Classics Books

Book SynopsisA lost-world fantasy in the tradition of Arthur Conan Doyle and the Utopianism of William Morris, Herland inverted expectations with its exclusively female society visited by three men from the Edwardian era. An early example of feminist science fiction, this utopian fantasy explores miracle births, role reversals and concepts of peace and freedom. Flame Tree 451 presents a new series, The Foundations of Feminist Fiction. The early 1900s saw a quiet revolution in literature previously dominated by male adventure heroes. Both men and women moved beyond the norms of the male gaze to write from a different gender perspective, sometimes with female protagonists, but also expressing the universal freedom to write on any subject whatsoever. Each book features a brand new biography and a glossary of literary terms.

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Book SynopsisGian-Luca has a rocky start in life, his mother dying in childbirth, his father unknown, and he is sent to grow up with his grandparents amongst an Italian immigrant community on Old Compton Street. He becomes a waiter, where he learns the value of hard work, and soon lands a promotion to head waiter in a fine-dining restaurant. He excels in this position, and it is not long before he meets Maddelena, to whom he gets married. It seems he has found a happy ending. However, despite his marriage to Maddelena and his achievements in his work, he finds he is not happy, after all. Life loses its joy, and he comes to despise those he serves in the restaurant, seeing in the diners the ugly side of society. Disconsolate, he sets out to seek a more fulfilling life, and becomes a hermit, trying to reconnect with nature, and hoping to find peace outside of society. Despite winning awards upon its publication, Adam’s Breed sank into obscurity following the censorship of Hall’s later novel The Well of Loneliness. An early example of immigrant narratives, yet still relevant today, it is time Gian-Luca’s stirring tale found its way back to the canon.

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Book SynopsisLittle treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift 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. Originally published as a series in The Strand Magazine, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s second collection of Sherlock Holmes stories was originally intended to mark the final appearance of the brilliant detective. Holmes’ exceptional powers of observation and deduction are once more put to the test in these twelve adventures full of murder and intrigue, culminating in “The Final Problem”. After finally meeting his match in Professor James Moriarty, a nefarious criminal mastermind, Holmes must face off against his most dangerous nemesis yet.

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Book SynopsisLittle treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift 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. James Joyce’s first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) is a captivating evocation of the emotional, intellectual and creative coming of age of the young Stephen Dedalus, essentially Joyce’s alter ego. The originality and inventiveness of its modernist style prefigures Joyce’s yet more experimental masterpiece Ulysses and offers a profound, poetic insight into Joyce himself as well as a personal journey of awakening and rebellion.

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Book SynopsisLittle treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift 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. Also includes the Second Jungle Book. Arguably his best known work, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is a classic for the ages. First published in 1894, this collection of fables has captured the imagination of children for generations. Many of the stories follow the adventures of Mowgli, the ‘man-cub’ raised by wolves, and his companions Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther as they explore the jungle and face off against foes such as the fearsome tiger Shere Khan. The FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library.

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Book SynopsisLittle treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift 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. Two other tales are included: The Chimes and The Haunted Man. Ebenezer Scrooge hates everyone and everything. Especially children. Especially Christmas. He’s greedy, wealthy and cold-hearted, which has harrowed his features, giving him a pointy nose and thin, blue lips. On Christmas Eve Scrooge is visited by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come – but can they make him change his ways? A Christmas Carol is a novella by Charles Dickens. It was first published on 19 December 1843 and the first edition had sold out by Christmas Eve. The story of the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge has only continued to grow in popularity since then and it is now one of the most widely known stories in the world. The FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library.

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Book SynopsisWith a new introduction by Professor John Sutherland, this edition takes a fresh look at one of the great works of the twentieth century. Animal Farm is a moral animal fable written to highlight the weakness of humankind, and satirize the rule of Stalin, whose rise through revolution ended in totalitarianism. Peppered with slogans such as 'All Animals Are Equal', Orwell undermines the dark treachery of the pigs with a simple economy of style as, open-eyed and naive, the other animals allow themselves to be outmanoeuvred. By the end of the book the pigs are as corrupt and arrogant as the humans they replace. For many, the book was a wider allegory of human behaviour, a lament; but for others it was a call to action that foreshadowed the Cold War, where differing world views would attempt to adopt Orwell's great work for their own purpose.

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Book SynopsisLittle treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift 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. During the height of the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, the Scarlet Pimpernel leads a secret league to rescue many of those destined for the guillotine. An enigma lurking in the shadows, known only to his close friends, he faces his most deadly enemy, the sinister Chauvelin, in a series of intriguing adventures.

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Book SynopsisLittle treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift 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. Regarded by many as one of the greatest crime novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles brings Sherlock Holmes to the brink of failure before the inevitable triumph at the end. His deductive, rational approach, one that determines his every move, is pitched against supernatural forces, in the search for the mysterious cause of Sir Charles Baskerville's death. Was it the family curse, a huge phantom hound, or something more logical and explainable? Sherlock Holmes has entertained readers and viewers alike for over 120 years, remaining one of the most celebrated movie characters, played more recently by Robert Downey Jnr (Iron Man) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr Strange).

