Classics Books

Book SynopsisOften described as ‘the father of realism’, Henrik Ibsen was a pioneer of modernist drama. He influenced playwrights as diverse as George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, and is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare.Included in this collection are adaptations of his tragicomic masterpiece The Wild Duck, his complex and compelling play Rosmersholm, the epic drama Brand and the tragedy John Gabriel Borkman. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is relocated to 1879 India in Tanika Gupta’s Audio Drama Award-winning dramatisation, while the provocative and scandalous Ghosts is adapted by Richard Eyre, with the cast of his Olivier Award-winning Almeida Theatre production.Also featured are vibrant dramatisations of Hedda Gabler, whose desperate heroine is trapped in a suffocating marriage; The Lady from the Sea, about a woman torn between security and passion; and An Enemy of the People, in which a whistleblower reveals an inconvenient truth and is vilified for it.The casts of these stunning dramas include David Threlfall, Nicholas Farrell, Helen Baxendale, Indira Varma, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter.

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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. One of the finest examples of literature, written by an author at the height her powers, Pride and Prejudice is sharply observed, witty and acute. It is studied and enjoyed in still increasing numbers throughout the world today. Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters are unmarried, much to their parents' great anxiety. In a rollercoaster of social etiquette, wilful misunderstanding and romantic intrigue Mr Charles Bingley and his friend Mr Darcy vie with Mr Collins and Mr Wickham for the attentions of the Bennet daughters. Rejection, scandal and distress eventually lead to marriage and true love in a series of classic happy endings resolving the conflicts between pride and prejudice in the sisters and their beaus.

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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. Love and betrayal are the key themes of the comic satire Sense and Sensibility, a much loved, and much filmed evocation of romantic anxiety. Mrs Dashwood and her daughters live on the edge of poverty, desperate to marry well, for love at best, for sustenance at least, balancing the need for common sense against the desires and pressures of frantic emotion. Marianne falls for the wreckless Willoughby, Elinor falls in love with the shy Edward, but after the death of Mr Dashwood the family's fate seems cast from their control. In the end Colonel Brandon successfully courts Marianne, and Edward meekly asks for the hand of Elinor, heralding the happy-ever-after for both couples.

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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. Mansfield Park was written just after Pride and Prejudice, offering an opposite view of the world and bringing a very modern perspective on the relative merits of hard work vs inherited wealth. Fanny Price is a meek, downtrodden heroine who wins out in the end through sheer resourcefulness and good character. The book deals with slavery, love, betrayal, rivalry and meritocracy, highlighted by the mesmerising tension between The Crawford's metropolitan attitudes and the people of Mansfield Park who become enthralled by the illicit, seductive behaviour of their visitors. Probably Jane Austen's most ambitious novel, and worth reading again, and again for it's subtle layering of themes.

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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. Jane Austen has great fun with this novel, teasing at the social mores of her time, where the hunting of a suitable partner is an all-consuming game. Emma Woodhouse is a confident, elitist young woman, whose self-belief leads to a series of romantic misunderstandings as she makes and breaks engagements for her companion Harriet Smith. Emma assumes that Elton desires to marry Harriet, but actually Elton really wants Emma. Frank Churchill too tries to win her, but Emma falls for Mr. Knightley, whom everyone thinks is in love Jane Fairfax. In the end, everything all is mended, as Emma and Mr. Knightley finally get engaged, and Harriet and Robert Martin are brought back together again.

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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. The young Anne Russell regrets the break in her engagement with Captain Frederick Wentworth. She had hoped to be married, but her father and sister did not approve the match. In financial straits Anne's family move to more modest circumstances in Bath. When Anne and Wentworth meet again, it takes them some while to reconcile, but eventually they are reunited. In the course of the book Jane Austen explores social attitudes to marriage, romantic and family love, the power of social misunderstanding and the apparent role of fate in the desperate despair of unrequited love.

