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Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb was written to be an ‘introduction to the study of Shakespeare’, but are much more entertaining than that. All of Shakespeare’s best-loved plays, comic and tragic, are retold in a clear and robust style, and their literary quality has made them popular and sought-after ever since their… Read More

Motherless Sara Crewe was sent home from India to school at Miss Minchin’s. Her father was immensely rich and she became “show pupil” – a little princess. Then her father dies and his wealth disappears, and Sara has to learn to cope with her changed circumstances. Her strong character enables her to fight successfully against… Read More

The two American classics here together in one volume, Little Men and Jo’s Boys, are worthy sequels to Little Women, one of the best-loved children’s stories of all time, and its continuation, Good Wives. In Little Men, Louisa May Alcott takes up the story of the everyday dramas and exploits of the naughty but easy-going… Read More

When fifteen-year-old orphan John Trenchard is banished by his Aunt Jane, he goes to live at the local inn with the mysterious Elzevir Block, whose son has been killed by Customs Officers. Unofficially adopted by Block, John comes to learn the reasons for the noises in the graveyard at night, of ‘Blackbeard’ Mohune’s lost treasure… Read More

Mary Lennox was horrid. Selfish and spoilt, she was sent to stay with her uncle in Yorkshire. She hated it. But when she finds the way into a secret garden and begins to tend it, a change comes over her and her life. She meets and befriends a local boy, the talented Dickon, and comes… Read More

These witty stories were originally told by Rudyard Kipling to his own children. In them he gives fanciful accounts of how and why things came to be as they are. Generations of children have delighted to learn how the Leopard got his spots, how the Elephant’s Child on the banks of the great grey-green Limpopo… Read More

The beautiful Scheherazade’s royal husband threatens to kill her, so each night she diverts him by weaving wonderful tales of fantastic adventure, leaving each story unfinished so that he spares her life to hear the ending the next night. This is the background to the Arabian Nights. In this selection made by that master of… Read More