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Book SynopsisA new edition with a new introduction, Du Bois' radical text is a rare statement of values formed around the vision of a collective life, where the humanity of black women and men is treated with dignity and equality. He expresses his themes through a series of literary forms: polemic essay, spirituals, poetry and short science fiction, each of which forms a pulse of social justice from a time when a true understanding of intersections between poverty, work, racism and feminism was rare. A new title in the Foundations of Black Science Fiction series. FLAME TREE 451: From mystery to crime, supernatural to horror and myth, fantasy and science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and robots, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales, ancient and modern gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic. The Foundations titles also explore the roots of modern fiction and brings together neglected works which deserve a wider readership as part of a series of classic, essential books.

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Book SynopsisIt is the general view at Eckleton school that there never was such a house of slackers as Kay's. Fenn, head of house and county cricketer, does his best to impose some discipline but is continually undermined by his house-master, the meddlesome and ineffectual Mr Kay. After the Summer Concert fiasco, Mr Kay resolves to remove Fenn from office and puts his house into special measures, co-opting Kennedy, second prefect of Blackburn's, as reluctant troubleshooter with a brief to turn the place around. But without the backing of Fenn, and the whole house hostile towards him, how can he achieve the impossible ...?Trade ReviewWodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in. -- Evelyn WaughThe handsome bindings are only the cherry on top of what is already a cake without compare * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisThe original American in Paris. This dark comedy, seen as one of the masterpieces of James's final period, has all the elements of great writing, brilliant plot and gorgeous setting- An Edwardian gentleman from the States arrives in seedy and sophisticated Paris to rescue his wayward future step son. But his innocent American background has not prepared him for such seduction... Beautiful hardback gift edition of this collectable classic. This complex tale of self-discovery -- considered by the author to be his best work -- traces the path of an aging idealist, Lambert Strether. Arriving in Paris with the intention of persuading his young charge to abandon an obsession with a French woman and return home, Strether reaches unexpected conclusions.

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Book SynopsisFirst published anonymously in 1912, this resolutely unsentimental novel gave many white readers their first glimpse of the double standards - and double consciousness - experienced by Black people in modern America. Republished in 1927, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, with an introduction by Carl Van Vechten, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man became a pioneering document of African-American culture and an eloquent model for later novelists ranging from Zora Neale Hurston to Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison.Narrated by a man whose light skin enables him to 'pass' for white, the novel describes a journey through the strata of Black society at the turn of the century - from a cigar factory in Jacksonville to an elite gambling club in New York, from genteel aristocrats to the musicians who hammered out the rhythms of Ragtime. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a complex and moving examination of the question of race and an unsparing look at what it meant to forge an identity as a man in a culture that recognized nothing but colour.

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Book SynopsisFishing Stories nets an abundant catch of wonderful writing in a wide variety of genres and styles. The moods range from the rollicking humour of Rudyard Kipling’s “On Dry-Cow Fishing as a Fine Art” and the rural gothic of Annie Proulx’s “The Wer-Trout” to the haunting elegy of Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It.”Many of these tales celebrate human bonds forged over a rod, including Guy de Maupassant’s “Two Friends,” Jimmy Carter’s “Fishing with My Daddy,” and Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden. Some deal in reverence and romance, as in Roland Pertwee’s “The River God,” and some in adventure and the stuff of legend, as in Zane Grey’s “The First Thousand-Pounder” and Ron Rash’s “Their Ancient Glittering Eyes.” There are works that confront head-on the heartbreaks and frustrations of the sport, from Thomas McGuane’s meditation on long spells of inaction as the essence of fishing in “The Longest Silence” to Raymond Carver on a boy’s deflated triumph in the gut-wrenching masterpiece “Nobody Said Anything.” And alongside the works of literary giants are the memories of people both great and humble who have found meaning and fulfillment in fishing, from a former American president to a Scottish gamekeeper’s daughter.Whether set against the open ocean or tiny mountain streams, in ancient China, tropical Tahiti, Paris under siege, or the vast Canadian wilderness, these stories cast wide and strike deep into the universal joys, absurdities, insights, and tragedies of life.Trade ReviewA warm, witty, and wise collection . . . This anthology gathers genuine, artful verse . . . Good literary stuff to accompany a single malt by the fire. Buy a copy for the study and another to be battered in your angling grip. * Gray's Sporting Journal *

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Book SynopsisThe stories collected here--including such gems as Stephen Crane's "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," O. Henry's "The Marry Month of May," F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Bridal Party," Joy Williams's "The Wedding," and Lorrie Moore's "Thank You For Having Me", encompass comic wedding mishaps, engagements broken and mended, honeymoon adventures, and scenes both heartwarming and heartbreaking. There are glamorous weddings in Paris and New York, and more eccentric ones in the Wild West and on a remote island beach. There are nervous brides, forgetful grooms, meddling guests, interrupted nuptials, second thoughts, and second chances. Above all, there are all kinds of people - young and old, rich and poor, divorced and widowed, with or without children - joining together in the age-old quest for matrimonial happiness.

