A classic novel which follows Stephen Dedalus as he progresses from boyhood to his coming of age in Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century, describing his sexual awakening, his intellectual deve
A story of passionate love, travail and final triumph. The relationship between the heroine and Mr Rochester is only one episode, albeit the most important, in a detailed fictional autobiography in wh
Set in the years before and after Waterloo, the novel tells the parallel stories of two schoolfriends - the quiet, long-suffering Amelia and her brilliant, scheming friend, Becky Sharp. The novel port
Elizabeth Bennet is at first determined to dislike Mr. Darcy, who is handsome and eligible. This misjudgment only matched in folly by Darcy's arrogant pride. Their first impressions give way to truer
A hypnotic story of hatred, revenge and catastrophe in which Cousin Bette exacts a terrible price from the rich relations who use and humiliate her. This book portrays the world of post-Napoleonic Fra
Examines the conflict of attitudes in mid-19th-century Russia, as distant pre-echoes of the Revolution continue to rumble through the remote rural landscape. The story follows the Kirsanov family, rep
Wilkie Collins' sixth novel took the fashionable world by storm on its appearance in 1860, when everything from dances to dresses was named after the "woman in white". Nicholas Rance is the author of
Set in the post-Great War Long Island/New York world of the rich. The narrator, Nick Carraway, sympathetically records the pathos of Gatsby's romantic dream which founders on the reality of corruption
This is the story of fatal attraction and its consequences. The American narrator's highly-strung wife falls for his bluff, inarticulate English friend. Retrospectively piecing the story together, the
Published in 1913, this is a fictionalized account of Lawrence's love for his mother. It traces Paul Morel's childhood, his growing into adolescence and adulthood, and the frustrations of his love for
A bitter-sweet tale of quiet lives in the small and apparently timeless world of mid-19th century Sicilian nobility. Through the eyes of his princely protagonist, the author chronicles the details of
Emma Wodehouse has led a simple life, but during the course of this, she at last reaps her share of the world's vexations. In this comedy of manners, the heroine learns to come to terms with the reali
In this novel of obsessive passion the author tells stories of Old Goriot and the ungrateful daughters he adores; young Rastignac, a country lad determined to make his way in Paris; and Vautrin, his s
In this account of a disillusioned soul failing to come to terms with reality, the novelist recreates the Byronic anti-hero in the context of post-revolutionary France where the church, politics and s
The talented and beautiful Isabel Archer, courted by several suitors and enriched by her dying uncle, chooses to marry the cold and ambitious Gilbert Osmond. The heroine soon discovers to her cost tha
A story of the war between man and mammal, in which the author explores his obsessions with good and evil, love and solitude, speech and silence, using his technical knowledge of sailing and the sea t
Famed as a wit and bon viveur, Oscar Wilde lived up to his reputation. This selection of plays, poems and prose writings, introduced by Terry Eagleton, includes "The Importance of Being Earnest", "Lad
Describes a band of frustrated revolutionary exiles in Geneva. This book is a study of individuals under pressure, and it remains a telling account of the fugitive life - especially in its portrait of
