This collection brings together perhaps the finest of Dickens' shorter novels, filled with event, character, and the unsurpassed brilliance of his story-telling. 'Oliver Twist' enhanced and strengthened Dickens' reputation and contains classic Dickensian themes - grinding poverty, desperation, fear, temptation and the eventual triumph of good in the face of great adversity. 'Hard Times' was attacked by Macaulay for its 'sullen socialism'. 'A Tale of Two Cities' (1859), Dickens' greatest historical novel, traces the lives of a group of people caught up in the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the Terror. 'Great Expectations traces the life of Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man of character. From its dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with memorable characters. 1312 pages. Paperback.

'Lord Jim', first published in 1900, confirmed Conrad's place in literature as one of the first 'modernists' of English letters. Set in the Malay Archipelago, not only does the novel provide a gripping account of maritime adventure and romance, but also an exotic tale of the East. 'Nostromo' is the only man capable of the decisive action needed to save the silver of the San Tome mine and secure independence for Sulaco, Occidental Province of the Latin American state of Costaguana. 'The Secret Agent', Conrad's story of espionage and anarchists, tells of Winnie Verloc and her devotion to her peculiar and simple-minded brother, Stevie. Also includes 'Youth', 'Typhoon', 'Heart of Darkness', 'The End of the Tether' and 'The Shadow-Line'. 1371 page paperback.

Written and privately published in Florence in 1928, 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' was denied unexpurgated publication in England until 1960. D.H Lawrence’s uncompromisingly candid novel deals in poetic and sexually explicit language with the passionate relationship between Lady Constance Chatterley and her husband’s powerfully masculine gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. Trapped in a marriage, which has become sterile and joyless since her husband’s return from the trenches partially paralysed and confined to a wheelchair, Connie seizes the chance of sexual fulfilment she had thought lost forever. 276 page paperback woth new Intro and notes.

'The Captain's Doll', 'The Fox', 'The Ladybird', 'St. Mawr', 'The Princess', 'The Virgin and the Gypsy' and 'The Escaped Cock' are among the shorter stories included in this volume. The main body comprises his famous semi-autobiographical novel of family, class, sexuality and suffocating relationships, 'Sons and Lovers'. 'Women In Love' is perhaps Lawrence's most mature novel, a sorry tale of sexual depravity in the love of the sisters Ursula and Gudrun, for Rupert and Gerald. 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', written in poetic and sexually explicit language, deals with the passionate relationship between Lady Constance Chatterley and Oliver Mellors, her emotionally and physically crippled husband's masculine gamekeeper. 1353 pages in huge softback.

Jane Austen constructed 'Pride & Prejudice', with wit, social precision and an irresistible heroine. 'Persuasion' - Anne Elliot is one of Austen's quietest yet strongest heroines, is also open to change. 'Jane Eyre', Charlotte Bronte's poor, plain, but plucky heroine, possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage. She is forced to battle against a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. 'Wuthering Heights', Emily Bronte's tale is a wild, passionate story of intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and the adopted foundling Heathcliff. Set in Hardy's Wessex, 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. 1308 pages. Paperback.

'Germinal' (1885) is the 13th in Émile Zola’s cycle of 20 novels about the Rougon-Macquart dynasty. It tells the story of Étienne Lantier, from the illegitimate Macquart branch of the family, who arrives in the mining settlement of Montsou, and witnesses at first hand the appalling conditions in which miners live and work. Gradually becoming embroiled in a bitter dispute between the miners and their employers, he eventually leads the strike which is the centrepiece of the novel. But this is more than the struggle of labour against capital. It is also the struggle of the hungry against the well-fed, against the passivity and resignation passed down over generations of starving people, and ultimately against hunger itself, represented by the fantastical devouring monster of the mine, which swallows up men, just as the beast of the modern industrial economy relentlessly swallows up capital. This apparent pessimism about society is offset by the possibility of rebirth and regeneration. 478pp. Paperback.

When people use the adjective 'Kafkaesque', it is 'The Trial' they have in mind - the nightmarish world of Joseph K., where the rules are hidden from even the highest officials and any help there may be comes from unexpected sources. K. is never told what he is on trial for, and when he says he is innocent, he is immediately asked 'innocent of what?' Is he perhaps on trial for his innocence? Could he have freed himself from the proceedings by confessing his guilt as a human being? Has the trial been set up because he is incapable of admitting his guilt, and hence his humanity? 'The Trial' is a chilling and at the same time blackly amusing tale that maintains, to the very end, a constant, relentless atmosphere of disorientation. 172pp. Paperback.

A tale of desire and possession, of love and death. An unspeakable subtext lies beneath the silence. It centres on 'the dying girl who wants to live - to live and love.' But those closest to her are in competition for what she can leave behind. Milly Theale, 'the heiress of all the ages', is imaged as a dove, a princess, a Renaissance beauty, but these symbols come at a dreadful cost. By the end of the novel we know, 'We shall never be again as we were!' With an introduction by Nicola Bradbury and Notes. 431pp in paperback.

In the love affairs of two sisters, Ursula with Rupert, and Gudrun with Gerlad, critics could only see a sorry tale of sexual depravity and philosophical obscurity. What are the definitive forms of our relationships - love, marriage, family, friendship - really worth? And how might they be otherwise? Without directly referring to the war, 'Women in Love' explores these questions with restless energy. The novel develops experimental techniques which made Lawrence one of the most important writers of the Modernist movement. 464pp. Paperback.

Generally considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's finest novel, The Great Gatsby is a consummate summary of the "roaring twenties", and a devastating expose of the "Jazz Age". Through the narration of Nick Carraway, the reader is taken into the superficially glittering world of the mansions which lined the Long Island shore in the 1920s, to encounter Nick's cousin Daisy, her brash but wealthy husband Tom Buchanan, Jay Gatsby and the mystery that surrounds him. With an Introduction and Notes by Guy Reynolds, University of Kent at Canterbury. 144pp. Paperback.