Possibly the most colourful figure in the history of Western music, Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was certainly the most eloquent....

Given that insects vastly outnumber us (there are approximately 200 million insects for every human) it is no surprise that there...

Described by F. R. Leavis as one of the two most brilliant novels in the language, The Portrait of a Lady marks the evolution of...

An immaculate success on its publication in 1726, Gulliver's Travels has since had an odd double life as both a classic...

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, published 1871–2, is set in the imaginary county of Loamshire during the years of unrest...

When Jill Mariner is arrested for fighting over a parrot and then loses all her money on the same day, she is abandoned by her...

The first of the Blandings Castle novels, introducing Lord Emsworth, his family, his secretary – the Efficient Baxter – and the...

This sparkling story of transatlantic manners follows the fortunes of playboy Jimmy Crocker in England and America. When Jimmy...

J. Wellington Gedge seems to have everything a man could desire: a rich wife, a chateau, a life of ease in the south of France....

Monty Bodkin's pursuit of Gertude Butterwick is temporarily interrupted by his encounter with silver-screen siren Miss Lotus...

"Tolstoy's lavish and always graphic use of detail," wrote John Bayley, "together of course with its romance and exotic setting ....