Wordsworth

John Locke (1632-1704) was perhaps the most influential English writer of his time. His Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Two Treatises of Government (1690) weighed heavily on the history of ideas in the eighteenth century, and Locke's works are often - rightly - presented as foundations of the Age of Enlightenment. Both the Essay and...

'The worst parts were the great masses of flesh of the monstrous Worm, in all its red and sickening aspect… The sight was horrible enough, but, with the awful smell added, was simply unbearable. The Worm's hole appeared to breathe forth death in its most repulsive forms.'Here are two great, neglected horror novels by Bram Stoker, author of Dracula,...

'I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembled with horror which at all times assails me yet'.With its strange, imaginative blend of horror, science fiction, romance and lyrical prose, Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow is a classic masterpiece of weird fiction. This series of vaguely connected stories is linked by the presence of...

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was one of the great masters of Victorian of mystery and horror fiction, and can be regarded as the father of the modern ghost story. In a Glass Darkly (1872), one of his most celebrated volumes, purports to be the casebook of Dr Hesselius, a pioneer psychologist.These five tales represent some of Le Fanu's most...

In this selection of tales by the master folklorist Andrew Lang, the reader is taken into the romantic world of the gallant Knights of the Round Table and their courageous and chivalrous deeds, fair maidens, castles steeped in history, the quest for the Holy Grail, and the tragic love of King Arthur and Sir Lancelot for Guinevere, and Tristan for...

Frances Burnett Hodgson's novel The Secret Garden is both intriguing and uplifting. It is regarded as one of the best children's books written in the twentieth century.Mary Lennox, a sickly ten year old girl, adrift in the world after both her mother and father die is sent to Yorkshire to live with an uncle whom she has never met, at his isolated...