In the title piece of this collection a party of guests wonder at the great comet which has appeared in the sky, and give their...

Having moved into an abandoned haunted house, the narrator, undaunted by the warnings of the locals, invites a party of friends...

With his birth itself a monumental exploit in itself, it is clear that the giant Pantagruel is destined to great things, and the...

The lowly, downtrodden Paris civil servant Jean Folantin seeks respite from the boredom and isolation of his life in the small...

After a traumatic early childhood spent living in poverty in a Preston cellar, the suddenly orphaned George Silverman grows up...

An exponent of the theory that William Shakespeare, the modestly educated provincial man from Stratford-upon-Avon, could not have...

Follows the text of the first edition published by Secker & Warburg in 1938. Contains over 20 pages of notes

After travelling...

Happily engaged to the poet Amandus, Fraulein Anna is horrified to discover that a beautiful ring, mysteriously deposited upon...

Based on a true story, The Jew's Beech centres on two brutal murders in rural Westphalia – the first of a local forester and the...

Celie Rousseau is a talented young artist who, along with her partner Algernon, resorts to petty thieving on the streets of Paris...

It is a variable early summer’s day, and there is an unusual bustle in the grounds of Pointz Hall, a country house in a remote...

When the peaceful atmosphere of Barchester is destroyed by a scandal concerning the financial affairs of an almshouse, Septimus...

When the young nobleman Des Grieux lays eyes on the beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut, he immediately falls in love with her,...

The well-educated daughter of a penniless clergyman, Agnes Grey is treated like a child by her family and so sets out to prove...

An orphan child full of mischief, Jack lives with his crotchety widow aunt in eighteenth-century England. His naughtiness knows...

Under the pressure of his boss, the intransigent Riviere, the airmail pilot Fabien attempts a perilous flight during a heavy...

After a wonderful early life as a young colt on Farmer Gray’s meadows, the stallion Black Beauty is sold to Squire Gordon of...

Part wolf, part dog, White Fang learns to survive in the freezing wilderness. As well as being forced to confront the harsh...

It is 1880: after visiting his mistress in the London suburbs, Colonel Pargiter returns home to his children and his dying wife....

Shipwrecked on an unknown island, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself surrounded by its six-inch-tall natives, the...

Stephen Glennard is in desperate need of money. So when he becomes aware of the potential value of a series of passionate love...

In Hard Times, Dickens illustrates the condition of England through the fictional city of Coketown. Among its inhabitants are...

A masterpiece of the Gothic genre, The Monk tells the story of the Capuchin friar Ambrosio and his fall from grace through...

The notorious adventurer and seducer Giacomo Casanova tells of his travels – on the run from the authorities of his native Venice...

The brooding, introverted Count von O— arrives in Venice during the carnival in order to escape from his duties and live...

Throughout his life, Rudyard Kipling was fond of dogs, and while they featured prominently in early tales such as ‘The Dog...

Unexpurgated Edition

Simplicius Simplicissimus – the towering achievement of H.J.C. von Grimmelshausen, one of the earliest...

Unsuccessful in his endeavours, the young and naive Peter Schlemihl seals a pact with the Devil in which he exchanges his shadow...

Nathanael remains haunted by his childhood fear that the lawyer Coppelius, a strange night-time visitor who used to come to his...

From his childhood on the wild, windswept shores of Cornwall and his college days at Cambridge to his life as a lawyer in London...