When Charles Dickens set out for America in 1842, he was the most famous man of his day to make the journey, and embarked on his...

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1690, John Locke (1632-1704) provides a complete account of how we...

A new and original anthology that introduces the key writings on rhetoric in the classical world, from Aristotle to Cicero and...

'It's you who are the dogs...'
What makes us happy? For over 800 years the Cynic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome argued...

'All animals are equal - but some are more equal than others' When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master...

Twenty-one, passionate and headstrong, Ann Veronica Stanley is determined to live her own life. When her father forbids her from...

The heroine of Tolstoy's epic of love and self-destruction, Anna Karenina has beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son, but...

'Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.' The true horror of the trenches is...

A battle-hardened soldier, Antony is one of the three leaders of the Roman world. But he is also a man in the grip of an...

An innovative novel featuring an astonishingly wicked female villain, Wilkie Collins's Armadale was regarded by T.S. Eliot as...

One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking...

As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams is a unique autobiography in which the anonymous writer known as Lady Sarashina intersperses...

'All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players'­

Rosalind, banished by her cruel uncle, travels secretly...

The Ladies' Delight is the glittering Paris department store run by Octave Mouret. He has used charm and drive to become director...

The Autobiographies of Charles Darwin (1809-82) provide a fascinating glimpse into the mind of one of the world's intellectual...

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 Dickens's most neglected, but most rewarding, novels' Peter Ackroyd

Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of...

Described as 'a masterpiece' by Stefan Zweig, this extraordinary novel of love, war, ghosts and memory features an introduction...

Perhaps no fairy tale is as widely known as 'Beauty and the Beast' - and perhaps no fairy tale exists in as many variations....

Guy de Maupassant's scandalous tale of an opportunistic young man corrupted by the allure of power, Bel-Ami is translated with an...

It is June in 1939, and the inhabitants of a country house prepare to host the annual village pageant in its grounds. It will...

Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's position as the towering European philosopher of his age. The work dramatically...

It's New Years Day in 1933 in New York City and Max Disher, a young black man, has just found out that a certain Dr Junius...

As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate...

Botchan is a modern young man from the Tokyo metropolis, sent to the ultra-traditional Matsuyama district as a Maths teacher...

While Buddhism has no central text such as the Bible or the Koran, there is a powerful body of scripture from across Asia that...

In Candide, Voltaire threw down an audacious challenge to the philosophical views of the Enlightenment to create one of the most...

'A groundbreaking work of economic analysis. It is also a literary masterpice' Francis Wheen, Guardian

One of the most...

The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history, contains the vital...

Unfinished at the time of Marx's death in 1883 and first published with a preface by Frederick Engels in 1894, the third volume...