world ever since. The key figure in the novel, however, is beyond politics. Nikolay Stavrogin, another product of rationalism run wild, exercises his charisma with ruthless authority and total amorality. His unhappiness is accounted for when he confesses to a ghastly sexual crime - in a chapter long suppressed by the censor. This prophetic account of modern morals and politics, with its fifty-odd characters, amazing events and challenging ideas, is seen by some critics as Dostoevsky's masterpiece.
£5.62
Alma Books Ltd The War of the Worlds
Book SynopsisWhen an army of invading Martians lands in England, panic and terror seize the population. As the aliens traverse the country in huge three-legged machines, incinerating all in their path with a heat ray and spreading noxious toxic gases, the people of the Earth must come to terms with the prospect of the end of human civilization and the beginning of Martian rule. Inspiring films, radio dramas, comic-book adaptations, television series and sequels, The War of the Worlds is a prototypical work of science fiction which has influenced every alien story that has come since, and is unsurpassed in its ability to thrill, well over a century since it was first published.Trade ReviewI personally consider the greatest of English living writers [to be] H.G. Wells. -- Upton Sinclair
£6.99
Alma Books Ltd Middlemarch
Book SynopsisThe most ambitious narrative of nineteenth-century realism, Middlemarch tells the story of an entire town in the years leading up to the Reform Bill of 1832, a time when modern methods were starting to challenge old orthodoxies. Eliot's sophisticated and acute characterization gives rich expression to every nuance of feeling, and vividly brings to life the town's inhabitants - including the young idealist Dorothea Brooke, the dry scholar Casaubon, the young, passionate reformist doctor Lydgate, the flighty young beauty Rosamond and the old, secretive banker Bulstrode - as they move in counterpoint to each other. Art, religion, politics, society, science, human relationships in all their complexity, nothing is left unexamined under the narrator's microscope. One of the greatest novels written in the English language, Middlemarch is a literary landmark in its groundbreaking approach, as well as a priceless document of its age.Trade ReviewA novel without weaknesses, it renews itself for every generation. -- Martin Amis
£6.99
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Shirley
Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Sally Minogue The Shirley of the title 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. The novel is set in a period of social and political ferment, featuring class disenfranchisement, the drama of Luddite machine-breaking, and the divisive effects of the Napoleonic Wars. But Charlotte Brontës particular strength lies in exploring the hidden psychological drama of love, loss and the quest for identity. Personal and public agitation are brought together against the dramatic backdrop of her native Yorkshire. As always, Brontë challenges convention, exploring the limitations of social justice whilst telling not one but two love stories.
£5.62
HarperCollins Publishers The Fellowship of the Ring
Book SynopsisBegin your journey into Middle-earth. A New Legend Begins on Prime Video, in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Trade Review‘The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and those who are going to read them.’Sunday Times ‘A story magnificently told, with every kind of colour and movement and greatness.’New Statesman ‘Masterpiece? Oh yes, I’ve no doubt about that.’ Evening Standard ‘Among the greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century.’Sunday Telegraph ‘Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron.’C.S. Lewis
£9.49
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Crime and Punishment (Collector's Editions)
Book Synopsis"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart…” Crime and Punishment is one of the greatest and most readable novels ever written. From the beginning we are locked into the frenzied consciousness of Raskolnikov who, against his better instincts, is inexorably drawn to commit a brutal double murder. From that moment on, we share his conflicting feelings of self-loathing and pride, of contempt for and need of others, and of terrible despair and hope of redemption: and, in a remarkable transformation of the detective novel, we follow his agonised efforts to probe and confront both his own motives for, and the consequences of, his crime. The result is a tragic novel built out of a series of supremely dramatic scenes that illuminate the eternal conflicts at the heart of human existence: most especially our desire for self-expression and self-fulfilment, as against the constraints of morality and human laws; and our agonised awareness of the world’s harsh injustices and of our own mortality, as against the mysteries of divine justice and immortality.
