Classics

Hugo's grand medieval melodrama tells the story of the beautiful Esmeralda, a gypsy girl loved by three men: Archdeacon Frollo, his adoptive son Quasimodo, bell-ringer of Notre-Dame cathedral, and Captain Phoebus. Falsely accused of trying to murder...

Introduction and Notes by Laurence Davies, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Living overseas but writing, always, about his native city, Joyce made Dublin unforgettable. The stories in Dubliners show us truants, seducers, gossips, rally-drivers,...

For the centennial of its original publication, an irresistible Deluxe Edition of one of the most beloved books of the 20th century—featuring a foreword by Colum McCann, the bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlanticPerhaps the...

(Available after 3-20 days)A beautiful new Deluxe Edition of Alcott's beloved novel, with a foreword by National Book Award-winning author and musician Patti Smith. Nominated as one of America’s most-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.Little...

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet is the literary debut of the world's most famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, introduced by Iain Sinclair with notes by Ed Glinert in Penguin Classics.Convalescing in London after a disastrous...

(Available after 3-20 days)The landmark novel that inspired Verdi’s opera La Traviata, in a sparkling new translation"One of the greatest love stories of all time," according to Henry James, and the inspiration for Verdi’s opera La Traviata, the...

Charles Dickens's powerful black comedy of of hypocrisy and greed The greed of his family has led wealthy old Martin Chuzzlewit to become suspicious and misanthropic, leaving his grandson and namesake to make his own way in the world. And so young Martin...

Guy de Maupassant's scandalous tale of an opportunistic young man corrupted by the allure of power, Bel-Ami is translated with an introduction by Douglas Parmee in Penguin Classics.Young, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his admirers...

'His rise testifies to the decline of a whole society.' Jean-Paul Sartre Maupassant's second novel, Bel-Ami (1885) is the story of a ruthlessly ambitious young man (Georges Duroy, christened 'Bel-Ami' by his female admirers) making it to the top in...

Edited and with an Introduction and Notes by Dr Keith Carabine. University of Kent at Canterbury. Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most popular, influential and controversial book written by an American. Stowe's rich, panoramic novel passionately dramatises why...

(Available after 3-20 days)The novel that changed the course of American historyPublished in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel was a powerful indictment of slavery in America. Describing the many trials and eventual escape to freedom of the...

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his "charming" friend...

'Still remarkably vivid. It is easier to read this for pure pleasure than just about any other ancient text' -- Nicholas Lezard, GuardianOvid's sensuous and witty poem begins with the creation of the world and brings together a dazzling array of...

(Available after 3-20 days)The groundbreaking Harlem Renaissance novel about prejudice within the black communityEmma Lou Morgan's skin is black - 'too black', as the narrator writes at the beginning of The Blacker the Berry. Tired of the scorn and...

In the summer of 1348, as the Black Death ravages their city, ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside...Taken from the Greek, meaning 'ten-day event', Boccaccio's Decameron sees his characters amuse themselves by each telling a story a day,...

When Hidden Tragedies Surface On Their Own... Ethan Frome is set in the fictional New England town of Starkfield, where a visiting engineer tells the story of his encounter with Ethan Frome, a man with a history of thwarted dreams and desires. The...

With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Preston, University of Nottingham. Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz) and George Cruickshank. The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), with its combination of the sentimental, the grotesque and the socially...

'Dickens's finest work in the genre of the detective story was his last' -- The TimesEdwin Drood is contracted to marry orphan Rosa when he comes of age, but when they find that duty has gradually replaced affection, they agree to break off the...

'This century's most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism' -- Angela DavisWritten at the height of the Algerian war for independence from French colonial rule and first published in 1961, Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth has provided...

Read the greatest rediscovered classic of recent years'A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life' -- Ian McEwanWilliam Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes...