The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

In creating this collection of tales, Doyle had lost none of cunning or panache, providing Holmes with a sparkling set of mysteries to solve and a challenging set of mysteries to solve and a challenging set of adversaries to defeat.

George Bowling, forty-five, mortgaged, married with children, is an insurance salesman with an expanding waistline, a new set of false teeth - and a desperate desire to escape his dreary life. He fears modern times - since, in 1939, the Second World War is imminent - foreseeing food queues, soldiers, secret police and tyranny. 

Their story, which encompasses violence, revenge, love and redemption, is grippingly played out against the backdrop of the terrifying brutality of the French Revolution.

King Henry IV’s son, Prince Harry is quick-witted yet idle and irresponsible and lives a roguish existence keeping dubious company.

Silas Marner is a tender and moving tale of sin and repentance set in a vanished rural world and holds the reader's attention until the last page as Eppie's bonds of affection for Silas are put to the test.

Gilbert Markham becomes suspicious when he begins to hear these stories, however it is only when he reads Helen’s diary that he learns the full cruelty that her husband subjected her to in her previous life.

Set in fictitious Coketown, England during the Industrial Revolution of the 1850s, Dickens wished to expose the enormous gulf between the rich and poor through his writing. In Hard Times, the social and moral purpose of his work is at its most evident.

This revolutionary summons to workers transformed the modern world and still shapes millions of lives today.

Wilde’s supremely witty tale of dandies, anarchists and a murderous prophecy in London high society.

Jane Austen is remembered for her six masterpieces of the Regency era: from the heroines of Elizabeth Bennett and Emma Woodhouse, to the villains of Mrs. Norris and John Willoughby. But these characters were not born overnight. They sprung from Austen’s experiences as a young girl, and many early iterations can be found in the earliest of her writing: her...

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?’

From the father of American literature, four sparkling comic tales of extraordinary animals and parables subverted.

While staying in Bath, Catherine meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor who invite her to their family estate, Northanger Abbey. A fan of Gothic Romance novels, naive Catherine is soon letting her imagination run wild in the atmospheric abbey, fuelled by her friendship with the vivacious Isabella Thorpe.

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

Hunters, wives, old men of wisdom, waiters, fighters, women loved, women lost: they are all here, living on the raw edge, making love, facing the inevitable reality of death.

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