|
|
|
CRW Publishing
|
Oliver Twist is one of Dickens's most popular novels, with many famous film, television and musical adaptations. It is a classic story of good against evil, packed with humour and pathos, drama and suspense, in which the orphaned Oliver is brought up in a harsh workhouse, and then taken in and exploited by the criminal Fagin, before being eventually rescued and taken in by a loving family. |
|
In The Origin of Species Darwin outlined his theory of evolution, which proposed that species had been evolving and differentiating over time under the influence of natural selection. On its publication it became hugely influential, bringing about a seismic shift in the scientific view of humanitys place in the world that is still controversial today. It is both a brilliant work of science and also a clear, vivid and at times even moving piece of writing that reflects both Darwins genius and his boundless enthusiasm for the natural world. |
|
Jane Austen's final novel, her most mature and wickedly satirical, is the story of Anne Elliott, a woman who gets a second chance at love. To achieve happiness she must learn to trust her own feelings and resist the social pressures of family and friends. |
|
A skeleton in dinner dress is wreaking havoc among singers and staff at the Paris Opera House and when new owners take over the terror escalates. Who is the mysterious figures stalking the stage at night? How can he be everywhere at once and leave locked rooms at will? What is his connection to the beautiful young musician Christine? Stage and screen adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera have maintained the book's popularity, but the novel outdoes them all in Gothic tension and horror. |
|
On its first publication The Picture of Dorian Gray was regarded as dangerously modern in its depiction of fin-de-sicle decadence. In this updated version of the Faust story, the tempter is Lord Henry Wotton, who lives selfishly for amoral pleasure; Dorian's good angel is the portrait painter Basil Hallward, whom Dorian murders. The book highlights the tension between the polished surface of high society and the life of secret vice. Although sin is punished in the end the book has a flavour of the elegantly perverse. |
|
In The Portrait of a Lady Henry James tells the story of one of his most enchanting heroines, Isabel Archer, a young New York woman whose life is changed when she is visited by her aunt Mrs Touchett following the death of her father (her mother having died long before). Isabel is invited to accompany her aunt back to Europe, and fascinates everyone with her beauty, intelligence and vivacity. When she inherits money from her uncle this turns out to have unexpected and undesired consequences. |
|
This is one of the most significant literary works of the 20th century, and one of the most innovative. Young Irish Catholic, Stephen Dedalus, rejects religion and national ties to develop unfettered as an artist. Strongly autobiographical, the novel is one of the founding texts of Modernism and the precursor of Ulysses. Its originality shocked contemporary readers on its publication in 1916, who found its treating of the minutiae of daily life indecorous, and its central character unappealing. |
|
A tour de force of wit and sparkling dialogue, Pride and Prejudice shows how the headstrong Elizabeth Bennett and the aristocratic Mr Darcy must have their pride humbled and their prejudices dissolved before they can acknowledge their love for each other. |
|
Written in the sixteenth century and almost immediately a subject of controversy, The Prince presents Machiavelli's advice to a ruler who would seek to maintain his power most effectively. Pragmatism and expediency are seen to be more important considerations than ethical ones, and a ruler must be prepared to take actions in the interest of public order that might conflict with purely private ethical concerns. A good ruler must avoid being hated by his subjects however. In The Art of War Machiavelli examines ancient military practices for their relevence to modern political issues, and asserts that military power is at the base of all civil order. |
|
The Scarlet Letter is the story of three New England settlers at odds with the Puritan society in which they live. Roger Chillingworth, an ageing scholar, arrives in New England after two years' separation from his wife Hester to find her on trial for adultery. She refuses to reveal her lover's identity and is condemned to wear a scarlet letter 'A' sewn on to her clothes. Roger resolves to discover the man's identity, and over the next seven years the participants in the love triangle suffer the consequences of betrayal, cowardice and humiliation, before moving towards redemption at the novel's climax. |
|
Mary Lennox is sent from an India as an orphan to live at Misselthwaite Manor. She arrives as a sour-faced, sickly and ill-tempered little madam but becomes friends with local lad Dickon and her poorly cousin Colin. In their restoration of a secret garden all their lives are changed for the better. |
|
Two sisters of opposing temperament but who share the pangs of tragic love provide the subjects for Sense and Sensibility. Elinor, practical and conventional, the epitome of sense, desires a man who is promised to another woman. Marianne, emotional and sentimental, the epitome of sensibility, loses her heart to a scoundrel who jilts her. True love finally triumphs when sense gives way to sensibility. |
|
The boxed set contains the following volumes: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes; The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes; The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Valley of Fear; The Return of Sherlock Holmes and his Last Bow; A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four. |
|
A Study in Scarlet introduced the great scientific detective Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, his friend and chronicler, to the reading public. This novel, a cornerstone in the annals of crime fiction, tells of their first meeting and how they set up in rooms together in Baker Street. It is not long before the charismatic sleuth and his faithful companion are plunged into a dramatic mystery which starts with the discovery of a corpse in a deserted house and the letters RACHE scrawled on the wall in blood. The Sign of the Four, the second Holmes novel, presents the detective with one of his greatest challenges — solving the theft of the great Agra treasure in India. In these two classic novels you have the foundation of the Sherlock Holmes legend. As well as his witty and illuminating Afterword to this edition, David Stuart Davies, the illustrious editor of Sherlock magazine, has provided a fascinating chronology of the Sherlock Holmes Stories. |
|
A Tale of Two Cities is one of Dickens's most exciting books, set against the backdrop of the French revolution, in which two generations struggle against the injustices of first a corrupt aristocracy and then the mindless rule of the mob. |
|
This companion volume to Tales of Mystery & Imagination contains Poe's best-known poetry and a selection of his very best stories, including some fine tales from the last decade of his tragically short life. Many of these stories and poems reflect familiar Poe themes of murder, obsession and love, but there are also tales of the fantastic, black comedies, parodies and hoaxes. |
|
Some of the most exciting and haunting stories ever written are to be found in this collection of Poe's work, ranging from the poetic to the mysterious to the darkly comic, and all with the quality of the grotesque that defined Poe's writing. 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher' are key works in the horror canon, while in the 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and 'The Mystery of Marie Roget' we find the origins of modern detective fiction. |
|
Tess Durbeyfield, an innocent village girl, is seduced by a wealthy rake, Alec D'Urberville. Though he makes her pregnant she does not love him and leaves him to return to her home in disgrace. Some time after the baby's death Tess meets her true love Angel Clare, but they cannot escape the consequences of the past. An unforgettably powerful tragedy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the great classics of the late nineteenth century. |
|
Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends, George and Harris, decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a T. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead. Three Men in a Boat was an instant success when it appeared in 1889, and, with its benign escapism, authorial discursions and wonderful evocation of the late-Victorian clerking classes, it hilariously captured the spirit of its age. |
|
To the Lighthouse, considered by many to be Virginia Woolf's finest novel, is a remarkably original work, showing the thoughts and actions of the members of a family and their guests on two separate occasions ten years apart. The setting is Mr and Mrs Ramsay's house on a Scottish island, where they traditionally take their summer holidays, overlooking a bay with a lighthouse. As a modernist author Woolf explored the ways in which fiction could represent reality, and To the Lighthouse can be seen as an experimental work that pushes the limits of what we know about the world and ourselves. It is one of the most beautifully crafted of all novels written in the English language. |
|
