Classics

Between 1920 and 1934, Gerald Brenan lived in the remote Spanish village of Yegen and South of Granada depicts his time there, vividly evoking the essence of his rural surroundings and the Spanish way of life before the Civil War. Here he...

Thea Kronberg, a young girl from a small town in Colorado has a great gift - her beautiful singing voice. Her talent takes her to the great opera houses of Europe, and through ambition and hard work, she forges a life as an artist. But if she can...

Chagall was born in Witebsk in White Russia, the son of a herring merchant who lived opposite a laundress and a chimney sweep. After the Revolution, while waiting for emigration papers, he wrote his autobiography at the age of 34.My Life reads...

An adventure that takes us to the ends of the earth via the rich but often barren landscape of the human heart' The TimesWhy was an English lawyer shot dead in Turkey by his firm's top client? How can a down-at-heel magician in Devon explain the vast...

‘No, I don’t hate being black. I’m just tired of saying it’s beautiful. No, I don’t hate myself. I’m just tired of people bruising their knuckles on my jaw.’A novella with the force of a screaming trumpet...

‘Of all the sleep a man can have, the fisherman’s sleep is the sweetest. It is the greatest of luxuries – sleep and fishing.’Through tender, vivid, and often humorous recollections – from magical fishing trips to...

'When I decide to escape I shall want nobody’s assistance.’In this thrilling collection, we meet Arsène Lupin, a brilliant, alluring master of disguise – or, as some would have it, a notorious criminal. We follow him on a...

‘Why should I bother to invent things? My life has been far more exciting and wonderful than any fairy-tale’In the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by irritatingly polite relatives and hopeless sycophants, Lady L. is...

Wu Cheng’en’s 16th-century novel Journey to the West is widely regarded as one of the most important Chinese novels ever written. Here, in Julia Lovell’s witty and charismatic translation, we meet one of its heroes: Sun...

Baron Bagge, a cavalry officer during the First World War, receives orders from his unhinged commander to ride into Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a peaceful, otherworldly...

Saadat Hasan Manto, the most widely read and translated writer in the Urdu language, captured the devastation and absurdity of the partition of India and Pakistan like no other. The Price of Freedom brings together ten of his best...

‘Then she would feel exposed and cry, as if her life and happiness were ruined for all time, even though she could still hide it from those she only came in contact with by chance or infrequently.’Longing shimmers from these spare but...

Many years ago there lived an Emperor who was so terribly fond of beautiful new clothes that he spent all his money on dressing elegantly...Jewels in storytelling, these magical fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen were inspired by his own life as an...

Mitch and Yonko haven’t spoken in a year. As children, they were inseparable, raised together in an orphanage outside Tokyo—but ever since the sudden death of Mitch’s brother, they’ve been mourning in their private ways,...

I want to write a book about Vilhelm’s room and the events which took place in it, or arose from it; those that led to Lise’s death, which I have survived only so that I might write down the story of her and Vilhelm...The ripples from a...

'Let us go on, then! And I will tell you the story of my sister and her daughter, from beginning to end.'Alis al—Bustani's Sa'iba (1891) is one of the earliest known novels authored in Arabic by a female writer. Written when the Arabic...

'I treat the narrative of the Lives as a kind of mirror...The experience is like nothing so much as spending time in their company and living with them: I receive and welcome each of them in turn as my guest.'In the eight lives of this collection...

"All men by nature are actuated with the desire of knowledge," declared Aristotle. The philosopher's works are foundational to the history of science, and his treatise on metaphysics, or "first philosophy," is divided into sections of previous...

Jane Austen’s sass and satire are always wonderful companions, and nowhere are they more prominent than in Emma, the story of a hapless matchmaker and her genuine attempts to spark love. It’s heartfelt, hilarious and an endearing...

A blustering interloper and a meek aristocrat struggle for control of a country estate, in this comic novel by the author of Crime and Punishment.“Avsey's excellent translation and stimulating introduction and notes enable the reader to...