Hamlet, William Shakespeare

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.

The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government.

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.

First published as a serialization in The Strand Magazine between 1914 and 1915, this fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel will delight fans of Conan Doyle’s legendary detective and his faithful sidekick Watson.

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...

‘Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.’

How did the leopard get its spots? Why do the tides ebb and flow? How did the elephant get its trunk? And how was the alphabet made?

‘How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods.’

But I would rather have it bent and dulled and know I had to put it on the grindstone and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining, and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.'

Much of White Fang is written from the viewpoint of the titular canine character, enabling London to explore how animals view their world and how they view humans. White Fang examines the violent world of wild animals and the equally violent world of humans. The book also explores complex themes including morality and redemption.

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.

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

Nicky Belane, private detective and career alcoholic, is a troubled man. He is plagued not just by broads, booze, lack of cash and a raging ego, but also by the surreal jobs he's been hired to do. Not only has been hired to track down French classical author Celine - who's meant to be dead - but he's also supposed to find the elusive Red Sparrow - which...

'Summer was drawing to a close, and I realized that the book was monstrous.'

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.

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