The Valley of Fear: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure, Arthur Conad Doyle

'If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast'

Jane Austen's final completed novel is set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath. It has been described as the most romantic of all her novels.

The narrative traces Jacob’s childhood in Cornwall and his education at Cambridge, culminating in an evocative portrait of his adult life in London and abroad.

 Stunned, his parents nevertheless try to raise him as they would any normal baby. By the time Benjamin is twelve, his parents realize their son is aging backwards, getting younger every day.

Set in frontier America in the midst of the French-Indian war, as the French are attempting to overthrow an English fort, Cooper’s story follows Alice and Cora Munro, pioneer sisters who are trying to find their way back to their father, an English commander. 

'Although he feared death, he could not stop. 'If I stopped now, after coming all this way - well, they'd call me an idiot!'

But as the money begins to fail, so does their marriage. Patch’s gradual descent into alcoholism, depression and alienation from his marriage ultimately lead to his ruin. Fitzgerald’s novel is a remorseless exploration of the horrors of an age of excess and lost innocence.

When a sudden collision rips a hole in the ship’s hull, the ferry sinks like a stone, throwing the literary critic into the icy harbor. Rescued by the Ghost, a seal-hunting vessel, van Weyden counts his blessings. Little does he know he’s boarded a ship bound straight for hell.

'My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?' A poignant tale of love and loneliness from Russia's foremost writer.

'Time is a catastrophe, perpetual and irreversible.'

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

'It was as if the sea, breaking down the wall protecting all the homes of the town, had sent a wave over her head'

Smith's day interweaves with that of Clarissa and her friends, their lives converging as the party reaches its glittering climax. Virginia Woolf's masterly novel, in which she perfected the interior monologue, brings past, present and future together on one momentous day in June 1923.

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.

Many of these stories, like his great novels, reveal his special sympathy for the solitary and dispossessed, explore the same complex psychological issues and subtly combine rich characterization and philosophical meditations on the (often) dark areas of the human psyche, all conveyed in an idiosyncratic blend of deadly seriousness and wild humour. 

On his travels he continues to meet others who force him to reflect on human behaviour - the giants of Brobdingnag, the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos. In this scathing satire on the politics and morals of the 18th Century, Swift's condemnation of society and its institutions still resonates today.