In The Pickwick Papers we are introduced not just to one of the greatest writers in the English language, but to some of fiction's most endearing and memorable characters, starting with the 'illustrious, immortal and colossal-minded' Samuel Pickwick himself. It is a rollicking tour de force through an England on the brink of the Victorian era. Reform of government, justice and commercial life are imminent, as are rail travel, social convulsion and the death of deference, but Pickwick sails through on a tide of delirious adventure, fortifying us for the future - whatever it might throw at us.

Dorian Gray is young, arrogant, and devastatingly handsome. Confronted by his beauty in the form of a portrait, and struck by the terrible realization that he will age, Dorian wishes to retain his charms forever and finds his desire granted. He abandons himself to a life of hedonism, vice and murder, yet his face remains unmarked by his evil. But, hidden in his attic, the painting ages and corrupts, and one day Dorian must stand face to face with the man he has become.

Intelligent, beautiful and vivacious, Isabel Archer fascinates and intimidates the elite society of Albany, New York. Fiercely protective of her independence, she travels to England with her aunt to escape a persistent suitor but, upon inheriting a considerable fortune, falls into the sway of the devious Mrs Merle who whisks her off to Italy. There she is seduced by the narcissistic Gilbert Osmond, an art collector who will stop at nothing to possess her, and whose connection to Mrs Merle is shrouded in mystery.

Peter, Phyllis and Roberta’s lives change overnight when their father is taken away by two strangers. They move from the comfort of their London home to a small country cottage, and are left to their own devices while their mother writes day and night to support the family. But with their new poverty comes more freedom than they ever dreamed of, and the railway line at the bottom of their garden offers the trio a world of new friendships that will change their lives forever.

A tale of blissful independence and adventure, Edith Nesbit’s beloved children’s classic is a timeless story of joy, hope and the importance of family.

Ten years after the supposed death of Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls, Arthur Conan Doyle was to bow to popular pressure and the large fees offered by publishers to revive the detective's career. To the astonishment of Dr Watson and the delight of his readers Holmes returns to Baker Street, explains how he escaped death at the Falls and is ready to commence detective work once more. Doyle provided a rich and fascinating set of mysteries to challenge his sleuth in this collection. As before, Watson is the superb narrator and his magic remains unchanged and undimmed. In His Last Bow, the final story of this collection, we are told how Sherlock Holmes is brought out of retirement to help the Government fight the German threat at the approach of the First World War. It is the last time that Holmes and Watson work together. 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. Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

Roger Chillingworth arrives in New England after two years' separation from his wife, Hester Prynne, to find her on trial for adultery. She refuses to reveal her lover and is sentenced to wear a scarlet letter 'A' sewn onto her clothes. Resolving to discover the man's identity, Roger sets out to destroy his rival, while Hester desperately tries to protect her illegitimate daughter from a society determined to condemn them both. A smash hit in its day, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the gripping tale of three New England settlers at odds with the seventeenth-century Puritan society in which they live, and remains one of literature's most evocative portraits of a love triangle.

When Mary Lennox is orphaned she is sent from her home in India to live with her uncle at Misselthwaite Manor on the Yorkshire Moors. She arrives as a sour-faced, sickly and ill-tempered little girl, bewildered by her surroundings and desperately lonely. One day she discovers a way in to a secret abandoned garden and, with the help of local lad Dickon and her poorly cousin Colin, they set about restoring the garden. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical tale of transformation that has enchanted both children and adults since its publication in 1911.

The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, a cycle of 154 linked poems, were first published in 1609. Filled with ideas about love, beauty and mortality, the sonnets are written in the same beautiful and innovative language that we have come to know from Shakespeare's plays. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man known as the 'Fair Youth', while others are directed at a 'Rival Poet', and a 'Dark Lady'. This Macmillan Collector's Library edition contains all of the poems, which explore many of Shakespeare's most common themes: jealousy, betrayal, melancholy. They ache with unfulfilled longing, and, for many, they are the most complete and moving meditations on love ever written.With an afterword by Peter Harness.Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

Doctor Dolittle keeps all kind of pets in his house in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. In fact he prefers animals to people and even learns to talk to them in their own language. One cold winter’s day he learns that the monkeys in Africa are inflicted with a terrible disease, and sets sail on an action packed adventure in the company of his favourite animals to save the monkeys.

Dr Dolittle is one of the most delightful and fascinating characters in children’s literature. This Macmillan Collector’s Library edition is illustrated with Hugh Lofting’s own drawings, and includes two new chapters and an afterword by author Philip Ardagh.

Why has the mild mannered Dr Jekyll suddenly begun to associate with the ugly and violent Mr Hyde? And why are they never seen together? When Jekyll’s old friend Utterson tries to solve these mysteries he uncovers a horrific story of suffering and brutality that eventually leads to the terrible revelation of Mr Hyde’s true identity.

Accompanied here by three other memorable stories of horror, murder and the supernatural, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic literature by Robert Louis Stevenson, and one of the most potent and enduring of modern myths.

Controversial and sexually charged, The Taming of the Shrew is possibly Shakespeare's first play, and certainly among the most performed. Petruchio's courtship of the unwilling 'shrew' Katherina poses the question: is it an examination of brute male domination or a passionate love story with a powerful moral message? To read it is to gain unique insight into a portrait of a marriage as created by a true master.

