Wordsworth

Castigated for offending against public decency, "Madame Bovary" has rarely failed to cause a storm. For Flaubert's contemporaries, the fascination came from the novelist's meticulous account of provincial matters. For the writer, subject matter was subordinate to his anguished quest for aesthetic perfection. For his twentieth-century successors...

A sensational assembly of salacious stories selected from the secret shelves of the libraries of libertines, long-gone gentlemen, rakes and roues. These pages are patinated with the pulsating passion of vigorous youths, willing wenches, innocent initiates, meddling madames and vicarious voyeurs. The passionate participants, the actors ...

Tales from Shakespeare, written by Charles and Mary Lamb as an 'introduction to the study of Shakespeare', are much more entertaining than that. All of Shakespeare's best-loved plays, comic and tragic, are retold in a clear and robust style. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham....

Jonathan Swift's classic satirical narrative was first published in 1726, seven years after Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (one of its few rivals in fame and breadth of appeal). As a parody travel-memoir it reports on extraordinary lands and societies, whose names have entered the English language: notably the minute inhabitants of Lilliput, the giants of...

A historical romance, The Three Musketeers tells the story of the early adventures of the young Gascon gentleman, D'Artagnan and his three friends from the regiment of the King's Musketeers - Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Under the watchful eye of their patron M. de Treville, the four defend the honour of the regiment against the guards of Cardinal...

`When you have experienced Sons and Lovers you have lived through the agonies of the young Lawrence striving to win free from his old life'.Richard AldingtonThis novel is Lawrence's semi-autobiographical masterpiece in which he explores emotional conflicts through the protagonist, Paul Morel, and his suffocating relationships with a demanding...