Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

In the course of the essay, Tolstoy shows different attempts to find answers on the examples of science, philosophy, eastern wisdom, and the opinions of his fellow novelists. . . . finding no workable solution in any of these, Tolstoy recognizes the deep religious convictions of ordinary people as containing the key to true answers. 

A divorcee, Olenska is ostracised by those around her, yet Newland is fiercely drawn to her wit, determination and willingness to flout convention. With the Countess, Newland is freed from the limitations that surround him and truly begins to ‘feel’ for the first time.

'... slowly uncoiling their tentacles... and making a soft purring sound to each other'

The story’s plot follows four characters rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope—a rural, pastoral and close-knit community in 1799. The novel revolves around a love triangle between beautiful but thoughtless Hetty Sorrel, Captain Arthur Donnithorne, the young squire who seduces her, Adam Bede, her unacknowledged lover, and Dinah Morris,...

Toru Okada's cat has disappeared. His wife is growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving.

When a strange, meteor-like object lands in the heart of England, the inhabitants of Earth find themselves victims of a terrible attack. A ruthless race of Martians, armed with heat rays and poisonous smoke, is intent on destroying everything that stands in its way. 

An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, this collection of the infamous writer's works displays his brilliant, quick wit to its full glory.

The satirical portraits of the revolutionaries, with their naivety, ludicrous single-mindedness and readiness for murder and destruction, might seem exaggerated - until we consider their all-too-recognisable descendants in the real world ever since. 

'The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.'

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.

Featuring Rosalind, one of Shakespeare’s most likeable and strong female protagonists, As You Like It is a comedic play centred around concealed identity, love, exile and artifice. Banished from the court by her uncle, Rosalind flees to the forest with her cousin Celia and her jester, joining her already exiled father, and disguising herself as a boy.

'Phileas Fogg was one of those mathematically exact people, who, never hurried and always ready, are economical of their steps and their motions. He never made one stride too many, always going by the shortest route. He did not give an idle look. He did not allow himself a superfluous gesture.'.

‘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.’

1841: Solomon Northup is a successful violinist when he is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Taken from his family in New York State – with no hope of ever seeing them again – and forced to work on the cotton plantations in the Deep South, he spends the next twelve years in captivity until his eventual escape in 1853.

Jacob's Room (1922), Woolf's third novel, marks the bold affirmation of her own voice and search for a new form to express her view that `the human soul ... orientates itself afresh every now & then. It is doing so now. No one can see it whole therefore.' Jacob's life is presented in subtle, delicate and tantalising glimpses, the novel's gaps and...

After taking an elixir created in his laboratory, mild mannered Dr Jekyll is transformed into the cruel and despicable Mr Hyde. Although seemingly harmless at first, things soon descend into chaos and Jekyll quickly realises there is only one way to stop Hyde.