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Book SynopsisEmer Martin’s is a radical, vital voice in Irish writing, as she challenges the history of silence, institutional lies, evasion and the mistreatment of women across mid-to-late twentieth-century Ireland. Two families inhabit this immersive polyvocal work, an intergenerational saga announced with The Cruelty Men (2018) and continued here as punk rockers and Magdalene laundries spiral into a post-colonial Ireland still haunted by its tribal undertow. Scenes surface from Ireland’s mythological past, Tudor plantations, workhouses and industrial schools, the Troubles laid bare, the transformative pre-digital decades playing out in this propulsive narrative. Thirsty Ghosts is epic in scope while intimate in focus. The Lyons, professionals in a newly independent state, are attacked by paramilitaries in their family home in Tyrone. The eccentric O’Conaills of Kerry, traumatized by displacement, find themselves in leafy Dublin 4. We encounter a servant who meets Henry VIII, a Lithuanian Jewish family who become part of the fabric of Dublin, and a wild young girl who escapes the laundry only to stumble into a psycho pimp. Related with dark humour, verve and high literary style, Thirsty Ghosts is a revelatory exploration of Ireland combining themes of power, class, fertility, violence and deep love, forces as universal as the old stories that permeate and illuminate each character’s life.Trade Review‘Kevin Curran's spiky, polyphonic, multi-ethnic tale of four Balbriggan teenagers, Youth, scratches an itch for modern urban grit … I hunger for more of this.’ Sunday Independent‘An unstoppable tour de force … Martin’s work is extremely important; it provides a portal for people who want to learn more about Ireland and its complex and convoluted history.’ Atticus Review'An untamed dreamtime held together by stories, this is a wild river-run of a novel about Ireland’s dark histories, narrated in the merry voice we associate with Emer Martin, one of our truly original writers. Her wry humour gives the grimmest stories an exuberant buoyancy. And seldom has English as spoken in Ireland – from rural Tyrone to south Dublin suburbia – been so perfectly conveyed on the page.’ Éilís Ní Dhuibhne'Emer Martin casts a cold eye on Ireland and the Irish in this layered narrative which ranges from myths to myth-busting over the comforting fictions we tell ourselves.’ Martina Devlin‘Inventive, freewheeling and utterly fearless, Thirsty Ghosts delves into the Irish psyche with no holds barred. An incisive and intriguing novel.’ Christine Dwyer Hickey‘There is ambition and then there is the Great Irish Novel kind of ambition that is in Emer Martin's Thirsty Ghosts … It is a fine balance of the savagely funny and heartbreaking.’ THE BOOKSELLER‘To say Emer Martin’s fifth novel is epic would be an understatement. With the literary flair and love of language to match its ambition, it is breathtaking in its scope … The writing and the tangled, intergenerational stories flow beautifully. Each sentence, each word is in service of the tragically comic, the wonderfully epic story of Ireland.’ SUNDAY INDEPENDENT ‘A new book from Emer Martin is always a big deal … Emer is a singular voice’ Derek O'Connor, RTÉ‘Emer Martin’s fourth novel, The Cruelty Men, was my book of the year in 2018, a searing account of one Irish family’s tribulations at the hands of church and state in the last century. Thirsty Ghosts revisits some of the same characters, albeit from a slightly different perspective. … There is a raw and savage humour here … Flann O’Brien shot through with Guillermo del Toro. Martin’s use of language is superb, from the comedic colloquialisms of rural accents with one character having “a face on her like a pig licking piss off a nettle”, to the lyrical and poetic where ghosts are likely to live “inside the grimy guts of the gloom of nights”. Thirsty Ghosts is also epic in scope. Martin skilfully juxtaposes the bloodletting of the recent and the distant past in a glorious bid to capture the power of story itself as a means to push back the darkness. A wild, magnificent book.’ SUNDAY BUSINESS POST‘Emer Martin knows how to tell a story. Martin’s writing has a well-earned reputation of literary merit. Her latest, Thirsty Ghosts, is an epic work of multigenerational lived truth. It follows two families, and the hag—Ireland. It’s angry, beautiful and important. … Martin sees the ghosts. She gives voice to people who weren’t listened to, and that’s what makes this book so incredibly powerful. She shows us what a difference it makes to be poor, to be rich, to be impotent against the evils.’ BOOKS IRELAND‘Emer Martin’s novel is a fierce indictment of the collusion in 20th-century Ireland between church and state. … Martin specializes in contemporary stories of exile, family dysfunction and the Irish diaspora. [She] offers a searingly unsentimental view of modern Ireland.’ AMERICA MAGAZINE‘There are very few books that I find myself compulsively recommending to absolutely everyone I know. Emer Martin’s formidable Thirsty Ghosts is one of these few. … Martin has managed to capture an emotional history of Ireland since the birth of time — in just one novel. … It is a story of missed chances, of childhood, of politics and power, of inherited pain, of familial love, but most of all it is a story of stories — the mythology that connects us, that supports us and that keeps us alive.’ TOTALLY DUBLIN ‘A sprawling, epic powerhouse of a read’ ANNE CUNNINGHAM, MEATH CHRONICLE

