A Simple Heart, Gustave Flaubert

Independent and spirited, Bathsheba Everdene owns the hearts of three men. Striving to win her love in different ways, their relationships with Bathsheba complicate her life in bucolic Wessex – and cast shadows over their own.

An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.

Woolf’s first novel is a haunting book, full of light and shadow. It takes Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and their niece, Rachel, on a sea voyage from London to a resort on the South American coast. “It is a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South America not found on any map and reached by a boat which would not float on any sea, an America whose...

Anne Elliot is persuaded by her friends and family to reject a marriage proposal from Captain Wentworth because he lacks in fortune and rank. More than seven years later, when he returns home from the Navy, Anne realises she still has strong feelings for him, but Wentworth only appears to have eyes for a friend of Anne’s.

With a bitter feud between their respective families, Romeo and Juliet’s love is troubled from the start, and through their relationship, Shakespeare shows the fine line between love, hatred, comedy and tragedy

In 1845 Henry David Thoreau hiked into the Walden Woods and built a small hut, where he lived alone for the next two years. Thoreau wanted to prove that man could live entirely free from the society, and his experiment tested the limits of self-reliance while also immersing him in the lush of natural beauty of New England. The writings that resulted from...

'She was bored and fought against her boredom, which only bored her still more.'

'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.'

'Back, away from here, drowned people, go. I haven't stolen anyone's place'

He interweaves a compelling, bitter-sweet romantic love story of the rivalry of two brothers for the hand of the heroine Anne Garland, played out against the loves of a lively gallery of other characters.

A selection of Maupassant's brilliant, glittering stories set in the Parisian beau monde and Normandy countryside

Seen through his eyes, bullfighting becomes an art, a richly choreographed ballet, with performers who range from awkward amateurs to masters of great grace and cunning.

Little orphan Heidi is sent to live with her grandfather in his remote house in the Swiss Alps. She soon begins to love her life with her grandfather and makes friends with Peter, the goat-herder and his grandmother. Idyllic as her existence is, her aunt sends Heidi to live in Frankfurt to become a companion to the invalid daughter of a wealthy family...

The Essential Hemmingway is the perfect introduction to his astonishing, wide-ranging body of work. This impressive collection includes the full text of Fiesta, Hemingway's first major novel; long extracts from his three greatest works of fiction, A Farewell to Arms, To Have and Have Not and For Whom the Bell Tolls; twenty-five complete stories; and the...

Upon finding a map in his parents' inn, young Jim Hawkins joins a crew on route to the Caribbean to find buried treasure. One of his crew, the charming, yet devious Long John Silver is determined to snag the booty for himself and Jim's swashbuckling voyage becomes a mutinous and murderous adventure  where his own bravery is put to the test and he...

‘When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books; for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved, and the heart.’