Books

Published a quarter of a century after the first book of Holmes adventures, and including the famous titular story His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes, this collection shows the detective's powers of deduction at their most dazzling, proving that Conan Doyle's ability to entertain and surprise remains undiminished.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tense narrative astonished readers with its unparalleled psychological depth when it first appeared, and the novel now stands as one of America’s literary landmarks.

Published the year after the author's death, but written ten years earlier, The Trial is the most acclaimed of Kafka's three novels, and is both a haunting meditation on freedom and the powerlessness of the individual in the face of state power, and an ominous prefiguration of the totalitarian excesses of the twentieth century.

Here presented with brand-new illustrations by Ian Beck, these hugely popular tales, inspired by ancient fables and Kipling's own experiences in India, form a vivid account of the relationship between humans and nature, and will continue to inspire readers young and old.

With the help of Polynesia the parrot, Doctor Dolittle swiftly learns the language of the animals so that he can talk to all of his new patients. However, when a message comes from Africa, telling of a terrible sickness among the monkeys there, the Doctor and his animal friends depart on a thrilling and dangerous adventure that they are never likely to forget.

Set at the time of the Klondike Gold Rush, The Call of the Wild is one of the greatest evocations of the natural world, and perhaps the best example of London's famously urgent and vivid style. This edition also includes 'Brown Wolf', 'That Spot' and 'To Build a Fire' – three Yukon tales that demonstrate London's mastery of the short-story genre.

At the end of an industrious political career in conflictriven Italy, the Florentine diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli composed his masterpiece The Prince, a classic study of power and politics, and a manual of ruthlessness for any ambitious ruler. Controversial in his own time, The Prince made Machiavelli’s name a byword for manipulative scheming, and had an impact on such major figures as Napoleon and Frederick the Great. It contains principles as true today as when they were first written almost…

One of the great American novels, if not the greatest, Moby Dick epically combines rip-roaring adventure, a meticulously realistic portrayal of the whaling trade and a profound philosophical disquisition on the nature of good and evil.

Both a coming-of-age tale and a historical epic, Gone with the Wind is regarded as one of the great American novels, and is perhaps one of the most popular stories in the Western canon. Famously inspiring the iconic 1939 Oscar-winning film starring Vivien Leigh as Scarlett and Clark Gable as the rakish but cynical Rhett Butler, it is Margaret Mitchell’s only published novel, and a living testament to the irrepressible resilience of the American spirit.

Mostly set in the Highlands of Scotland and presenting a vast array of memorable characters, the stories in this collection are tinged with an element of the supernatural or explore themes of murder and guilt, revealing the author's great talent in the shorter-fiction form. This volume also includes a long excerpt from Scott's Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, which questions how much credit can be given to ghost stories and alleged supernatural occurrences.