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Book SynopsisIt's August in the Barsetshire village of Worsted, and Richard Tebben, just down from Oxford, is contemplating the gloomy prospect of a long summer in the parental home. But the numerous and impossibly glamorous Dean family - exquisite Rachel, her capable husband and six of their nine brilliant children - have come for the holidays, and their hostess Mrs Palmer plans to rope everyone into performing in her disastrous annual play. Surrounded by the irrepressible Deans, Richard and his sister Margaret cannot help but have their minds broadened, spirits raised and hearts smitten.Trade ReviewAngela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself -- Alexander McCall Smith What sings out is the ebullience and charm of her characters, deliciously sparkling dialogue, a romping plot, her wit and gentle satire, and the escapist satisfaction of neatly tied-up happy endings bookoxygen.com Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself -- Alexander McCall Smith

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Book SynopsisThis delightful and irreverent tale of romance in Victorian England follows the exploits of two generations of the Pringle family as they climb the social ladder.

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Book SynopsisAn anonymous young man’s life is about to be changed, as could the course of history. It is 1536 and powerful men reveal to Peter Pentecost that it is he, and not the tyrannical Henry VIII, who should be on the throne of England. Can they persuade him to risk everything in a treasonable rebellion against the throne? In the hands of the master thriller writer, John Buchan, the dark, dangerous days of Tudor England come alive as never before. With an introduction by Robert Hutchinson. This edition is authorised by the John Buchan Society.Trade Review'Buchan knew that you can't buck the consequences of your actions, and that your life is what you make of it. Perhaps his peculiarly Scottish combination of Romanticism and Calvinism - daring living and high thinking - is due to return to fashion' * The Independent Magazine *

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Book SynopsisThe Jacobite army marches into England and Alistair Maclean, close confident of Charles Edward Stewart embarks on a secret mission to raise support for the cause in the west. He soon begins to suspect someone close to the Prince is passing information to the Government, but just as he closes in on the traitor his own life is put in danger. Who is the turncoat and can Maclean save his own life and his Prince? Regarded by many critics as one of the finest historical novels ever written, Midwinter is a classic tale of intrigue, treachery and suspense. With an introduction by Stuart Kelly. This edition is authorised by the John Buchan Society.Trade Review'Buchan knew that you can't buck the consequences of your actions, and that your life is what you make of it. Perhaps his peculiarly Scottish combination of Romanticism and Calvinism - daring living and high thinking - is due to return to fashion' * The Independent Magazine *

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Book Synopsis'Plakos is a strange place, for the tides of civilisation and progress seem to have left it high and dry. It is a relic of old days, full of wild beliefs and pagan habits.' Young Englishwoman Kore Arabin has inherited a remote Greek island, Plakos, from her unscrupulous father, who was reviled by the locals. The superstitious islanders blame Kore for every minor mishap and natural disaster, and they are about to sacrifice her as a witch in the sacred ground called 'The Dancing Floor'. Sir Edward Leithen and his acquaintance Vernon Milburne must save her. The Dancing Floor is one of Buchan's most intriguing novels – a love story, a dramatic thriller and a tale of the clash between paganism and Christianity. With an introduction by Robert Hardy. This edition is authorised by the John Buchan Society.

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Book SynopsisCollected here are Gogol's finest tales - from the demon-haunted 'St John's Eve' to the strange surrealism of 'The Nose', from the heart-rending trials of the copyist in 'The Overcoat' to those of the delusional clerk in 'The Diary of a Madman' - allowing readers to experience anew the unmistakable genius of a writer who paved the way for Dostoevsky and Kafka. To this superb new translation - the first in twenty-five years and destined to become the definitive edition of Gogol's short fiction - Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky bring the same clarity and fidelity to the original that they brought to their brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's works and to War and Peace.Trade ReviewGogol's occasional weirdness is just as weird today, of such a strange order of invention, that even a word like "exuberant" doesn't begin to cover it ... Gogol is strangely timeless -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *This was, for me, an electric introduction to Russian literature. -- AD Miller * The Independent *Nabokov was right about Gogol's greatness, and right to point out that he was a creator of a new reality -- A.S. ByattGogol's narratives take on a compelling logic of their own and the details are by turn comic, sinister, and even touching ... Gogol doesn't ignore the conventions of realism, but, rather, jumbles them up, as in a dream. His stories build their hilarious fantasies on solid observational foundations -- Edmund Gordon * Observer *One of the most unfathomable minds and most spellbinding narrators in literary history. Shrewd observer, Romantic dreamer, idiot savant, parodist, or a comic Dante, Gogol still eludes all categories -- Donald Rayfield * Literary Review *The "father of Russian Modernism" came to fame very early which possibly burned him out, as he wrote little in the last 10 years of his life. His tales might have been written weeks ago though, so fresh and vibrant are they, a testament to the youth of their author when he wrote them -- Lesley McDowell * Sunday Herald *Such is Gogol's all-pervasive influence on European writing that both of these new editions are great value -- Eileen Battersby, Books of the Year * Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisPublished a year after The Great Gatsby, this short-story collection showcases many of the celebrated novel’s themes, as well as its unique writing style. Two of the most famous tales, the beautifully elegiac ‘The Rich Boy’ and ‘Winter Dreams’, deal with wealthy protagonists – the old-money Anson Hunter and the self-made man Dexter Green – as they come to terms with lost love, while ‘Absolution’, in which a boy confesses to a priest, was initially written as a background piece to The Great Gatsby. Also containing ‘The Baby Party’, ‘Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr–nce of W–les’, ‘The Adjuster’, ‘Hot and Cold Blood’, ‘The Sensible Thing’ and ‘Gretchen’s Forty Winks’ – all of which describe in various ways the 1920s society that Fitzgerald himself inhabited – All the Sad Young Men is a masterpiece of twentieth-century American fiction.Trade ReviewHe was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation. * The New York Times *Table of ContentsContains: The Rich Boy, Winter Dreams, Absolution, The Baby Party, Rags Martin-Jones and the Prince of Wales, The Adjuster, Hot and Cold Blood, The Sensible Thing, Gretchen's Forty Winks.

