Must Read Classics

The Way We Live Now is Anthony Trollope's radical exploration of the dangers associated with speculative capitalism, edited with an introduction and notes by Frank Kermode in Penguin Classics.Augustus Melmotte is a fraudulent foreign financier who preys...

(Available after 3-20 days)With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Merchant. Canterbury Christ Church College. The tough-mindedness of the social satire in and its air of palpable integrity give this novel a special place in Anthony Trollope's Literary...

A genre-defining tale of first contact by one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant—and neglected—science fiction and horror writers, whom Stephen King called “the best writer of science fiction that England has ever produced.”“In my opinion, [John]...

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch.Under the influence of their charismatic classics...

Charles Dickens's masterful assault on the injustices of the British legal system As the interminable case of 'Jarndyce and Jarndyce' grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare,...

The revolutionary literary vision that sowed the seeds of Objectivism, Ayn Rand's groundbreaking philosophy, and brought her immediate worldwide acclaim.This modern classic is the story of intransigent young architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as...

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Carole Jones, freelance writer and researcher. George Eliot's final novel, Daniel Deronda (1876), follows the intertwining lives of the beautiful but spoiled and selfish Gwendolene Harleth and the selfless yet...

As Daniel Deronda opens, Gwendolen Harleth is poised at the roulette-table, prepared to throw away her family fortune. She is observed by Daniel Deronda, a young man groomed in the finest tradition of the English upper-classes. And while Gwendolen loses...

A sensitive and moving portrait of a Victorian town, captured at a transitional period in English society, Cranford first appeared serially in Charles Dickens's magazine Household Words from 1851 to 1853, and in book form in 1853. Author Elizabeth...

Ayn Rand's first published novel, a timeless story that explores the struggles of the individual against the state in Soviet Russia.First published in 1936, We the Living portrays the impact of the Russian Revolution on three human beings who demand the...

In 1849, Dostoevsky was sentenced to four years at hard labor in a Siberian prison camp for participating in a socialist discussion group. The novel he wrote after his release, based on notes he smuggled out, not only brought him fame, but also founded...

Bringing into harsh focus the daily struggle for existence in a Soviet gulag, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is translated by Ralph Parker in Penguin Modern Classics.This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions...

The Eternal Husband and Other Stories brings together five of Dostoevsky’s short masterpieces rendered into English by two of the most celebrated Dostoevsky translators of our time. Filled with many of the themes and concerns central to his great novels,...

Ethan Allen Hawley has lost the acquisitive spirit of his wealthy and enterprising forebears, a long line of proud New England sea captains and Pilgrims. Scarred by failure, Ethan works as a grocery clerk in a store his family once owned. But his wife is...

'Although he feared death, he could not stop. 'If I stopped now, after coming all this way - well, they'd call me an idiot!'A pair of short stories about greed, charity, life and death from one of Russia's most influential writers and thinkers...

This powerful novel, Tolstoy's third major masterpiece, after War and Peace and Anna Karenina, begins with a courtroom drama (the finest in Russian literature) all the more stunning for being based on a real-life event. Dmitri Nekhlyudov, called to jury...

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr T.C.B.Cook. Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, commonly regarded as amongst the greatest novels ever written. He also, however, wrote many masterly short stories, and this...

Introduction and Notes by R.T. Jones, Honorary Fellow of the University of York. This novel, based on George Eliot's own experiences of provincial life, is a masterpiece of ambiguity in which moral choice is subjected to the hypocrisy of the Victorian...

Maggie Tulliver is a brilliant woman who finds herself at the center of a love triangle between her childhood crush and a cousin’s potential fiancé. The controversial romance makes her a town pariah, damaging her most beloved relationships.   Maggie...

'Was her life to be always like this? - always bringing some new source of inward strife?'When the miller Mr Tulliver becomes entangled in lawsuits, he sets off a chain of events that will profoundly affect the lives of his family and bring into conflict...