The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels

Spurred by his longing to escape, Winston rebels. He breaks the law by falling in love with Julia, and, as part of the clandestine organization the Brotherhood, they attempt the unimaginable – to bring down the Party.

A bittersweet homage to love that overpowers reason, to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the world-weary beauty and majesty of Venice, Across the River and into the Trees stands as Hemingway's statement of defiance in response to the great dehumanizing atrocities of the Second World War.

'Of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a Man of his age! - just old enough to be formal, ungovernable and to have the Gout - too old to be agreable, and too young to die.'

A rich, successful Moscow professor befriends a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man. 

Though they grow up and marry other people, theirs is a fierce love that cannot be tamed by the laws of society or cooled by the passage of time. Bronte's gothic tale explores the irresistible and dangerous nature of a love that knows no limits as it consumes the two people at its core.

Millions of readers in almost every language on earth have subsequently come to share the author's own enthusiasm for this greatly loved classic, possibly because of its autobiographical form.

'This is as much a mystery as the Immaculate Conception, which of itself must make a doctor an unbeliever

'If you're the sort of guy who raids the refrigerators of silent kitchens at three o'clock in the morning, you can only write accordingly.That's who I am.'

But it is his symbolic art that projects these things in a vision that embraces black comedy, cosmic farce, and tragic ruin. In a unique creative experiment, Dickens divides the narrative between his heroine, Esther Summerson, who is psychologically interesting in her own right, and an unnamed narrator whose perspective both complements and challenges hers.

Laying humanity bare, these two devastating stories ask: is it possible to have a good death? And what does it mean to truly live?

All Quiet on the Western Front is probably the most famous anti-war novel ever written. The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War

Ivanhoe returns from the Crusades in secret and is joined in his plans to re-establish Richard on the thrown by the moneylender Isaac of York, his daughter Rebecca, the mysterious Black Knight, Lady Rowena, and Robin Hood and his merry men.

In the most renowned onstage law scene of all time, Portia proves herself one of Shakespeare’s most cunning heroines, disguising herself as a lawyer and vanquishing Shylock’s claims; meanwhile, Shylock triumphs on a humanitarian level with his plea for tolerance: ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’

Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg.

Griffin, a stranger, arrives at the local inn of an English village, entirely shrouded in bandages. Forbidding and unfriendly, he confines himself to his room. Driven away by the villagers and turning to an old friend for help, Griffin reveals that he has discovered how to make himself invisible, and plans to use his condition for treacherous ends.

Jenny, whose partial deafness allows her a role as an observer of the rest, Anne who Denis falls for rather hard but who prefers Gombauld and Mary whose virginity has become a burden she feels she must rid herself of – but who?