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Book SynopsisThis evocative account of the life of the Renaissance’s greatest figure traces Leonardo’s early development as an artist and court figure to his final years in exile, portraying his loves and sufferings, as well as his intellectual curiosity and tireless loyalty to his ideals. But it is the background to his famous painting La Gioconda and his relationship with the mysterious Florentine woman who modelled for it that are at the heart of the novel – here presented for the first time in an unabridged translation. The result is an engrossing and unforgettable read. An unjustly forgotten masterpiece of Russian literature that inspired one of Freud’s most important essays, Leonardo da Vinci also offers an illuminating snapshot of the society of the period – beset with intrigue and religious and social tension – and a host of memorable historical figures such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Machiavelli, Savonarola and the infamous Borgias.Trade ReviewWe are given a rare insight into what is probably the nearest anyone has come to Leonardo's character. * Yorkshire Gazette *

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Book Synopsis"Finding the young Angélique on their doorstep one Christmas Eve, the pious Hubert couple decide to bring her up as their own. As the girl grows up in the vicinity of the town’s towering cathedral and learns her parents’ trade of embroidery, she becomes increasingly fascinated by the lives of the saints, a passion fuelled by her reading of the Golden Legend and other mystical Christian writings. One day love, in the shape of Felicien Hautecoeur, enters the dream world she has constructed around herself, bringing about upheaval and distress. Although it provides a detailed portrait of provincial nineteenth-century life and adheres to a naturalist approach, The Dream eschews many of the characteristics of Zola’s other novels of the Rougon-Macquart cycle – such as a pronounced polemical agenda or a gritty subject matter – offering instead a timeless, lyrical tale of love and innocence."Trade ReviewI consider Zola’s books among the very best of the present time. -- Vincent Van Gogh

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Book SynopsisEncapsulating in luxurious detail the phenomenon of consumer society - obsessed with image, fashion and instant gratification - Ladies' Delight vividly depicts the workings of a new commercial entity, the department store. The novel centres around the story of Denise, a young shopgirl from the provinces, and Octave Mouret, the dashing young director of a shopping emporium, who find themselves torn between the conflicting forces of love, loyalty and ambition. Set in the heart of the city, Zola's novel - the eleventh in his Rougon-Macquart series - evokes the giddy pace of Paris's transition into a modern city and the changes in sexual attitudes and class relations taking place during the second half of the nineteenth century.Trade ReviewIt's sex and shopping for 400 pulsating pages in Zola's gripping 1883 novel (recently adapted for television by the BBC). From the opening image of the great Parisian dress emporium, all gilded cherubs and lavish window displays of satins and silks, you are hooked. (...) Fireworks, passion, lust, heartbreak, class-conflict... all the crucial elements are in this rip-roaring classic. * The Daily Mail * Zola overwhelms us with an abundance of description that oscillates between fantastical lyricism and meticulous realism, with plenty of rather wry psychological analysis to hold the two poles together. -- Tim Parks I consider Zola's books among the very best of the present time. -- Vincent Van Gogh To enjoy Zola at his best, you have to read one of the great novels, in which a whole panorama emerges, as in the work of one of those highly realistic nineteenth-century painters. -- A.N. Wilson Perhaps the most famous novel about shopping is Emile Zola's The Ladies' Paradise... For Zola, the department store was a metaphor for the triumph of capitalism... but he also saw it as the place where women were duped and enslaved into the new habit of consumerism. * The Guardian * It's an excellent edition! -- P.D. Smith Nothing gets a crowd going like sex and shopping. Emile Zola was one of the first to describe this new consumerist link... * The Times *