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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. Containing both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass this new edition brings together the classic tales to offer the full story of Alice, the Red Queen, the mad Hatter and the incredible cast of characters created by mathematician and king of nonsense verse Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Beloved characters whirl through a world of talking creatures, disappearing cats and madcap peculiarity told with swift economy by a writer whose influence on modern fantasy is often overlooked. Much filmed (including Tim Burton's award winning Alice in Wonderland), animated and republished Dodgson's work is a wildly entertaining ride for children, but packed with symbols and satire for the adult reader too.

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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. A complex and profound book, The Tale of Two Cities explores the consequences of tyranny, fate and self-sacrifice. With much of the narrative played out in Paris, during the French Revolution Dickens examines the interplay between personal action, and the flow of history. Dr Manette, having travelled to Paris finds himself imprisoned in the Bastille for 18 brutal years, unable to see his kind and loving daughter Lucy. On his eventual return to London the two of them become witnesses in a treason case against Charles Darney who is accused of giving secrets to the French. Lucy finds a way of exonerating him, Darney falls in love with her and by some strange twist of fate he finally reveals the terrible secret that his own uncle was responsible for Manette's years in the Bastille. Manette is shocked but eventually persuaded by Darney's sincerity and true love for this daughter, so he allows them to marry, bringing happiness finally to them all.

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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. Dicken's cast of characters, from the orphan Pip, Miss Haversham and Estella to the aptly named Magwitch takes the reader through a Victorian society riven with social ills, and misplaced ambition. Pip, a blacksmith's apprentice encounters and helps the escaped convict Magwitch who subsequently repays the boy with a secret fortune. Pip misunderstands the source of elevation, thinking it comes from the high society of Miss Haversham and her cold-hearted daughter whom he adores. His wilfull naivety is exposed throughout as Estella's disdain for Pip makes him try ever harder, to the detriment of `joe Gargery and Mrs Joe, the good people who raised him in poverty at the forge. Ultimately Miss Haversham burns to death in a fire and Magwitch dies in prison leaving a chastened Pip without his fortune. At the end all is resolved when finally he wins Estella's heart.

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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. Published in 1908 to astounding success, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery has since become a classic. Set in the nineteenth century, the book tells of the adventures of Anne Shirley, an 11-year-old orphan, who has bright red hair and a vivid imagination. She is adopted by the Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, a brother and sister who need help on their farm. They were in fact looking to adopt a boy but, after Matthew’s kind encouragement, they allow Anne to stay with them and she has many ups and downs settling in to Green Gables, her first real home.

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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. Oliver Twist dares to ask for more food, and with this a character was created that would be loved the world over and whose story would be adapted into countless television, film, theatre and film productions. For anyone wishing to read the works of the great Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist should be top of the list. The novel cemented Dickens’ growing reputation as a writer, continuing with the themes that readers expected of him – poverty, desperation and heroism in the face of adversity.

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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. The fifteen short stories collected in Dubliners are the best by renowned Modernist writer James Joyce. They were written between 1904 and 1907 and published much later in 1914. The stories explore themes of different life stages and provide a vivid depiction of gritty, day-to-day life in Dublin. The first story, ‘The Sisters’, sets the tone for the collection, exploring childhood. ‘The Dead’, which is the final story in the collection, takes place around the events of a Christmas party, culminating in a profound epiphany. It is widely considered by critics and readers alike to be a work of outstanding literary skill.

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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. American writer Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick in 1851 but it took decades before it was finally regarded as a great American novel, and worthy of its place among the greatest texts of humankind. A tale of imagination and adventure, it recounts the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of a whaling ship seeking vengeance on Moby Dick, the white whale that had bitten off his leg on a previous voyage.

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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. Hard Times was published in 1854 and is set in Northern England in Coketown, a polluted and suffering place with smoke-filled factories and soulless workers who have been downtrodden by the cruel and heartless Thomas Gradgrind and Josiah Bounderby. The novel was published to mixed criticism, with many feeling at the time that it was too distressing. However, many modern critics have praised the book, calling it a gripping and revealing exploration of Victorian society.

