One of Charles Dickens's most renowned and enjoyable novels, Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, an orphan boy who wishes to transcend his humble origins and finds himself unexpectedly given the opportunity to live a life of wealth and respectability. Over the course of the tale, in which Pip encounters such famous characters as Miss Havisham, Herbert Pocket and Joe Gargery, he comes to realise that his money is tainted and the girl he loves will not return his affections; happiness mu...

Utterly unique and beloved around the world, The Prophet is a collection of twenty-six poetic essays by the Lebanese artist, philosopher and writer Khalil Gibran. Telling the story of the prophet Al-Mustafa and his conversations with various acquaintances as he returns home after a long absence, the book touches on subjects of universal concern, including love, friendship, passion, pain, religion and freedom.Thought-provoking, comforting and wise, the simple truths of The Prophet remain compe...

Introduction and Notes by John S. Whitley, University of Sussex. Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father.

After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds...

Presenting the desperate conflict of the First World War through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier, Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel is translated by Michael Hofmann in Penguin Modern Classics. 'As though walking through a deep dream, I saw steel helmets approaching through the craters. They seemed to sprout from the fire-harrowed soil like some iron harvest.'A memoir of astonishing power, savagery and ashen lyricism, Storm of Steel depicts Ernst Jünger's experience of combat on the front...

Published in 1782, just years before the French Revolution, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. At its centre are two aristocrats, former lovers, who embark on a sophisticated game of seduction and manipulation to bring amusement to their jaded existences. While the Marquise de Merteuil challenges the Vicomte de Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, the Vicomte is also occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman.

Bu...

The text is that of the 1813 first edition, accompanied by revised and expanded explanatory annotations. This edition also includes: biographical portraits of Austen by members of her family and, new to the fourth edition, those by Jon Spence (Becoming Jane Austen) and Paula Byrne (The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things). Also included are fifteen critical essays, twelve of them new to the fourth edition, reflecting the finest current scholarship.

Contributors include Janet Todd, Jim Co...

"Shamela" is a parody of Samuel Richardson's "Pamela", in which a virtuous servant girl long resists her master's advances and is eventually 'rewarded' with marriage. "Joseph Andrews", Fielding's first novel, can also be seen as a response to Richardson, as the lascivious Lady Booby sets out to seduce her comically chaste servant Joseph.

Jean Rhys's Good Morning Midnight is an unforgettable portrait of a woman bravely confronting loneliness and despair in her quest for self-determinationIn 1930s Paris, where one cheap hotel room is very like another, a young woman is teaching herself indifference. She has escaped personal tragedy and has come to France to find courage and seek independence. She tells herself to expect nothing, especially not kindness, least of all from men.

Tomorrow, she resolves, she will dye her hair blonde...

A brilliant new translation of Koestler's long-lost original manuscript. A chilling and unforgettable 20th century classic. From a prison cell in an unnamed country run by a totalitarian government Rubashov reflects.

Once a powerful player in the regime, mercilessly dispensing with anyone who got in the way of his party's aims, Rubashov has had the tables turned on him. He has been arrested and he'll be interrogated, probably tortured and certainly executed. Darkness at Noon is as gripping as...

Bigger Thomas has grown up in Chicago’s slums, reckless, angry and adrift. A respectable job with the affluent Dalton family provides hope but sets him on course for a catastrophic collision between his world and theirs. Hunted by citizen and police alike, and baited by prejudiced officials, Bigger finds himself the cause célèbre in an ever-narrowing endgame.

First published in 1940, Native Son shocked readers with its candid depiction of violence and confrontation of racial stereotypes. ...