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Book SynopsisSet in Paris during the years of the Reign of Terror, 'The Gods Want Blood' centres on the rise to power of Jacobin sympathizer Evariste Gamelin, a young painter who becomes a juror on a local Revolutionary tribunal. Caught up in the bloodthirsty madness surrounding him, he helps to dispense cruel justice in the name of his ideals, while at the same time succumbing to his own petty instincts of revenge when he jealously pursues a rival for the affections of his lover Elodie.Trade ReviewOne of the best novels written about the French Revolution and its aftermath. * TLS * A splendid evocation of the clubs, courts and murderous tumbrils of revolutionary Paris. * TLS *

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Book SynopsisA master of many literary genres, Arthur Conan Doyle excelled particularly in the short-story form, and was acclaimed in his day as much for his detective stories as for his thrilling tales of mystery and the supernatural. While the adventures of Sherlock Holmes have become part of our collective imagination, these stories - concerned with ghosts, obscure scientific experiments and other unexplained phenomena - are now unjustly neglected.Trade Review"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." - Arthur Conan DoyleTable of ContentsContains: The Brown Hand, The Usher of Lea House School, B.24, The Great Keinplatz Experiment, Cyprian Overbeck Wells, Playing with Fire, The Ring of Thoth, The Los Amigos Fiasco, How it Happened, Lot No. 249, De Profundis, The Lift.

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Book SynopsisThe Mudfog Papers, a collection of sketches by Dickens published in Bentley’s Miscellany between 1837 and 1838, describes the local politics of the fictional town of Mudfog – such as the delusions of grandeur of its mayor Nicholas Tulrumble and his disastrous attempts at putting on a public show – and the meetings of its Society for the Advancement of Everything, during which the town is overrun by illustrious scientists and professors conducting ostensibly pointless research. Written at the same time as Oliver Twist – indeed the serialized version of the novel referred to Mudfog as the protagonist’s home town – The Mudfog Papers lampoons all manner of journalistic and scientific writing of the time and showcases the young Dickens at his satirical best.Trade ReviewThe power of [Dickens] is so amazing that the reader at once becomes his captive. -- William Makepeace Thackeray

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Book SynopsisMusil's limpid, psychological evocation of adolescent sexuality and its often sadistic eroticism which anticipates the carnage of both World Wars. As the nineteenth century draws to an end, young Törless is sent to a military boarding school for the sons of the nobility on the eastern outreaches of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Far from his comfortable, free-thinking bourgeois home and left to his own devices, he experiences the joy, pain and self-doubt of adolescence. He is confronted with desire and love, but also his own cruelty, as he finds himself participating in his fellow pupils’ bullying campaigns. A dark Bildungsroman which shocked its readership at the time, Robert Musil’s first novel is a fresco of psychoanalysis, philosophy, eroticism, snobbery, sado-masochism and schoolboy humour, a hothouse of alternately repressed and unchained desires that prefigure the carnage of both World Wars.

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Book SynopsisBegun in 1920 while Bulgakov was employed in a hospital in the remote Caucasian outpost of Vladikavkaz, and continued when he started working for a government literary department in Moscow, Notes on a Cuff is a series of journalistic sketches which show the young doctor trying to embark on a literary career among the chaos of war, disease, politics and bureaucracy. Stylistically brilliant and brimming with humour and literary allusion, Notes on a Cuff is presented here in a new translation, along with a collection of other short pieces by Bulgakov, many of them - such as 'The Cockroach' and 'A Dissolute Man' - published for the first time in the English language.Trade ReviewThis is a very good place to start on Bulgakov if you haven't read any of his work before. All his manic energy is here; and so, largely, is his talent. (...) In Notes on a Cuff you can see one of the most original voices of the 20th century starting to find itself. Congratulations to the publisher for making it available to us. * The Guardian * Loyal fans will enjoy spotting the great writer's early seeds of talent. * The Times * Roger Cockrell's unstrained and highly readable translations capture with admirable versatility the whole gamut of situations, characters and voices encompassed in this absorbing collection of stories. * East-West Review * Vigorous, unevenly brilliant and deeply felt, (these stories) amply justify Bulgakov's attraction to the darker aspects of his times... they sparkle with herlter-skelter Gogolian verve. * TLS *Table of ContentsContains: Notes on a Cuff, The Fire of the Khans, The Crimson Island, A Week of Enlightenment, The Unusual Adventureof a Doctor, Psalm, Moonshine Lake, Makar Devushkin's Story, A Scurvy Character, The Murderer, The Cockroach, A Dissolute Man

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Book SynopsisInspired by Fitzgerald’s own courtship of his future wife Zelda, ‘The Last of the Belles’ centres on the Southern beauty Ailie Calhoun from Tarleton, Georgia, who finds herself the object of attention of all the officers at a nearby army base, including the narrator, Andy. A wistful and melancholy exploration of unfulfilled dreams and lost youth, the story is considered one of Fitzgerald’s finest pieces of short fiction. This volume also includes other acclaimed stories – such as ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, ‘The Swimmers’ and ‘The Bridal Party’ – written by Fitzgerald between 1927 and 1931, during the prolonged period in which he was struggling to compose Tender Is the Night.Trade ReviewHe was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation. * The New York Times *Table of ContentsContains: Jacob's Ladder, A Short Trip Home, The Bowl, The Last of the Belles, Majesty, At Your Age, The Swimmers, Two Wrongs, The Bridal Party, One Trip Abroad, The Hotel Child

