Classic fiction Books

Suddenly the upper rim of the clear setting sun disappeared behind the hill of Knockdoula, and it was twilight. Each child felt the transition like a shock ... and the rounded summit of Lisnavoura, now closely overhanging them, struck them with a new...

Something was coming down the tide. It came down as quiet as a sleeping bairn, straight for him as he sat with his horse breasting the waters, and as it came the moon crept out of a cloud and he saw a glint of yellow hair.From misty moors, crags and...

I knew the site of the hut and the hill behind it up which I had rushed, and in the flickering glow the eyes of the rats still shone with a sort of phosphorescence.Beyond the genre-defining influence of Dracula, Bram Stoker was also a master of the short...

Fearsome Fairiestaps into the enormous fascination with fairies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and includes cornerstone authors of the Weird genre such as Arthur Machen, M R James and Charlotte Riddell.You see no, you do not, but I see...

Back from the shouting floor and ceiling came the chorus of images that stormed and clamoured for expression. Jones lay still and listened; he let them come. There was nothing else to do.Algernon Blackwood was one of the most influential writers of...

Sheridan Le Fanu was lauded by contemporaries such as M R James for his innovations in the ghost story and mystery genres, and his mastery of conjuring atmosphere and driving stories to thrilling narrative crescendos. And yet, aside from some regularly...

The vampire is one of the great enemies of humanity, a nightmarish figure who feeds on the living in order to sustain themselves. Born from ancient folklore, writers in the nineteenth century gave form to the vampire as we know it today. Still haunting...

'If much of the action is set in a bookshop or a library, it is a bibliomystery, just as it is if a major character is a bookseller or a librarian.' Otto PenzlerA bookish puzzle threatens an eagerly awaited inheritance; a submission to a publisher...

An honest policeman, Sergeant Wigan, escorts a drunk man home one night to keep him out of trouble and, seeing his fine book collection, slowly falls in to the gentle art of book collecting. Just as the friendship is blossoming, the policeman's...

'I should be very much happier if she were dead.' Edward Powell lives with his Aunt Mildred in the Welsh town of Lywll. His aunt thinks Lywll an idyllic place to live, but Edward loathes the countryside - and thinks the company even worse. In face,...

The Second World War is drawing to a close. Nicholas Vaughan, released from the army after an accident, takes refuge in Devon - renting a thatched cottage in the beautiful countryside at Mallory Fitzjohn. Vaughan sets to work farming the land, rearing...

The second in a series of republished classic literature, The Ghost Stories of M. R. James collects the tales that best illustrate his quiet mastery of the ghost story form. Running through each of these stories is a slowly escalating sense of unease and...

H. P. Lovecraft is best known for his tales of cosmic horror, in which unnameable nightmares torment the limits of human consciousness. This mastery of weird and unspeakable terror is underpinned by the writer's sizeable contribution to Gothic fiction...

One 'golden afternoon' in Oxford, in July 1862, the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, accompanied three young sisters, Lorina, Alice, and Edith, on a boating trip. To keep the children amused, Dodgson, began to tell a tale about an...

`Through the double clamour of Big Ben and the shrill sound of the bell rang a revolver shot.' A financier is found shot in the House of Commons. Suspecting foul play, Robert West, a parliamentary private secretary, takes on the role of amateur sleuth...

'The death was an odd one, it was true; but there was after all no very clear reason to assume it was anything but natural.' In the winter of 1942, England lies cold and dark in the wartime blackout. One bleak evening, Councillor Grayling steps off the 6...

The 1939 Arsenal side is firing on all cylinders and celebrating a string of victories. They appear unstoppable, but the Trojans - a side of amateurs who are on a winning streak of their own - may be about to silence the Gunners. Moments into the second...

Playing Jane Austen is the original dramatisation of Jane Austen's work. The collection was first published in1895 as Duologues and Scenes from the Novels of Jane Austen Arranged and Adapted for Drawing-Room Performance by Victorian feminist and actor...

'I'm taking a revolver to Thrackley. You never know with blokes like Carson. I hate these harmless, potty people - they're always up to something.' Jim Henderson is one of six guests summoned by the mysterious Edwin Carson, a collector of precious...

A young girl whose love for her fiance continues even after her death; a sinister old lady with claw-like hands who cares little for the qualities of her companions provided they are young and full of life; and a haunted mirror that foretells of...

'From the point of view of the nation, it's a good thing that he died.' Great Barwick's least popular man is murdered on a train. Twelve jurors sit in court. Four suspects are identified - but which of them is on trial? This novel has all the makings of...

The only surviving play of Aeschylus to be based on a historical event-the Greek victory at Salamis just a few years before the play was written-Persians appears in Deborah H. Roberts' brilliant new verse translation accompanied by her Introduction,...

