Virgil's Masterpiece. His epic poem recounts the story of Rome's legendary origins from the ashes of Troy and proclaims her destiny of world dominion. This optimistic vision is accompanied by an undertow of sadness at the price that must be paid in human suffering to secure Rome's future greatness. The tension between the public voice of celebration and the tragic private voice is given full expression both in the doomed love of Dido and Aeneas, and in the fateful clash between the Trojan leader and the Italian hero, Turnus. Hailed by T.S. Eliot as 'the classic of all Europe', Virgil's Aeneid has enjoyed a unique and enduring influence on European literature, art and politics for the past two thousand years. With an Introduction, Notes and Glossary by Mandy Green, University of Durham. Translated by Michael J. Oakley. 416pp. Paperback.

Dickens' first historical novel is set against the infamous 'No Popery' riots that were instigated by Lord George Gordon in 1780, and terrorised London for days. Prejudice, intolerance, misplaced religious and nationalistic fervour, together with the villains who would exploit these for political ends, are Dickens' targets. His vivid account of the riots at the heart of the novel is interwoven with the mysterious tale of a long unsolved murder and a romance that combines forbidden love, passion, treachery and heroism. A typically rich cast of comic characters, from the snivelling Mrs Miggs and the posturing Simon Tappertit to the half-witted Barnaby Rudge of the title, ensures high entertainment. 752pp. Paperback.

This novel not only establishes the magic of the Holmes myth but also provides the reader with a dramatic adventure yarn, which ranges from the foggy, gas-lit streets of London to the burning planes of Utah. The second Holmes novel presents the detective with one of his greatest challenges. The theft of the Agra treasure in India forms a catalyst for treachery, deceit and murder. With these two classic novels, you have the brilliant foundation of the Sherlock Holmes canon. Reading pleasure rarely comes any finer. 224pp. Paperback.

Henry James's last complete novel, 'The Golden Bowl', is the story of two flawed marriages. The lives and relationships of Maggie Verver and her widowed American millionaire father, Adam, are changed and challenged by the beautiful and charming Charlotte Staunt, who is the former lover of Maggie's husband, the impoverished Italian, Prince Amerigo. The narrative is underpinned by complex symbolism. The gilded crystal bowl, with its almost invisible flaw, is the vehicle which James subtly uses to reveal the past misdemeanours and make his characters face their own defects in this classic tale of redemption. 480pp. Paperback.

Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (revised by Moya Longstaffe). Julien Sorel, a young dreamer of the province whose imagination is on fire with the ideals of Napoleon, began to make his fortune in the Paris-based Restoration France. His encounters and experiences along the path constantly incite internal conflict, pulling back and forth between sincerity and hypocrisy, idealism and cynicism, humility and pride, love and ambition. A lively and detailed picture of social and political life in the provinces and in Paris towards the end of the 1820s, the close of the stifling reactionary period of the Bourbon Restoration. 528pp. Paperback.

The Sea-Wolf belongs in the honorific tradition of American sea fiction where the voyage motif became a means of exploring the meaning of life, as in Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast (1840), Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), and Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1851). The dominant subject is an intellectual conflict between a ship-wrecked literary figure, Humphrey Van Weyden, and the brutal captain of a seal-hunting schooner, Wolf Larsen, who rescues Van Weyden and puts him to menial work on the schooner. The central chapters focus on the gory details of seal-hunting, and the final section shows how far Van Weyden has learned seamanship as he restores The Ghost to sailing health and returns to port with the only woman passenger, another shipwrecked figure, to plight their troth. Paperback, 256pp.

A classic Dickensian tale of imprisonment, both literal and symbolic, the working title for the novel was Nobody's Fault. Draws intimately on the author's own personal experiences of the dreadful Marshalsea Debtor's Prison and is full of psychological insights combining fascinating historical and social detail and a masterful character portrayal. 740 value pages. Wordsworth paperback.

This is the first paperback edition to bring out in one volume Kate Chopin's extraordinary novel The Awakening (1899), along with the complete text of her two collections of short stories, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897), and 12 uncollected tales. The Awakening is a strikingly modern, evocative story of self-discovery and female emancipation, set in the sensuous environment of Southern Louisiana, where the young Edna Pontellier reclaims her own individuality, refusing to be defined by her roles of wife and mother. Chopin's stories are brilliantly observed, compassionate and often humorous, alert to the foibles, weaknesses and small triumphs of her characters. Overshadowed by the relatively recent fame of The Awakening, they contain some of the best work of this remarkably original author. Paperback. 508pp.

Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, commonly regarded as amongst the greatest novels ever written. He also, however, wrote many masterly short stories, and this volume contains four of the longest and best in distinguished translations that have stood the test of time. In the early story 'Family Happiness', Tolstoy explores courtship and marriage from the point of view of a young wife. In 'The Kreutzer Sonata' he gives us a terrifying study of marital breakdown, in 'The Devil' a powerful depiction of the power of sexual temptation, and, in perhaps the finest of all, 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich', he portrays the long agony of a man gradually coming to terms with his own mortality. Paperback. 288pp.

'Young women who have no economic or political power must attend to the serious business of contriving material security'. Jane Austen's sardonic humour lays bare the stratagems, the hypocrisy and the poignancy inherent in the struggle of two very different sisters to achieve respectability. 'Sense and Sensibility' is a delightful comedy of manners in which the sisters Elinor and Marianne represent these two qualities. Elinor's character is one of Augustan detachment, while Marianne, a fervent disciple of the Romantic Age, learns to curb her passionate nature in the interests of survival. 272pp. Paperback.