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Book SynopsisWhen Francis Raven is roused from his sleep on the eve of his birthday and confronted by the sight of a woman trying to stab him, he is unsure whether she is real or an apparition. Years later, against the wishes of his mother, he marries Alicia, a woman with a strange resemblance to the mysterious visitor, who ends up attacking him on his birthday, before vanishing from his life. Is Francis's wife a ghost, a demon or a living human being? And will the prophecy of the night-time visitation be fulfilled one day? Originally published in Household Words in 1855 as 'The Ostler', but recast and expanded two decades later, The Dream Woman is a powerfully dark and suspenseful multi-narrative novella from the master of the mystery genre and the author of some of the most enduringly popular novels of the Victorian era.Trade ReviewA master of plot and situation. -- T.S. Eliot

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Book SynopsisOn a train journey, Pozdnyshev tells his story to a stranger: how his relationship with his wife gradually deteriorated from one of love and passion to jealousy and resentfulness, culminating in a mad act of desperation while she practised Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata with her violin teacher. An uncompromising examination of lust, suspicion and infidelity which was once forbidden by censors in Russia and banned in the US due to its shocking content, Tolstoy’s controversial novella – here presented in a new translation, along with ‘The Prisoner of the Caucasus’, ‘Master and Man’ and ‘After the Ball’ – is now considered one of the masterpieces of Tolstoy’s late period.Trade ReviewTolstoy is the greatest Russian writer of prose fiction. -- Vladimir NabokovIt showcases the questioning, unsettling and perfectly crafted prose of the author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace. * The Good Book Guide *In Roger Cockrell's fluid rendering in English, the story shines and glimmers beautifully. * RTÉ *Table of ContentsContains: The Kreutzer Sonata, After the Ball, Master and Man, The Prisoner of the Caucasus.

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Book SynopsisIn the summer of 1348, the plague ravages Florence, and ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside, where they entertain themselves with tales of love, death and corruption, featuring a host of colourful characters, from lascivious clergymen and mad kings to devious lovers and false miracle-makers. Named after the Greek for ten days, Boccaccio’s book of stories draws on ancient mythology, contemporary events and everyday life, leaving an indelible mark on the works of future writers such as Chaucer and Shakespeare. J.G. Nichols’s new translation stays as faithful to the original as possible while being written in a clear and eminently modern English, capturing the timeless humour of one of the great classics of world literature.Trade ReviewThe first great masterpiece of European storytelling. -- Hermann Hesse

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Book SynopsisA young Harvard graduate with bright prospects, Bill Frothington is invited on board a steamer hosting a high-school dance, where he meets and falls in love with the seventeen-year-old Mae. As the match is not considered socially advantageous enough, Bill moves on, marries and has a career, but he remains painfully nostalgic for that episode on the river. A poignant tale which touches on the themes of yearning and lost youth that are central to many of Fitzgerald’s novels and stories, ‘The Love Boat’ is here presented with other lesser-known pieces which he wrote in the 1920s and explore the many facets of his creative talents.Trade ReviewHe was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation. * The New York Times *Table of ContentsContains: The Smilers, Myra Meets His Family, Two for a Cent, Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar, Diamond Dick and the First Law of Woman, The Third Casket, The Unspeakable Egg, John Jackson's Arcady, The Pusher-in-the-Face, One of My Oldest Friends, Not in the Guidebook, Presumption, The Adolescent Marriage, Your Way and Mine, The Love Boat.

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Book SynopsisFathers and Children, arguably the first modern novel in the history of Russian literature, shocked readers when it was first published in 1862 - the controversial character of Bazarov, a self-proclaimed nihilist intent on rejecting all existing traditional values and institutions, providing a trenchant critique of the established order. Turgenev's masterpiece investigates the growing nihilist movement of mid-nineteenth-century Russia - a theme which was to influence Dostoevsky and many other European writers - in a universal and often hilarious story of generational conflict and the clash between the old and the new.Trade ReviewTurgenev to me is the greatest writer there ever was. -- Ernest Hemingway

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Book SynopsisAfter an accident, Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of impoverished peasants, decides to call on the aristocratic d'Urbervilles, as she believes that she is also descended from their ancient Norman lineage and that they can rescue her family from indigence. Unfortunately she is taken under the wing of the immoral libertine scion Alec d'Urberville, who seduces and scorns her. While she attempts to rebuild her life, she falls in love with the virtuous farmer Angel Clare and must find a way to defeat the demons of her past. Controversial when it was first published for challenging Victorian morals, Tess of the d'Urbervilles has become Thomas Hardy's most popular novel, catching the imaginations of generations of readers with its high drama, endearing heroine and powerful evocations of the southern English countryside.Trade ReviewThe greatest poet and novelist of our age. -- John Cowper Powys