£8.54
Oneworld Publications Tales from Watership Down
Book SynopsisTales from Watership Down is the enchanting sequel to Richard Adams’s bestselling classic Watership Down, which won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. Adams returns to the vivid and distinctive world he created in that enduring work, reacquainting readers with the characters we know and love, including Fiver, Hazel, Bigwig, Dandelion and the legendary rabbit hero El-ahrairah. These compelling tales include all-new adventures, with the younger generation of rabbits eager to find out about the heroic age that existed before they were born. Enchanting us once again with stories of courage and survival, the millions of readers who enjoyed Watership Down now have the chance to re-enter this unique and spell-binding world.Trade ReviewPraise for Watership Down ‘Stunning, compulsive reading.’ * Sunday Times *‘A whole world is created, perfectly real in itself, yet constituting a deep incidental comment on human affairs.’ * Guardian *
£11.24
Flame Tree Publishing Ivanhoe
Book SynopsisThe FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning edition features deluxe cover treatments, ribbon markers, luxury endpapers and gilded edges. The unabridged text is accompanied by a Glossary of Victorian and Literary terms produced for the modern reader.Set in twelfth-century England during the reign of Richard I, Ivanhoe is Sir Walter Scott’s best known novel. Its depictions of witch trials, violent tournaments, sieges and ambushes make it a gripping read. The tense divisions between the Normans and the Saxons, the rich, the poor and the controversial figure of Robin Hood, and between King Richard and his untrustworthy brother are all explored in this brilliant account of the medieval era.
£9.89
HarperCollins Publishers The Devil Wears Prada
Book SynopsisThe classic bestseller over a million copies sold worldwide!*Soon to be a major musical, written by Elton John and starring Vanessa Williams*High fashion, low cunning and the boss from hell When Andrea first sets foot in the plush Manhattan offices of Runway, she knows nothing. She''s never heard of the world''s most fashionable magazine, or its feared and fawned-over editor, Miranda Priestly her new boss.A year later, she knows altogether too much. She knows that it''s a sacking offence to wear anything lower than a three-inch heel to work, that you can charge cars, manicures, anything at all to the Runway account, but you must never, ever, leave your desk, or let Miranda''s coffee get cold. And she knows that at 3 a.m. on a Sunday, when your boyfriend''s dumping you because you''re always at work, if Miranda phones, you jump.But this is Andrea's big break it''s going to be worth it in the end.Isn''t it??????The Devil Wears Prada is everyone''s favourite book ?????''Watched the moTrade ReviewPRAISE FOR THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA: ‘This little gem mixes Sex and the City charm with dry New York wit.’ REAL ‘Sassy, insightful and sooo Sex and The City, you'll be rushing to the bookshop for your copy like it's a half price Prada sale.’ COMPANY ‘The most fun we've had in ages.’ HEAT ‘Delicious…a great insight into the world of magazines and fashion.’ RED
£9.49
Oxford University Press The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories
Book SynopsisArthur Machen is a significant figure in supernatural and horror literature, in the genre of 'weird fiction'. This collection brings together his best horror tales with a full contextual introduction and which helps to illuminate Machen's place in the literary and cultural milieu of 1890s Britain.Trade ReviewThis is a must-have collection of landmark tales of horror. * Publisher's Weekly *Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Arthur Machen The Lost Club The Great God Pan The Inmost Light The Three Impostors The Red Hand The Shining Pyramid The Turanians The Idealist Witchcraft The Ceremony Psychology Midsummer The White People The Bowmen The Monstrance N The Tree of Life Change Ritual Explanatory Notes
£16.99
Penguin Books Ltd East of Eden
Book SynopsisA masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America’s most enduring authorsA Penguin Classic In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. 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 generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean and read by t
£14.62
Penguin Books Ltd Frankenstein The 1818 Text
Book SynopsisMary Shelley''s seminal novel of the scientist whose creation becomes a monsterThis edition is the original 1818 text, which preserves the hard-hitting and politically charged aspects of Shelley''s original writing, as well as her unflinching wit and strong female voice. This edition also includes a new introduction and suggestions for further reading by author and Shelley expert Charlotte Gordon, literary excerpts and reviews selected by Gordon and a chronology and essay by preeminent Shelley scholar Charles E. Robinson.Trade Review“Gordon’s framing is the real standout of the anniversary edition (…) Highly recommended.”—N. K. Jemisin, The New York Times Book Review“Frankenstein is as efficient and resonant a reference today as it was in 1818. . . In this bicentennial year, much will be written about Frankenstein, its adaptations, and whether there exists a definitive or superior version of the novel. . . The 1818 Text is reflective of the thrill and nervous energy that ushered in a new era of science and society. . . But part of what makes it a little unsettling is what makes it so interesting: The chance to watch a 200-year-old novel develop. In a story that's reflected so much of the last two hundred years, and centers so much on choices, storytelling, and the potential for change, it only makes sense that Frankenstein reflects changes within its own creator”—Genevieve Valentine, NPR
£9.49
Harvard University Press Iliad Volume I
Book SynopsisThe Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer (eighth century BC) are the two oldest European epic poems. The former tells of Achilles’ anger over an insult to his honor during the Trojan War, and of its consequences for the Achaeans, the Trojans, and Achilles himself.