Prospero has long been exiled from Italy and banished to a remote island with his daughter Miranda. He uses his magical powers to conjure up a fearsome storm, and his enemies, including his treacherous broth Antonio, are shipwrecked. There follows a play filled with murderous plots, drunken confusion, love and redemption. And along the way, the reader discovers an unmistakable message that this is Shakespeare’s own farewell to the stage.

In The Time Machine by H. G. Wells - a hugely influential, groundbreaking work of science fiction - a brilliant scientist constructs a machine, which, with the pull of a lever, propels him to the year AD 802,701. The Time Traveller finds himself in a verdant, seemingly idyllic landscape where he is greeted by the diminutive Eloi people. The Eloi are beautiful but weak and indolent, and the explorer is perplexed by their fear of the dark. He soon discovers the reason for their fear - the Eloi are not the only race to have inherited the earth. When his time machine disappears, the Time Traveller must descend alone into the subterranean tunnels of the Morlocks - a terrifying, carnivorous people who toil in darkness - to reclaim it.This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition of The Time Machine features an introduction by Dr Mark Bould.Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

A young governess is employed to look after two orphaned siblings in a grand country house. Isolated and inexperienced, she is at first charmed by the children - but gradually suspects that they may not be as innocent as they seem. She soon begins to see sinister figures at the window, but do they exist solely in her imagination, or are they ghosts intent on a terrible and devastating task? The Turn of the Screw is one of the most famous and eerily equivocal ghost stories ever written. Owen Wingrave is the story of a son in a long line of military heroes who refuses to follow tradition, yet proves his bravery in a haunted room.

The most famous example of invasion literature and first published in 1898, The War of the Worlds has inspired countless science fiction stories and novels. After a dramatic series of shooting stars are seen tearing across the night sky, a gigantic cylinder descends from Mars and lands near London. Inquisitive locals gather round only to be struck down by a murderous heat-ray. Giant destructive machines climb out the crater formed by the cylinder destroying everything in their path on a merciless march towards London. Can humanity survive this onslaught? A gripping adventure written in semi-documentary style filled with scenes of flight, despair and panic this is also a very human story about pride, fear and the promise of recovery.

Mole and Rat have a pleasant life by the river, where they talk, boat and wile away the days. The wise and private Mr Badger lives sedately in the Wild Woods, content in his solitude. Then there's Mr Toad - wealthy, impulsive and utterly obsessed with motor cars, he's always getting into scrapes and can't survive without the help of his friends.

Follow Dorothy, and her loyal dog Toto, as they are carried away from Kansas by a cyclone to the wonderful world of Oz. Wandering down the yellow brick road Dorothy meets her three famous companions – a Scarecrow longing for a brain, a Tin Woodman wishing for a heart, a cowardly Lion yearning for some courage – and together they travel to the illustrious Emerald City where they hope all their dreams will come true.

On a moonlit London night, art teacher Walter Hartwright meets a young woman – beautiful, terrified and dressed entirely white – alone on the street. Compelled to help this piteous creature, he finds himself caught up in a world of secrets, murder and madness, with an impossible mystery to solve. The odds seem stacked against him, but a sleuthing partnership with the brilliantly clever Marian Halcombe may be just enough to outwit their formidable nemesis – the menacing Count Fosco. One of the great mystery thrillers of the nineteenth century and beyond, The Woman in White is a wonderful combination of rich characterisation and cunning melodrama that ensnares the reader from the very first page.

When young Jim Hawkins finds a mysterious map in a dead sailor’s sea trunk, it marks the start of a thrilling treasure hunt – and a very dangerous adventure. Accompanied by the local doctor and squire, he sets off on the high seas as a cabin-boy, determined to find the buried hoard. But they are not alone in their quest, a band of pirates – led by the enigmatic, one-legged Long John Silver – will stop at nothing to take back what they believe is theirs.

Three adventurers set out to kill a sea monster, but all is not as it seems. Out in the vast expanse of the Pacific they find not a beast but a submarine - the Nautilus, an advanced craft captained by the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Captured and hauled aboard, they accompany him through coral reefs, shipwrecks, and ancient ruins. There they hunt sharks, and battle giant squid, not realising that the greatest danger is Nemo himself, who will stop at nothing in his quest for vengeance.

Brilliant anti-heroine Becky Sharp will do anything to climb to society’s loftiest heights and couldn’t be more different from her rich, sweet-natured schoolmate, Amelia Sedley. Their parallel lives are marked by love, lust, marriage, fortune and loss, in all their different guises, as they navigate the corrupt circus of upper-class Regency England.

One wild, snowy night on the Yorkshire moors, a gentleman asks about Wuthering Heights, the remote farmhouse inhabited by his mysterious landlord. He is told about the tragic romance of the beautiful, headstrong Cathy and the orphan Heathcliff, who – although desperately in love with her – is rejected in favour of a rich suitor. But Cathy cannot forget him, and he develops a lust for revenge that will take over his life as he attempts to win her back, and to destroy everyone, and everything, he considers responsible for his loss. One of the great novels of the nineteenth century, Emily Brontë's haunting tale of passion and greed remains unsurpassed in its depiction of destructive love.

Charles Dickens was one of the great chroniclers of London life. From the colourful chaos of dances and gin-shops to the sparse destitution of the pawnshop and the penitentiary, he captured the grime and the glory of the English capital with singular brilliance. Orphans and beggars, lord mayors and murderers, actors, criminals, cab drivers and prostitutes; all rub shoulders in this wonderful selection from Sketches by Boz.