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With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Esther Saxey, University of Sussex. ‘As a man loved a woman, that was how I loved… It was good, good, good…’ Stephen is an ideal child of aristocratic parents – a fencer, a horse rider and a keen scholar. Stephen grows to be a war hero, a bestselling writer… Read More

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue. Elizabeth Gaskell’s first novel depicts nothing less than the great clashes between capital and labour, which arose from rapid industrialisation and problems of trade in the mid-nineteenth century. But these clashes are dramatized through personal struggles. John Barton has to reconcile his personal conscience with his… Read More

With an Introduction and Notes by Lionel Kelly, University of Reading. With a Foreword by Tony Benn. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a classic representation of the impoverished and politically powerless underclass of British society in Edwardian England, ruthlessly exploited by the institutionalized corruption of their employers and the civic and religious authorities. Epic in… Read More

With an Introduction by Dr Pamela Knights, Department of English Studies, Durham University. With this intensely moving short novel, Edith Wharton set out ‘to draw life as it really was’ in the lonely villages and desolate farms of the harsh New England mountains. Through the eyes of a visitor from the city, trapped for a… Read More

With an Introduction by Alex Dolby. Translation by W.H.G. Kingston. Jules Verne (1828-1905) is internationally famous as the author of a distinctive series of adventure stories describing new travel technologies which opened up the world and provided means to escape from it. The collective enthusiasm of generations of readers of his ‘extraordinary voyages’ was a… Read More

With an Introduction and Notes by Alex Dolby. Translation by T.K. Linklater Jules Verne (1828-1905) was internationally famous as the author of novels based on ‘extraordinary voyages.’ His visionary use of new travel technologies inspired his readers to look to the industrial future rather than the remote past for their dreams of adventure. The popularity… Read More

With an Introduction by Stuart Hutchinson, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury. ‘Who could read the programme for the excursion without longing to make one of the party?’ So Mark Twain acclaims his voyage from New York City to Europe and the Holy Land in June 1867. His adventures produced The Innocents Abroad, a… Read More