£23.70
Little, Brown Book Group Excellent Women
Book Synopsis'One of the most endearingly amusing English novels of the twentieth century' Alexander McCall SmithTrade ReviewI'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym -- Richard Osman * Guardian *I pick up her books with joy, as though I were meeting an old, dear friend who comforts me, extends my vision and makes me roar with laughterOne of the finest examples of high comedyWhy shouldn't the lives of cardigan-wearing spinsters and fussy confirmed bachelors be the engines of some of the finest comic writing in English? Not only was Pym a comic genius but she was ever so wise * The Times *I don't think I've ever before recommended a novel as one that everybody will enjoy and yet - even with a certain assurance - I'm prepared to vouch for Excellent Women * Observer *Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life -- Anne TylerOne of the most endearingly amusing English novels of the twentieth century -- Alexander McCall Smith
£9.49
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Dubliners (Collector's Edition)
Book SynopsisLiving overseas but writing, always, about his native city, Joyce made Dublin unforgettable. The stories in Dubliners show us truants, seducers, gossips, rally-drivers, generous hostesses, corrupt politicians, failing priests, amateur theologians, struggling musicians, moony adolescents, victims of domestic brutishness, sentimental aunts and poets, patriots earnest or cynical, and people striving to get by. In every sense an international figure, Joyce was faithful to his own country by seeing it unflinchingly and challenging every precedent and piety in Irish literature.
£8.54
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Lady Chatterley's Lover (Collector's Edition)
Book SynopsisTrapped in a marriage which has become sterile and joyless since her husband's return from the trenches of the First World War, partially paralysed and confined to a wheelchair, Connie seizes the chance of sexual fulfilment she had thought lost to her forever. First published privately in Florence in 1928, it only became a world-wide best-seller after Penguin Books had successfully resisted an attempt by the British Director of Public Prosecutions to prevent them offering an unexpurgated edition. The famous ‘Lady Chatterley trial’ heralded the sexual revolution of the coming decades and signalled the defeat of Establishment prudery.
£8.54
Alma Books Ltd Oblomov: New Translation: Newly Translated and
Book SynopsisFirst published in 1859, Oblomov is an indisputable classic of Russian literature, comparable in its stature to such masterpieces as Gogol’s Dead Souls, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. The book centres on the figure of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a member of the dying class of the landed gentry, who spends most of his time lying in bed gazing at life in an apathetic daze, encouraged by his equally lazy servant Zakhar and routinely swindled by his acquaintances. But this torpid existence comes to an end when, spurred on by his crumbling finances, the love of a woman and the reproaches of his friend, the hard-working Stoltz, Oblomov finds that he must engage with the real world and face up to his commitments. Rich in situational comedy, psychological complexity and social satire, Oblomov – here presented in Stephen Pearl’s award-winning translation, the first major English-language version of the novel in more than fifty years – is a timeless novel and a monument to human idleness.Trade ReviewPearl's approach is more adventurous than that of his predecessors. His text flows naturally, capturing Goncharov's carefully modulated tone, the gentleness of his humour, and the colloquial flavour of his dialogue…Stephen Pearl has indeed caught the very essence of Oblomov. * TLS *I am in rapture over Oblomov and keep rereading it. -- Leo TolstoyGoncharov is ten heads above me in talent. -- Anton Chekhov
£9.49
Wordsworth Editions Ltd This Side of Paradise / The Beautiful and Damned
Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Lionel Kelly, University of Reading. This Side of Paradise tells the story of Amory Blaine, the only child of wealthy parents, whose journey from adolescence to adulthood follows him from prep school through to Princeton University, where his literary talents flourish, in contrast to his academic failure. A sequence of love affairs with beautiful young women are fatally damaged by the collapse of his family’s fortune, and the novel ends with him poised to face the challenge of making his own way in the world. Composed in an unconventional narrative mode, the novel is a rich fusion of satiric and romance idioms, and found a captivated audience on its publication in 1920. It made Fitzgerald rich and famous overnight. The Beautiful and Damned is a bleaker version of the corrosive power of wealth and its privileges, one of Fitzgerald’s abiding subjects. Anthony Patch, is heir to a huge fortune, whose marriage to the beautiful and indolent Gloria is increasingly shadowed by Anthony’s fall into alcoholism. Though he wins a lawsuit to gain his inheritance of millions of dollars, it is a pyrrhic victory, for he is now a physically and morally broken man.
£5.62
