French naturalist Dr. Aronnax embarks on an expedition to hunt down a sea monster, only to discover instead the Nautilus, a self-contained world built by its enigmatic captain. Together Nemo and Aronnax explore the underwater marvels, undergo a transcendent experience amongst the ruins of Atlantis, and plant a black flag at the South Pole. But Nemo's mission is one of revenge - and his methods coldly efficient. Verne's classic work has left a profound mark on the twentieth century. Its themes are universal, is style humorous and grandiose, its construction masterly.

This is a title in an inexpensive range of classics in the Penguin Popular Classics series. The story takes place at the close of the 18th century. Hetty Sorrel, the niece of farmer Martin Poyser is loved by Adam Bede, the village carpenter, but is deluded by the attentions of a young squire.

Wild child Huck has to get away. His violent drunk of a father is back in town again, raising Cain. He won't rest until he has Huck's money. So the enterprising boy fakes his own death and sets out in search of adventure and freedom. Teaming up with Jim, an escaped slave with a price on his head, the two fugitives go on the run, travelling down the wide Mississippi River. But Huck finds himself wrestling with his conscience. Should he save Jim, or turn his friend over to a terrible fate?

From his rooms in Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes's brooding figure emerges into the foggy streets of Victorian London to grapple with the forces of treachery, intrigue, and evil.

Sardonic, wry and wise, Aesop’s Fables are some of the most enduring andwell-loved literary creations in history. In a series of pithy, amusingvignettes, Aesop created a vivid cast of characters to demonstrate different aspects of human nature. Here we see a wily fox outwitted by a quick-thinking cicada, a tortoise triumphing over a self-confident hareand a fable-teller named Aesop silencing those who mock him. Each jewel-like fable provides a warning about the consequences of wrong-doing, as well as offering a glimpse into the everyday lives of Ancient Greeks.

When her family becomes impoverished after a disasterous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess. This is a personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, educated women in Victorian society. Agnes Grey is undoubtedly a deeply personal novel, in which Anne Bronte views on the 'contemporary' issue of the treatment of governesses, as well as her passionate religious sympathies, find very deliberate expression; but she also touches on issues of moral behaviour, moral responsibility, and individual integrity and its survival.

This adventure story tells of three men and their guide Umslopogaas who trek into the remote interior of Africa in search of a lost white race. Through unknown territories their perilous journey takes them to Zu-vendis, a kingdom ruled by the beautiful twin sisters, Nyleptha and Sorais.

Probally one the original "story within a story" book. Arabian nights is a selection of stories told by a young girl on her wedding night to a price who has sworn he will kill any girl who marries him. Her clever stories keep him from murdering her night after night. This is where
classic fairy tales such as Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Theives come from as well as moral tales and metaphors.The use of djins, magic and Eastern splendour makes Arabian Nights dazzle. A must read and a perfect counter point to western fairy tales such as Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm.

In Around the World in Eighty Days, Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions £20,000 that he can travel around the entire globe in just eighty days-and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman immediately sets off for Dover, accompanied by his hot-blooded French manservant, Passepartout. Traveling by train, steamship, sailboat, sledge, and even elephant, they must overcome storms, kidnappings, natural disasters, Sioux attacks, and the dogged Inspector Fix of Scotland Yard to win the extraordinary wager. Combining exploration, adventure, and a thrilling race against time, Around the World in Eighty Days gripped audiences upon its publication and remains hugely popular to this day.

As you like it By William Shakespeare

This is a title in an inexpensive range of classics in the "Penguin Popular Classics" series.

Set in mid-Victorian England, this novel follows the fight for
ascendancy among the clergy and dependants of a great English cathedral.

Stung by the difficult reception of Moby Dick, Herman Melville became obsessed with the difficulties of communicating his vision to readers. His sesne of isolation lies at the heart of these later works. "Billy Budd, Sailor" is a classic confrontation between good and evil, and the story of an innocent young man unable to defend himself against a wrongful accusation. The other stories also illuminate the way fictions are created and shared by society.

This is Robert Louis Stevenson's historical romance set during the War of the Roses.

Black Beauty begins life in a loving home. But his owners are forced to sell him, and Black Beauty's fortunes change. He is moved from place to place and job to job, often suffering cruel treatment and harsh conditions - until a chance encounter leads to a new turn of events.

Black Beauty begins life in a loving home. But his owners are forced to sell him, and Black Beauty's fortunes change. He is moved from place to place and job to job, often suffering cruel treatment and harsh conditions - until a chance encounter leads to a new turn of events.