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Book SynopsisSara, the American wife of a French aristocrat, has had two encounters with her compatriot Cedric Killian, one a youthful idyll in North Carolina and the other during the First World War, when he was a soldier about to go to battle. When, years later and after the death of her husband, Cedric contacts her out of the blue, Sara finds herself eager to see him again - against the wishes of her in-laws - and to find out the secret of this man she loves yet knows so little about. A poignant tale of thwarted love, 'The Intimate Strangers' explores many of Fitzgerald's favourite themes, such as the constraints of society on romance and the American fascination for Old Europe. This volume also includes other lesser-known stories he wrote from the mid-1930s until the end of his life, revealing new facets to the author of The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night.Trade ReviewHe was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation. * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisUnder the pressure of his boss, the intransigent Riviere, the airmail pilot Fabien attempts a perilous flight during a heavy night-time thunderstorm in Argentina. As conditions get worse and the radio communication with Fabien becomes increasingly difficult, Riviere begins to question his uncompromising methods, and his distress turns to guilt when the pilot's wife comes to find him in search of answers. Based on Saint-Exupery's own experiences as a commercial pilot, Night Flight is a haunting and lyrical examination of duty, destiny and the individual, as well as an authentic and tragic portrayal of the intrepid early days of human air travel.Trade ReviewWhat gives this book an authentic and inimitable flavour is the personal confrontation with a recurrent peril... Quite aside from its literary merits, which I much admire, this book is valuable as a document; and it is the unusual combination of these two qualities which makes Night Flight so exceptionally important. -- Andre Gide

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Book SynopsisEbenezer Scrooge is a lonely, miserly old man who hates Christmas, which he dismisses as "humbug". One Christmas Eve, however, he is visited by a series of ghosts who reveal to him the innocence he has lost, the wretchedness of his future and the poverty of the present, which he has so far ignored. This experience teaches Scrooge the true meaning of the holiday and leaves him a transformed man. With its memorable cast of characters such as Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is the most heart-warming of seasonal tales, a timeless classic that continues to enchant readers around the world and a lesson in charity and hopefulness that is as powerful today as when it was first written in 1843.Trade ReviewThe power of [Dickens] is so amazing that the reader at once becomes his captive. -- William Makepeace Thackeray

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Book SynopsisBathsheba Everdene is a headstrong young woman who attracts the attentions of a succession of ill-matched suitors: a quiet sheep farmer, a handsome soldier and an older, wealthy landowner. As the men vie for her affections, she struggles to retain her independence of spirit in the face of their declarations. Introducing readers to the fictional county of Wessex, Thomas Hardy’s fourth work of fiction was one of his greatest triumphs, both commercially and critically. Its tale of passion, jealousy and unrequited love is now regarded as one of the finest novels of the nineteenth century, and one of the greatest love stories of all time.Trade ReviewFar from the Madding Crowd is the first of Thomas Hardy’s great novels, and the first to sound the tragic note for which his fiction is best remembered. -- Margaret Drabble

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Book SynopsisWhen Richard Hannay finds the corpse of freelance spy Franklin P. Scudder in his London flat, he goes on the run, fearing that his life is in danger. Scudder had previously revealed that he was investigating a ring of German spies, who were conspiring to sabotage Britain's war capability. Hannay becomes both hunter and hunted as he struggles to unravel the tangled threads of this plot while staying one step ahead of his pursuers, who will stop at nothing to keep their nefarious secrets. First published in 1915, John Buchan's definitive spy novel was the first in a long line of espionage thrillers to delve into the underbelly of the British establishment. Over a hundred years later, The Thirty-Nine Steps remains resonant, and the various film, television and theatre adaptations of this classic - most notably Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 version - are a testament to its capacity to thrill.Trade ReviewAn archetypal English spy thriller. -- Robert McCrum

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Book SynopsisThese five stories were collected and published as Tales of Unrest in 1898, shortly before Heart of Darkness, the first of Conrad’s major novels. Ranging from the faraway and unfamiliar, where the acquisitiveness of colonial adventure is damningly exposed, to an ostensibly ordinary London household, these disparate tales display Conrad’s ability to explore and lay bare human nature. Set in Central Africa, ‘An Outpost of Progress’ is suffused with irony and represents a ruthlessly mocking view of European imperialism. ‘Karain’ and ‘The Lagoon’ are exotic tales of the Malay Archipelago, with the former telling of disharmony and discord between Western traders and the indigenous inhabitants. ‘The Return’ recounts the story of, in the author’s own words, “a desirable middle-class town residence which somehow manages to produce a sinister effect”. The collection also includes ‘The Idiots’, the first of Conrad’s short stories to be serialized in an English magazine.Trade ReviewBut for Conrad, the slightest glance, the smallest passing moment, and words themselves, all came weighted with unfathomable implications, signals to us that time is merely the mercy of eternity. -- Colm Tóibín

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