Introduction and Notes by R.T. Jones, Honorary Fellow of the University of York. Although the shortest of George Eliot's novels, Silas Marner is one of her most admired and loved works. It tells the sad story of the unjustly exiled Silas Marner - a handloom linen weaver of Raveloe in the agricultural heartland of England - and how he is restored to life by the unlikely means of the orphan child Eppie. Silas Marner is a tender and moving tale of sin and repentance set in a vanished rural world and holds the reader's attention until the last page as Eppie's bonds of affection for Silas are put to the test. 176 page paperback.

Trollope's delightful novel recounts the fortunes of Doctor Thorne, an upright and principled country doctor, and his niece Mary. She falls in love with Frank Gresham, heir to the heavily mortgaged Greshambury estate, but he is constrained in his choices by the need to marry well so that he can restore the family fortunes. The vicissitudes of Mary and Frank's courtship are lovingly detailed with all the wit and satire that show Trollope at his finest. In this social comedy, full of snobbery, hypocrisy and self-seeking, we meet characters from the city and cathedral of Barchester, and are introduced to the grandiloquent de Courcy family, whose pretensions mark its members among the author's most felicitous creations, as well as the down-to-earth heiress Miss Dunstable and the deplorable Sir Roger Scatcherd. 512pp. Paperback.

In 1915, Lawrence's frank representation of sexuality in The Rainbow caused a furore and the novel was seized by the police and banned almost as soon as it was published. Today it is recognised as one of the classic English novels of the 20th century. The Rainbow is about three generations of the Brangwen family of Nottinghamshire from the 1840s to the early years of the twentieth century. Within this framework Lawrence’s essential concern is with the passional lives of his characters as he explores the pressures that determine their lives, using a religious symbolism in which the ‘rainbow’ of the title is his unifying motif. His primary focus is on the individual's struggle to growth and fulfilment within marriage and changing social circumstances, a process shown to grow more difficult through the generations. Young Ursula Brangwen, whose story is continued in Women in Love, is finally the central figure in Lawrence's anatomy of the confining structures of English social life and the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation on the human psyche. 432 page paperback.

A wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure, the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting and the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature. Introduction and Notes by John S. Whitley, University of Sussex. 248 page paperback.

'To the Lighthouse' is the most autobiographical of Virginia Woolf's novels. It follows the Ramsey family as they visit their summer home in the Hebrides, on the Isle of Skye, over the course of a decade. The physical location and activities of the family members take a backseat to their internal thoughts and observations in this introspective and philosophical novel. The reader is given a peek inside the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and their children as they grapple with loss, disappointment, resentment, and the passage of time. While the summer home and its nearby isolated lighthouse change little over the years, the Ramseys are deeply affected by war, death, and loneliness. While it touches on childhood and children's perceptions and desires, it is at its most trenchant when exploring adult relationships, marriage and the changing class-structure in the period spanning the Great War. 159pp. Paperback.

Drugs, sexual obsession and possible murder are the themes of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Dickens' unfinished last novel is a sensational mystery never to be solved. Focusing on the evil in human nature, it has the grotesque humour, the unforgettable characters, the superb dialogue, the sombreness, the delight and the innate sense of theatre of the best of his earlier works in a more distilled form. Included with this tantalising fragment are lesser-known stories and sketches, that deal with subjects as diverse as murder, guilt and childhood. This volume presents an unusual selection that illustrates the extraordinary versatility of one of our greatest authors. Paperback. 407pp. Cover design may vary.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man represents the transitional stage between the realism of Joyce's Dubliners and the symbolism of Ulysses, and is essential to the understanding of the later work. The novel is a highly autobiographical account of the adolescence and youth of Stephen Dedalus, who reappears in Ulysses, and who comes to realise that before he can become a true artist, he must rid himself of the stultifying effects of the religion, politics and essential bigotry of his background in late 19th century Ireland. Written with a light touch, this is perhaps the most accessible of Joyce's works. 196pp. Paperback.

The master of the short story has themes ranging from the brutality of war and the hypocrisy it spawns, the petty limitations, dissimulations and vanities inherent at different levels of society and all the stories are linked by a trenchant irony and preoccupation with the frailty of human nature and futility of so many lives. From tragedy and satire to comedy and farce. 197 page Wordsworth paperback.

'The Turn of the Screw' is the classic ghost story for which Henry James is best remembered. Set in an English country house, it is a chilling tale of the supernatural told by a master of the genre. 'The Aspern Papers' is a tale of Americans in Europe, a theme in which Henry James is at his most assured and accomplished. The author cleverly evokes the drama of the comédie humaine against the majestic setting of a Venetian palace. 192pp. Paperback.

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley on Lake Geneva. The story of Victor Frankenstein who, obsessed with creating life itself, plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, but whose botched creature sets out to destroy his maker, would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. Begun when the author was only eighteen and conceived from a nightmare, Frankenstein, is the deeply disturbing story of a monstrous creation which has terrified and chilled readers since its first publication in 1818. 192pp. Paperback.