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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. In this collection of thirteen thrilling tales of intrigue and suspense, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once again shows himself to be the master of detective fiction. Published in 1905, The Return of Sherlock Holmes marks the astonishing reappearance of the brilliant detective after his apparent demise at the hands of criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty. Revealed to be alive three years after his presumed death, Sherlock Holmes is reunited with his trusted partner Dr. Watson as they embark on a new series of 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. Widely considered to be Thomas Hardy’s greatest work, Tess of the d’Urbervilles was first published in serialised form in 1891 and then published as a single volume one year later in 1892. During this time, it received mixed reviews from critics who believed it to be immoral. It is now loved worldwide and has been adapted into plays, operas and many different films and television programmes. The story of Tess Durbeyfield and her search for fortune is a moving look into a Victorian world that we have left behind, and still stands as a gripping story for contemporary readers.

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Book SynopsisA masterful mix of horror and absurdity which tells the story of travelling salesman Samsa, who wakes up one day to find out he has turned into a giant insect. Kafka''s novella has been adapted for film and television a number of times, most recently for radio when BBC''s Radio 4 broadcast the story, read by Benedict Cumberbatch, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its first publication.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Book SynopsisAnton Chekhov''s short stories were some of the most influential in modern literature. Relying on subtlety and clever characterisation rather than explicit action, his sketches of Russian life bring out comedy, tragedy and all aspects of human nature. This collection features some of Chekhov''s most celebrated stories, including ''Vanka'', ''The Lady with a Dog'' and ''Sleepy''.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Book SynopsisThe growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts ... to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.Described by some as the greatest novel in the English Language, Middlemarch paints a captivating portrait of provincial life at the time of the Industrial Revolution. The story centres on the idealistic Dorothea Brooke and the pioneering Tertius Lydgate and their disastrous marriages to unsuitable partners. George Eliot also draws on a huge cast of other finely drawn characters to reflect facets of humankind, in all its fragility and complexity. As separate stories interweave and drama unfolds, Eliot uses these ordinary, ''unhistoric'' lives to contemplate the colossal and the profound.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Book SynopsisMr Edgar Finchley, unmarried clerk, aged 45, is told to take a holiday for the first time in his life. He decides to go to the seaside. But Fate has other plans in store… From his abduction by a cheerful crook, to his smuggling escapade off the south coast, the timid but plucky Mr Finchley is plunged into a series of the most astonishing and extraordinary adventures. His rural adventure takes him gradually westward through the English countryside and back, via a smuggling yacht, to London. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today. It has been dramatized twice for BBC Radio, with the 1990 series regularly repeated.Trade ReviewPraise for the Classic Canning Series ‘Quite delightful, with an atmosphere of quiet contentment and humour that cannot fail to charm … The longer we travel with Mr Finchley, the better we come to love him. He makes us share his bread and cheese, and beer and pipe. His delight at the beauties of the countryside and his mild astonishment at the strange ways of men are infectious’ Daily Telegraph‘His gift of story-telling is obviously innate. Rarely does one come on so satisfying an amalgam of plot, characterisation and good writing’ Punch‘A paean to the beauties of the English countryside and the lovable oddities of the English character… [Mr Finchley] runs into one astonishing situation after another, sticking gamely to his resolve that he must take things as they come and accept them’ New York Times‘What counts for most in the story, as it did for Mr Finchley, is his mounting pleasure in vagabondage and the English scene’ The Times‘There is such a gentle humour in the book … Mr Finchley is the ideal Englishman’ Daily Sketch

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Book SynopsisAn ebullient Mr Finchley is about to propose marriage to a lady he had rescued from mishap, when he is sent to Paris by his firm. There he manages to upset a boat, adopt a stray orphan and get himself kidnapped. The fine tangle he gets into takes some unravelling! Only when eventually back in London does he complete the proposal of marriage that was interrupted at the start. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today. It has been dramatized twice for BBC Radio, with the 1990 series regularly repeated.Trade ReviewPRAISE FOR THE CLASSIC CANNING SERIES ‘Quite delightful, with an atmosphere of quiet contentment and humour that cannot fail to charm… The longer we travel with Mr Finchley, the better we come to love him. He makes us share his bread and cheese, and beer and pipe. His delight at the beauties of the countryside and his mild astonishment at the strange ways of men are infectious’ Daily Telegraph‘His gift of story-telling is obviously innate. Rarely does one come on so satisfying an amalgam of plot, characterisation and good writing’ Punch‘A paean to the beauties of the English countryside and the lovable oddities of the English character… [Mr Finchley] runs into one astonishing situation after another, sticking gamely to his resolve that he must take things as they come and accept them’ New York Times‘What counts for most in the story, as it did for Mr Finchley, is his mounting pleasure in vagabondage and the English scene’ The Times‘There is such a gentle humour in the book … Mr Finchley is the ideal Englishman’ Daily Sketch

