Classics

'That was how things stood in the city at the time. With no one in charge, murders were taking place almost every day and the elections could not be held.'Books 36-40 of the Roman History by Cassius Dio (born ca. 163 CE), covers 69-50 BCE, the last...

A sensational 1954 French novel that has become a contemporary classic. Set against the translucent beauty of France in summer, Bonjour Tristesse is a bittersweet tale narrated by Cecile, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood,...

I know nothing. I am a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper, an unhatched egg. I have not yet become a woman, although I possess a woman's shape. Not a woman, no: both more and less than a real woman. Now I am a being as mythic and monstrous as Mother...

Joseph - a 22-year-old self-styled nihilist in search of meaning, found releasing a badger from a zoo, seducing his best friend's mother, dancing at a Dionysic revel and spending his days in a mortuary - is the anti-hero at the heart of this novel.

This edition of Jane Austen's classic novel features a suede-like custom cover with beautiful metallic foiling and a ribbon marker.  A brilliant novel describing two parallel love stories, Sense and Sensibility remains a time-honored classic in...

Brideshead Revisited is Evelyn Waugh's stunning novel of duty and desire set amongst the decadent, faded glory of the English aristocracy in the run-up to the Second World War. The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead...

George Orwell is a difficult author to summarize. He was a would-be revolutionary who went to Eton, a political writer who abhorred dogma, a socialist who thrived on his image as a loner, and a member of the Imperial Indian Police who chronicled the...

Finally back in print, a frighteningly lucid feminist horror story about marriageThe Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: “I shot him between the eyes.” As the tale—a plunge into the chilly waters of...

Cicero lived through some of the most turbulent years in the history of Rome and witnessed first-hand the overthrow of the republic and its replacement by the tyranny of Pompey, Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian. One of Rome's most memorable and keenly...

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), Rome's greatest orator, had a career of intense activity in politics, the law courts and the administration, mostly in Rome. His fortunes, however, followed those of Rome, and he found himself driven into exile in 58...

"The fates ordained the founding of this great city and the beginning of the world's mightiest empire, second only to the power of the gods"Romulus and Remus, the rape of Lucretia, Horatius at the bridge, the saga of Coriolanus, Cincinnatus called from...

Elegies of Chu (in Chinese, Chuci), one of the two surviving collections of ancient Chinese poetry, is a key source for the whole tradition of Chinese poetry. Because the elegies contain passionate expressions of political protest as well as shamanistic...

Selected by Gwyn Jones—the eminent Celtic scholar—for their excellence and variety, these nine Icelandic sagas include "Hen-Thorir," "The Vapnfjord Men," "Thorstein Staff-Struck," "Hrafnkel the Priest of Frey," "Thidrandi whom the Goddesses...

For much of his life, Pascal (1623-62) worked on a magnum opus which was never published in its intended form. Instead, he left a mass of fragments which became known as the Pensées, and they occupy a crucial place in Western philosophy and...

Little Women is one of the best-loved children’s stories of all time, based on the author’s own youthful experiences. It describes the family of the four March sisters living in a small New England community. Meg, the eldest, is pretty and...

After the apocalypse, society is divided into three endlessly warring factions. The Professors and Soldiers maintain what is left of civilization while the superstitious Barbarians constantly attack them. The Barbarians are in turn attacked by the...

A man returns from the dead, and the body of a mysterious stranger is found in his roomA few weeks after marrying an attractive young widow, Gordon Cloade is tragically killed by a bomb blast in the London blitz. Overnight, the former Mrs Underhay finds...

In these letters to his friends and relations, Pliny the Younger, lawyer, author, and natural philosopher, provides a fascinating insight into Roman life in the period 97 to 112 AD. Part autobiography, part social history, they document the career and...

The Expedition of Cyrus tells the story of the epic march of the Ten Thousand, an army recruited at the end of the fifth century BC by a young Persian prince, Cyrus, who rose in revolt agains his brother, the King of Persia. After Cyrus' death, the army...

Drawing on recent advances in Egyptology, R. B. Parkinson's new translations bring to life for the modern reader the golden age of Egyptian fictional literature, the Middle Kingdom (c. 1940-1640 BC). The book features The Tale of Sinuhe, acclaimed as the...