'When Dickens has described something you see it for the rest of your life' George Orwell

In 1844, Charles Dickens took a...

Ruth Hilton is an orphaned young seamstress who catches the eye of a gentleman, Henry Bellingham, who is captivated by her...

As Daniel Deronda opens, Gwendolen Harleth is poised at the roulette-table, prepared to throw away her family fortune. She is...

Elizabeth Gaskell's only historical novel, Sylvia's Lovers, is set in 1790 in the seaside town of Monkshaven (Whitby) where...

The Moonstone is one of the first true works of detective fiction, in which Wilkie Collins established the groundwork for the...

Anthony Trollope's story of one man's obsessive self-deception pitted against against the enduring power of his wife's love, He...

Shamela is a brilliant parody of Samuel Richardson's Pamela, in which a virtuous servant girl long resists her master's advances...

'Sets out the London of the 1830s before you, streets, people, pleasures, low life, prisons' Claire Tomalin

Charles Dickens's...

Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium and former Prime Minister of England, is widowed and wracked by grief. Struggling to...

Son of a bankrupt landowner, Frank Gresham is intent on marrying his beloved Mary Thorne, despite her illegitimacy and apparent...

Daniel Defoe's bawdy tale of a woman's struggle for independence and redemption, Moll Flanders is edited with an introduction and...

The hero of Charlotte Bronte's first novel escapes a dreary clerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher in...

Making her debut in London society, Nanda Brookenham is being groomed for the marriage market. Thrust suddenly into the...

Mill John... , Bentham...

One of the most important nineteenth-century schools of thought, Utilitarianism propounds the view that the value or rightness of...

Anthony Trollope's The Warden is the first of his well-loved Chronicles of Barsetshire, edited with an introduction and notes by...

Mark Robarts is a clergyman with ambitions beyond his small country parish of Framley. In a naive attempt to mix in influential...

After the death of old Dr Grantly, a bitter struggle begins over who will succeed him as Bishop of Barchester. And when the...

One of the greatest figures of his age, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59) was widely admired throughout his life for his prose,...

This witty and amusing collection of short pieces shows Dickens liberated from the more formal and sustained demands of the novel...

Determined that her baby son Tom shall not share her fate and remain in slavery, Roxy secretly exchanges him with his playmate...

Shelley... , Уолпол...

The Gothic novel, which flourished from about 1765 until 1825, revels in the horrible and the supernatural, in suspense and...

Henry James's third novel is an exploration of his most powerful, perennial theme - the clash between European and American...

A fascinating picture of the American frontier emerges from Twain's fictionalized recollections of his experiences prospecting...

Originally published in 1823, The Pioneers is the first of Cooper's five Leatherstocking Tales, and the one that incorporates...

In this eloquent, intimate exploration of the delights and demands of the piano, world-renowned concert pianist and music writer...

Gerd Gigerenzer's Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty illustrates how we can learn to make sense of statistics...

Meet Stanley Williams: Single, in his thirties, grieving the death of his Jamaican father and wondering if there is more to life...

A coming-of-age tale to make the muses themselves roar with laughter and weep for pity -- sassy, razor-sharp and...

Bee Beahorn had it all - a successful music career, fabulous friends, and a glamorous celebrity lifestyle.

At least, that's...

Wagner was one of the few major composers who studied philosophy seriously. Bryan Magee places the composer's artistic...