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Book SynopsisGentle chaos sets in when the absent-minded Mr Pim calls in to see George Marden, bearing some innocent news... George is a fine upstanding citizen and a stickler for doing the right thing. He has a devoted wife, Olivia, and is guardian to his somewhat flighty niece, Dinah.But his careful peace is broken when Mr Pim casually announces that he’s recently seen an ex-convict from Australia, Telworthy. The only thing is that the character sounds awfully like Olivia’s first, and supposedly deceased, husband… and if he’s eally still alive, then Olivia is a bigamist.

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Book SynopsisHow well can you ever know another person? Happily married, Reginald and Sylvia seem to lead a perfect, and perfectly quiet, life. They have more than enough money and their own country house. But when success overtakes them, and allure of London life pulls Reginald in, they find parts of themselves they never knew. Where does their happiness really lie? Reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh, this wry, intimate examination of a relationship is a gem of 1930s literature.

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Book SynopsisChloe Marr is young, beautiful and so irresistible that countless people fall in love with her, and friends are hypnotized by her charm and warmth. Her origins are a mystery and, in London society, such mystique carries both allure and suspicion. But when an untimely exodus pulls Chloe from the people around her, they soon realise nobody really knows the truth about anybody else… A. A. Milne’s ability to portray interwar society is second to none, and this classic novel of an elusive Mayfair delivers his signature humour and lightness of touch.Trade Review'He is sensitive. He can write charmingly… and his prose is at once facile and precise' * New York Post *'There is an astringent realism about Milne’s mind and work… and an unassuming sureness of balance lightened with so serene and deft a wit' * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisVanity Fair follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848 and is a satirisation of early 19th-century British society.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Book SynopsisThe story of David Copperfield (1850) began as a memoir of Dickens'' boyhood experiences in a blacking factory and grew into one of his most popular novels, echoing aspects of the author''s own life and providing a wealth of famous characters.Creepy Uriah Heep and the cruel Murdstones are here, with faithful Peggoty and David''s formidable Aunt Betsey Trotwood; not forgetting the ever-optimistic Mr Micawber, who is a portrait of Dickens'' own improvident father. This edition contains the original illustrations by ''Phiz'' (Hablot Knight Browne).ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Book SynopsisFollow curious Alice as she ventures down a rabbit hole and into Wonderland, filled with unforgettable characters such as the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts. Then enter a topsy-turvy universe the other side of the Looking Glass, where Alice encounters old and new friends, like Humpty Dumpty and Tweedledum and Tweedledee.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Book SynopsisOne of the most accomplished authors in history, Tolstoy has inspired and influenced generations of readers. While celebrated for his masterpieces Anna Karenina and War and Peace, his short stories are just as compelling. This collection includes ''The Story of Ivan the Fool'', ''Ilyás'', and many more of Tolstoy''s finest tales, and it demonstrates the raw power and emotion of his narrative genius.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Book SynopsisIt is the turn of the 20th century and Russia is changing rapidly - the serfs have been emancipated, a new middle class is arising and the aristocracy is struggling to come to terms with their reduced role in society. Seeking to preserve a life of leisure and luxury, Madame Ranevsky must consider selling her estate, including her family''s precious cherry orchard. But when faced with these hard decisions, Ranevsky remains in denial. Charting a period of tumultuous change, Chekhov creates a cast of tangible and unforgettable characters whose destiny is both tragic and inevitable. A touching masterpiece, The Cherry Orchard was Chekhov''s final play and perhaps his best.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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