Thrilling Japanesestories of vampires, ghosts and renegade samurai.Step back through the mists of time to ancient Japan, wherewandering samurai seek revenge for the death of their master, the red-eyedspectres of an executed man and his wife haunt a...

Supernatural tales from the most famous anthology in all of Japanese literature!The Konjaku Monogatari Shu is a collection of tales from Buddhist and popular Japanese folklore that was compiled in the twelfth century. The stories in this book tell of...

Eerie tales of Japanese goblins, ghosts and magic beautifully illustrated in a deluxe collector's edition!This collection of fifteen chilling tales brings to life a world where the supernatural and earthly realms are seamlessly intertwined. The...

This is the full Shakespeare play adapted into simplified plain English (aimed at a 10 year-old reading age), and brought to life as a vivid and engaging full-color graphic novel.With its mix of real people who stumble into a fairy kingdom (with its own...

"That minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called - wicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her mortal transgressions, I've no doubt!"A favorite book of many readers,...

"I went down into the vaults. There lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which - for the eyes were open and stony but without the glassiness of death."The classic gothic horror story, presented in a totally engaging way through...

A bitter feud between the Montagues and the Capulets keeps the city of Verona, Italy, in a state of constant unrest. Despite the enmity, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall passionately in love. Enlisting the help of Friar Laurence, the young lovers...

One Christmas Eve, after being particularly cruel to his employee, the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his dead business partner, Jacob Marley, who tells him that he will be visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, Future...

Conceived as part of a literary game among friends in 1816, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is today regarded as a classic piece of 19th century literature. The story begins with the journey of an adventurer, Robert Walton, who saves the life of a man at the...

Conceived as part of a literary game among friends in 1816, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is today regarded as a classic piece of 19th century literature. The story begins with the journey of an adventurer, Robert Walton, who saves the life of a man at the...

Jane Eyre is a plain, determined and intelligent child. Orphaned and poor, she is adopted by her Aunt and Uncle Reed. The death of Uncle Reed allows her unpleasant aunt to send her away to a grim charity school, where she continues her harsh upbringing,...

Witches, murder, ghosts, and madness - one of Shakespeare's finest tragedies is also a perfect fit for the graphic novel format. This compelling adaptation depicts every blood-curdling scene in easy-to-follow illustrations, accompanied by Shakespeare's...

One of the Guardian's novels everyone must read.This new edition ofStevenson's renowned gothicmasterpiece has a specially writtenintroduction by Denise Mina.In The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London lawyer Gabriel John Utterson investigates a...

Tales of suspense for the twilight hour...Dark Encounters is a collection of classic and elegantly unsettling ghost stories. A spine-tingling collection, these tales are set in the brooding landscape of Scotland, with an air of historic authenticity -...

Mark Twain's historical satire about two identical boys, one a poor beggar of the London slums and the other the heir to the royal throne, who trade places to experience a life they never imagined, newly repackaged for the Union Square & Co...

Witches, murder, ghosts, and madness - one of Shakespeare's finest tragedies is also a perfect fit for the graphic novel format. This compelling adaptation depicts every blood-curdling scene in easy-to-follow illustrations, accompanied by Shakespeare's...

The Island of Sheep is the fifth, last and most unusual of the Hannay books. Having returned once again to a quiet life at Fosse Manor, Hannay's life is shaken a final time when the son of an old acquaintance from Africa asks for his help in finishing a...

First published in 1878, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is the tragic story of aristocrat Anna Karenina and her ill-fated affair with the cavalry officer Count Vronsky. Although passionately in love, the couple finds their romance doomed by the...

Franz Kafka is best known as the author of The Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle. Although he died before he had reached the age of forty, his groundbreaking work has left a profound cultural legacy and continues to influence writers and artists...

This anthology gathers 100 tales that share the winter theme of Hans Christian Andersen's classic. In addition to stories by Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, it includes works by Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Wilde, selections from Andrew...

A lost feminist masterwork by feminist and speculative fiction icon Joanna Russ about a lesbian's coming-to-consciousness during the social upheaval of the 1970s.When Esther, an English professor living in 1970s small-town New York, has her first lesbian...

This cornucopia of thrills and chills features 25 of the finest English-language tales of the uncanny and macabre. In addition to works by such stellar authors as Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Mary Elizabeth...

Step back into the Roaring Twenties with F. Scott Fitzgerald's timeless masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, now re-imagined as a stunning illustrated edition.Featuring gorgeous illustrations by Jorge Coelho, this edition brings the glamour and excess...

Here, in one volume, are the stories that transformed Sherlock Holmes into a household name: the fateful first meeting of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson inA Study in Scarlet, the mysterious treasure ofThe Sign of the Four, the formidable Irene Adler of A...