ls een Nederlandse soldaat in een modderig niemandsland zijn intrek neemt in een luxe villa, staat niet veel later een Duitse officier voor de deur. Hij wil het huis confisqueren en ziet zijn vijand aan voor de rechtmatige eigenaar van het huis. Hiermee ontstaat een bizarre, zeer hermansiaanse situatie, eindigend in een wrange ontknoping.

Het behouden huis, dat vanwege de cynische toon bij verschijning op veel weerstand stuitte, groeide uit tot een klassieker uit de naoorlogse Nederlandse li...

'Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else'Dickens's novel honouring the value of the human heart in an age of materialism centres on Coketown, where Mr Thomas Gradgrind, school owner and model of Utilitarian success, feeds his pupils and his family with facts, banning fancy and wonder from young minds.

As a consequence his obedient daughter Louisa becomes trapped in a loveless marriage, and his son Tom rebel...

Catherine Sloper is heiress to a fortune and is easily overwhelmed by the attentions of a handsome but penniless suitor. Her clever father is implacably opposed to the match, and the scene for a classic confrontation is set. This new edition of James's most enduringly popular work offers more information than any previous edition.

A NEW TRANSLATION BY ADAM THORPE'A great novel that is also an inexhaustible pleasure to read' GuardianEmma Bovary is an avid reader of sentimental novels; brought up on a Normandy farm and convent-educated, she longs for romance. At first, Emma pins her hopes on marriage, but life with her well-meaning husband in the provinces leaves her bored and dissatisfied. She seeks escape through extravagant spending sprees and, eventually, adultery.

As Emma pursues her impossible reverie she seals her...

'UTTERLY ENGAGING. FROM THE VERY FIRST PAGE IT IS A HUGELY INVOLVING READ...A HEARTBREAKER: TRAGIC, FUNNY, INTENSELY MOVING' SPECTATORIn a vase in a closet, a couple of years after his father died in 9/11, nine-year-old Oskar discovers a key...The key belonged to his father, he's sure of that. But which of New York's 162 million locks does it open?So begins a quest that takes Oskar - inventor, letter-writer and amateur detective - across New York's five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of ...

Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the invalid Sir Clifford. Unable to fulfil his wife emotionally or physically, Clifford encourages her to have a liaison with a man of their own class. But Connie is attracted instead to her husband's gamekeeper.

This is the first anthology capacious enough to celebrate the full diversity and energy of its writers, subjects and tones. The most famous authors are here, and many others, including some magnificent stories never republished since their first appearance in magazines and periodicals. The Penguin Book of the British Short Story has a permanent authority, and will be reached for year in and year out.Edited and with an introduction by Philip Hensher, the award-winning novelist, critic and jour...

Lady Constance Chatterley is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who is impotent. Oppressed by her dreary life, she is drawn to Mellors the gamekeeper. Breaking out against the constraints of society she yields to her instinctive desire for him and discovers the transforming power of physical love which leads them both towards fulfillment.

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor. In love with his landlady's twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he'll do anything to possess her. Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants. Is he in love or insane? This is a silver-tongued poet or a pervert?

This collection of Poe's work contains some of the most exciting and haunting stories ever written. They range from the poetic to the mysterious to the darkly comic, yet all possess the genius for the grotesque that defines Poe's writing. They are peopled with neurotics and social outcasts, obsessed with nameless terrors or preoccupied with seemingly unsolvable mysteries. 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher' are key works in the horror canon, while in the 'The Murders in...