This is Charlotte Brontë's first novel, and is based on her own experiences in Brussels. The story is one of love and doubt as the hero, William Crimsworth, seeks his fortune as a teacher in Brussels and finds his love for Anglo-Swiss girl, Frances Henri, severely tested. Wordsworth paperback. 208pp.

Hardy's powerful study of the heroic but deeply flawed Michael Henchard is an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town. Its events are set in motion when, in a fit of drunken anger, Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success lurks the shameful secret of his past. None of the great Victorian novels is more vivid and readable than the Mayor of Casterbridge. Set in the heart of Hardy's Wessex, the 'partly real, partly dream country' he founded on his native Dorset, it charts the rise and self-induced downfall of a single 'man of character'. 270pp. Paperback.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Winter's Tale, one of Shakespeare's later romantic comedies, offers a striking and challenging mixture of tragic and violent events, lyrical love-speeches, farcical comedy, pastoral song and dance, and, eventually, dramatic revelations and reunions. Both Leontes' murderous jealousy and Perdita's love-relationship with Florizel are eloquently intense. In the theatre, the play often proves to be diversely entertaining and deeply moving. 160 page paperback.

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. Variously melancholy, lyrical, joyous and farcical, Twelfth Night has long been a popular comedy with Shakespearian audiences. The main plot revolves around mistaken identities and unrequited love. Both Olivia and Orsino are attracted to Viola, who is disguised as a young man; and Viola's brother, Sebastian, finds that he is loved not only by Antonio but also by Olivia. Meanwhile, in the comic sub-plot, Sir Toby Belch and his companions outwit the vain Malvolio, who is ludicrously humiliated. While offering broad comedy, Twelfth Night teasingly probes gender-roles and sexual ambiguities. 128 page paperback.

A young man, named Dorian Gray, becomes obsessed with his own beauty and the portrait of himself painted by artist, Basil Hallward. Dorian wishes that the painting would age instead of him so that he can continue to see his younger self. Dorian begins to experiment with different hedonistic activities and desires, which unleash a series of rotting effects on the painting and expose his true evil nature. Dorian is then haunted by the consequences of his immoral actions and must decide if he will live with those consequences or die as a man. First published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, fearing the story was indecent, the magazine's editor had requested that Wilde reduce the length. The text is taken from the Paris edition published in Montmartre, 1908. 192pp. Paperback.

'The Tales from Shakespeare' by Charles and Mary Lamb were 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 first publication in 1807. This edition contains the delightful pen-and-ink drawings of Arthur Rackham. 320pp. Paperback.

Transplanted to Europe from her native America, Isabel Archer has candour, beauty, intelligence, an independent spirit and a marked enthusiasm for life. An unexpected inheritance apparently gives her freedom, but despite all her natural advantages she makes one disastrous error of judgement and the result is genuinely tragic. 528pp. Paperback.

From the beginning of this remarkable detective novel we are locked into the frenzied consciousness of Raskolnikov who is inexorably drawn to commit a brutal double murder. Our brand new 485 page Wordsworth Classic edition is complete and unabridged and has selected excerpts from The Notebooks for Crime and Punishment. With new introduction and notes by Dr. Keith Carabine. 528pp. Paperback.

Tender is the Night is a story set in the hedonistic high society of Europe during the ‘Roaring Twenties’. A wealthy schizophrenic, Nicole Warren, falls in love with Dick Diver - her psychiatrist. The resulting saga of the Divers’ troubled marriage, and their circle of friends, includes a cast of aristocratic and beautiful people, unhappy love affairs, a duel, incest, and the problems inherent in the possession of great wealth. Despite cataloguing a maelstrom of interpersonal conflict, Tender is the Night has a poignancy and warmth that springs from the quality of Fitzgerald's writing and the tragic personal experiences on which the novel is based. Six years separate Tender is the Night and The Last Tycoon, the novel Fitzgerald left unfinished at his death in December 1940. Fitzgerald lived in Hollywood more or less continuously from July 1937 until his death, and a novel about the film industry at the height of 'the studio system' centred on the working life of a top producer was begun in 1939. Even in its incomplete state The Last Tycoon remains the greatest American novel about Hollywood and contains some of Fitzgerald's most brilliant writing. 413pp. Paperback.

Richard II is one of Shakespeare's finest works: lucid, eloquent, and boldly structured. It can be seen as a tragedy, or a historical play, or a political drama, or as one part of a vast dramatic cycle which helped to generate England's national identity. Today, to some of us, Richard II may appear conservative; but, in Shakespeare's day, it could appear subversive: 'I am Richard II', declared an indignant Queen Elizabeth. Numerous recent revivals in the theatre and on screen have demonstrated the enduring power and poignancy of this drama of the downfall of an egoistic but pitiable monarch. Richard II has been freshly edited by Cedric Watts. Paperback, 143pp. Glossary.