"The Invisible Man (1897) blends comedy and tragedy in its story of a scientist who discovers a way to make himself invisible. His inability to reverse the process leads to a radical disconnection from society - and eventually from his own sanity. Arriving in a town where no one knows him, disguised in bandages and dark glasses, the invisible man is driven to violent and criminal extremes before his secret is revealed. This prescient parable of the...

A young man's quest for eternal youth and beauty ends in scandal, depravity and death. Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The picture of Dorian Gray was a...

W. E. B. Du Bois was the foremost black intellectual of his time. The Souls of Black Folk, his most influential work, is a collection of fourteen beautifully written essays, by turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical. Here, Du Bois records the cruelties of racism, celebrates the strength and pride of black America, and explores the paradoxical "double-consciousness" of African American life. When it was first published in 1903, The Souls of...

Abandoned by her cruel Aunt Reed, the young and spirited Jane Eyre finds herself living in a spartan, oppressive orphanage. After the death of her best friend, Jane resolves to search out a brighter and more independent life for herself. She finds work as a governess for Adele, the ward of Edward Rochester, enigmatic master of Thornfield Hall. As days pass, Jane feels the intensity of love build between her and Rochester as he reveals all but the...

For David Copperfield, orphaned and with a cruel stepfather, the future looks bleak. But a new start beckons with the magnificent Mr Micawber, then with his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood.

Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and...

Set in New England, a farmer struggles to survive a bare existence, tethered to his farm, first by his helpless parents and then by a hypochondriac wife. Yet, when his wife's alluring cousin comes to stay, his dreams are rekindled.

Beautiful, clever, rich--and single--Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee, Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its...

The Scarlet Letter is the story of three New England settlers at odds with the Puritan society in which they live. Roger Chillingworth, an ageing scholar, arrives in New England after two years' separation from his wife Hester to find her on trial for adultery. She refuses to reveal her lover's identity and is condemned to wear a scarlet letter 'A' sewn on to her clothes. Roger resolves to discover the man's identity, and over the next seven years...

This is a study of three families - the Bertrams, the Crawfords and the Prices - in which Jane Austen uses the unlikely heroine, Fanny Price, to explore the social and moral values by which these families' lives are ordered.