Lear's nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumor developed that "Edward Lear" was merely a pseudonym, and the books' true author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works, hispatron the Earl of Derby. Promoters of this rumor offered as evidence the facts that both men were named Edward, and that "Lear" is an anagram of "Earl." The falls of the Kalama, Albania 1851 Lear's nonsense works are distinguished by a facility of verbal invention and a poet's delightin the sounds of words, both real and imaginary. A stuffed rhinoceros becomes a "diaphanous doorscraper." A "blue Boss-Woss" plunges into "a perpendicular, spicular, orbicular, quadrangular, circular depth of soft mud.

The Canterbury Tales, compiled in the late fourteenth century, isan incisive portrait, infused with Chaucer's wry wit and vibrant, poetical languauge. He evokes a spectrum of colourful characters, from the bawdy Wife of Bath to the gallant Knight, the fastidious Prioress and the burly, drunken Miller. As they wend their way from Southwark to Canterbury, tales are told to pass the time, and the stories are as diverse as the narrators, encompassing themes such as adultery, revenge, courtly love, lechery, avarice and penitence. As humorous today as when it was written over six centuries ago, The Canterbury Tales remains one of the most popular and enjoyable of the classic works of literature.

A collection of poems to celebrate childhood. From the make-believe world of "The Land of Counterpane" to the simple pleasure of "At the Seaside", the curiosity of "Auntie's Skirts" to the dreams of "Foreign Lands", these poems capture a child's wonder and fascination with everyday things.

This story is of life in the New Forest, where four children live in hiding, disguised as a forester's grandchildren, after their father has been killed at Naseby, fighting for the king. Cromwell rules the land now. The family home has been burnt and they are supposed to have died in the flames.

Dickens's story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by a series of ghostly visitors, has proved one of his most well-loved works. Ever since it was published in 1843 it has had an enduring influence on the way we think about the traditions of Christmas. Dickens's other Christmas writings collected here include 'The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton', the short story from The Pickwick Papers on which A Christmas Carolwas based; along with shorter pieces drawn from the 'Christmas Stories' that Dickens wrote annually for his weekly journals. In all of them Dickens celebrates the season as one of geniality, charity and remembrance.

When three boys find themselves shipwrecked on a South Pacific island, they must learn to survive in a sometimes beautiful, sometimes deadly new world. Sharks, cannibals, and pirates are only the start of their adventures. A classic tale of high adventure and boyhood courage!

This title is part of an inexpensive range of classics in the Penguin Popular Classics series.

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting fora higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator,
Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption.

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption.

Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow-countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve. Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts, or is she simply ignorant of those conventions? When she strikes up an intimate friendship with an urbane young Italian, her flat refusal to observe the codes of respectable behaviour leave her perilously exposed.In Daisy Miller James created his first great portrait of the enigmatic and dangerously independent American woman, a figure who would come to dominate his later masterpieces.

David Copperfield: The story traces the life of David Copperfield fromchildhood to maturity. David is born in England in 1820. David's fatherhad died six months before he was born, and seven years later, his mother re-marries Mr. Edward Murdstone. David is given good reason to dislike his stepfather and has similar feelings for Mr Murdstone's sister Jane, who moves into the house soon afterwards.
Mr Murdstone thrashes David for falling behind with his studies. Following one of these thrashings, David bites him and soon afterwards is sent away to a boarding school, Salem House, with a ruthless headmaster, Mr. Creakle. Here he befriends James Steerforth and Tommy Traddles, both of whom become significant later on in the novel.

6 of the Roaring Twenties chronicler's most scintillating short stories,chosen from Flappers and Philosophers (1920) and Tales of the Jazz Age (1922). This inexpensive volume comprises The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, The Ice Palace, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, May Day, The Jelly-Bean, and The Offshore Pirate.

Everyone has a dark side. Dr Jekyll has discovered the ultimate drug. A chemical that can turn him into something else. Suddenly, he can unleash his deepest cruelties in the guise of the sinister Hyde. Transforming himself at will, he roams the streets of fog-bound London as his monstrous alter-ego. It seems he is master of his fate. It seems he is in complete control. But soon he will discover that his double life comes at a hideous price ...

Everyone has a dark side. Dr Jekyll has discovered the ultimate drug. A chemical that can turn him into something else. Suddenly, he can unleash his deepest cruelties in the guise of the sinister Hyde. Transforming himself at will, he roams the streets of fog-bound London as his monstrous alter-ego. It seems he is master of his fate. It seems he is in complete control. But soon he will discover that his double life comes at a hideous price ...

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes horrifying discoveries about his client and his castle. Soon afterwards, a number of disturbing incidentsunfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked at Whitby; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the imminent arrival of his 'Master'. In the ensuing battle of wits between the sinister Count Dracula and a determined group of adversaries, Bram Stoker created a masterpiece of the horror genre.

