Must Read Classics

One of Dahl’s most purely terrifying novels, this delightfully dark tale of a clandestine conference of witches and the boy and his grandma who foil their wicked plans remains a perennial favourite. Pulling out all the most grotesque stops and refusing...

"Welcome, my little friends! Welcome to the factory!” For Charlie Bucket, life isn’t very easy. He and his mother and father live in a very small house with Charlie’s four grandparents who all share one bed between them. There isn’t much to eat besides...

Roald Dahl's much-loved Matilda, now in a stunning large paperback format with Quentin Blake's original illustrations in full colour. Matilda Wormwood's father thinks she's a little scab. Matilda's mother spends all afternoon playing bingo. And Matilda's...

Occasionally, as he told his stories, my father would stride up and down waving his arms and waggling his fingers. But mostly he would sit close to me on the edge of my bunk and speak very softly. "The Big Friendly Giant makes his magic powers out of the...

With an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at CanterburyThis selection of Carroll's works includes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, both containing the...

Alice’s collected adventures in the blazingly surreal Wonderland constitute nothing less than the beginning of modern fiction for children. Populated by a cast of unforgettable characters from the White Rabbit to the Queen of Hearts, as well as an...

As a quartet of wide-eyed evacuees encounter wicked witches and saintly lions, Lewis guides the reader expertly through the brilliantly imagined world of Narnia, entered through a wardrobe door.    A beautiful paperback edition of The Lion, the Witch...

When Mrs Ramsay tells her guests at her summer house on the Isle of Skye that they will be able to visit the nearby lighthouse the following day, little does she know that this trip will only be completed ten years later by her husband, and that a gulf...

Hailed by The New York Times as a compelling dystopian look at paranoia from one of the most unique and perceptive writers of our time, this brief, captivating novel offers a cautionary tale. The story unfolds within a society in which all traces of...

During his decades of world fame as a novelist, Tolstoy also wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These works culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Impassioned and...

More commonly known as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo's Romantic novel of dark passions and unrequited love, Notre-Dame de Paris, is translated with an introduction by John Sturrock in Penguin Classics.In the vaulted Gothic towers of Notre-Dame...

Adapted by the BBC in a lavish new television series for Christmas 2018, Les Misérables is a timeless story; a plot-driven epic of one man’s search for redemption and of lives swept up, made and broken in the tumultuous social and political changes of...

Introduction and Notes by Dr David Rogers, Kingston University. 'There he lay looking as if youth had been half-renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey, the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red...

A fine exclusive edition of one of literature's most beloved stories. Featuring a laser-cut jacket on a textured book with foil stamping, all titles in this series will be first editions. No more than 10,000 copies will be printed, and each will be...

The classic English children's novel of three young friends and one special garden, stunningly reimagined in a deluxe full-color edition, illustrated with beautiful artwork and unique interactive features created by the award-winning design studio behind...

Having grown up in London and rural southern England, Margaret Hale moves with her father to the northern industrial city of Milton. She is shocked by the poverty she encounters and dismayed by the unsympathetic attitude of the textile-mill owner John...

Anne Garland, who lives with her widowed mother in a mill owned by Miller Loveday, has three suitors: the local squire's nephew Festus and the miller's two sons, Robert and John. While Festus' aggressive pursuit deters the young woman from considering...

The arrival of two newcomers in the quiet village of Mellstock arouses a bitter feud and leaves a convoluted love affair in its wake. While the Reverend Maybold creates a furore among the village's musicians with his decision to abolish the church's...

Introduction and Notes by Norman Vance, Professor of English, University of Sussex. Jude Fawley is a rural stone mason with intellectual aspirations. Frustrated by poverty and the indifference of the academic institutions at the University of...

The bestselling author of Middle Englandreturns with the evocative story of a young woman with a thirst for life and a slighted Hollywood director consumed by the past. The dazzling new novel from the prize-winning, bestselling author of Middle...