Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the most important and innovative figures of the European Middle Ages. Writing his Comedy (the epithet 'Divine' was added by later admirers) in exile from his na
In the early years of the 18th century, Scotland is torn by religious and political strife. Hogg's sinner, justified by his Calvinist conviction that his own salvation is pre-ordained, is suspected o
The Shadows of Sherlock Holmes is a fascinating collection of stories featuring detectives, criminal agents and debonair crooks from the golden age of crime fiction: a time when Sherlock Holmes was e
An invaluable companion to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain's inimitable portrait of ‘the great Father of Waters’. Part memoi
Hardy distrusted the application of nineteenth-century empiricism to history because he felt it marginalized important human elements. In The Trumpet-Major, the tale of a woman courted by three compe
Here is Edward FitzGerald’s original translation of the Rubáiyát, the collection of poems attributed to the Persian astronomer and mathematician, Omar Khayyám. FitzGerald’s distinctive version (1859)
Tom Jones is widely regarded as one of the first and most influential English novels. It is certainly the funniest. Tom Jones, the hero of the book, is introduced to the reader as the ward of a liber
From its first publication in 1816 Rob Roy has been recognised as containing some of Scott's finest writing and most engaging, fully realised characters. The outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor was already a le
The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare's works. The textual editing takes account of recent scholarship while giving the material a carefu
First published in 1900, Lord Jim established Conrad as one of the great storytellers of the twentieth century. Set in the Malay Archipelago, the novel not only provides a gripping account of maritim
Julius Caesar is among the best of Shakespeare's historical and political plays. Dealing with events surrounding the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., the drama vividly illustrates the ways
Tom Sawyer, a shrewd and adventurous boy, is as much at home in the respectable world of his Aunt Polly as in the self-reliant and parentless world of his friend Huck Finn. The two enjoy a series of
With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Preston, University of Nottingham. Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz) and George Cruickshank.
The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), with its combination o
Dickens’s final novel, left unfinished at his death, is a tale of mystery whose fast-paced action takes place in an ancient cathedral city and in some of the darkest places in nineteenth-century Lond
‘My name is Sherlock Holmes. it is my business to know what other people don't know.’
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes first introduced Arthur Conan Doyle's brilliant detective the readers of The
With an Introduction and Notes by Sally Minogue
Dylan Thomas wrote some of the best-known and best-loved poems of the twentieth century, amongst them ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, ‘Fern
With an Introduction by Dr Sally Minogue and Notes by David Rampton, Department of English, University of Ottowa
George Orwell is a difficult author to summarize. He was a would-be revolutionary w
When Princess Irene and her nursemaid stay out too late one night and are chased home by goblins, a young miner boy called Curdie comes to their rescue. So begins a fantastic adventure in which Irene