This a collection of 18th century poetry.

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister's marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period.

Eugenia is the morganatic wife of a German prince who is repudiated by her husband in favour of a state marriage. With her artist brother Felixshe goes to Boston to live with relatives whom she has never seen before, with hopes of making a wealthy marriage.

At a time when children's stories were formal, moral and didactic, Hans Christian Andersen revolutionized the genre, giving an anarchic twist totraditional folklore and creating a huge number of utterly original stories that sprang directly from his imagination. From the exuberant early stories such as 'The Emperor's New Clothes', though poignant masterpieces such as 'The Little Mermaid' and 'The Ugly Duckling', to the darker, more subversive later tales written for adults, the stories included here are endlessly experimental, both humorous and irreverent, sorrowful and strange. This book will bring these magical tales to life for readers of any age.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure", commonly known as "Fanny Hill", has been shrouded in mystery and controversy since John Cleland completed it in 1749. The Bishop of London called the work 'an open insult upon Religion and good manners' and James Boswell referred to it as 'a most licentious and inflaming book'. The story of a prostitute's rise to respectability, it has been recognized more recently as a unique combination of parody, sensual entertainment and a philosophical concept
of sexuality borrowed from French libertine novels.

Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd GabrielOak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates
her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in Wessex, Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,

From London to Cornwall, then to Italy and France, a short, shabby priest runs to earth bandits, traitors, killers. Why is he so successful? The reason is that after years spent in the priesthood, Father Brown knows human nature and is not afraid of its dark side. Thus he understands criminal motivation and how to deal with it. The stories included are "The Paradise of Thieves", "The Duel of Dr. Hirsch", "The Man in the Passage", "The Mistakes of the Machine", "The Head of the Caesar", "The Purple Wig", "The Perishing of the Pendragons", "The God of the Gongs", "The Salad of the Colonel Cray", "The Strange Crime of John Boulnois" and "The Fairy Tale of Father Brown".

The epic battle between man and monster reaches its greatest pitch in the famous story of Frankenstein. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor himself to the very brink. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship ...and horror.

When "Little Women" came to its last chapter Meg was engaged and the other three March girls, Beth, Jo and Amy, were at the threshold of young-womanhood. "Good Wives" opens three years later, with Meg and her family happily preparing for her marriage to John Brooke.

When "Little Women" came to its last chapter Meg was engaged and the other three March girls, Beth, Jo and Amy, were at the threshold of young-womanhood. "Good Wives" opens three years later, with Meg and her family happily preparing for her marriage to John Brooke.

Pip doesn't expect much from life...
His sister makes it clear that her orphaned little brother is nothing but a burden on her. But suddenly things begin to change. Pip's narrow existence is blown apart when he finds an escaped criminal, is summoned to visit a mysterious old woman and meets the icy beauty Estella. Most astoundingly of all, an anonymous person gives him money to begin a new
life in London.
Are these events as random as they seem? Or does Pip's fate hang on a series of coincidences he could never have expected?

Richard Hannay, South African mining engineer and war hero, undertakes aperilous mission to pursue the elusive Greenmantle. His success or failure could change the outcome of World War I.

This is the famous true story about a devoted dog. Bobby, an active Skyeterrier, adores his master Auld Jock, and when the old man dies, Bobby refuses to leave his grave in Greyfriars Churchyard in Edinburgh. By day, he plays with the local orphans and eats at a nearby tavern, but, in spite of anything even the Lord Provost himself can do, every night for fourteen years Bobby returns faithfully to sleep by his master.

Merry, dark or magical, these classic tales never fail to inspire and enthrall. From the land of fantastical castles, vast lakes and deep forests, the Brothers Grimm collected a treasury of entrancing folk and fairy stories full of giants and dwarfs, witches and princesses, magic beasts and cunning boys. From favourites such as "The Frog-Prince" and "Hansel and Gretel" to the delights of "Ashputtel" or "Old Sultan", all are vivid with timeless mystery.

Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift's savage satire views mankind in a distorted hallof mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with an uncompromising reflection of ourselves.

Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift's savage satire views mankind in a distorted hallof mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with an uncompromising reflection of ourselves.

A young prince meets with his father's ghost, who alleges that his own brother, now married to his widow, murdered him. The prince devises a scheme to test the truth of the ghost's accusation, feigning wild madness while plotting a brutal revenge. But his apparent insanity soon begins to wreak havoc on innocent and guilty alike.

These special fairy tales, which Oscar Wilde made up for his own sons, include "The Happy Prince", who was not as happy as he seemed; "The Selfish Giant", who learned to love little children; and "The Star Child", who suffered bitter trials when he rejected his parents...Often whimsical and sometimes sad, they all shine with poetry and magic.