Three Men in a Boat is a comic classic. When it first appeared in 1889 it became a best seller, and has remained popular ever since. This motley novel has not only been translated into many languages but has also been staged, filmed, televised and imitated. The adventures and misfortunes on the Thames of the three English friends and their pugnacious dog, Montmorency, provide rich humour, shrewd observations, lyrical reflections, and, predominantly, genially ironic perceptions of human fallibility. The sequel, Three Men on the Bummel, reunites the three friends for their ?Bummel? (?roaming or wandering?) through Germany. The results vary from the seductively titillating to the outrageously farcical; and subsequent history has laden the narrative with ironies. 346pp. Paperback.

Traffics and Discoveries contains three tales in which the subject matter ranges from unexplained mystery and the supernatural to an other-worldly house full of elusive but charming children. The Maltese Cat is Kipling's well-loved story about a polo pony. Life's Handicap reflects his experiences of India. A super selection of his most famous short stories in Wordsworth paperback. 210pp.

First published in 1900, Lord Jim established Conrad as one of the great storytellers of the twentieth century. Set in the Malay Archipelago, the novel not only provides a gripping account of maritime adventure and romance, but also an exotic tale of the East. Its themes also challenge the conventions of nineteenth-century adventure fiction, confirming Conrad’s place in literature as one of the first ‘modernists’ of English letters. The novel explores the dilemmas of conscience, of moral isolation, of loyalty and betrayal confronting a sensitive individual whose romantic quest for an honourable ideal are tested to the limit. Introduction and Notes by Susan Jones, St Hilda’s College, Oxford. 304pp. Paperback.

Set in 1482, The 'Hunchback of Notre-Dame' is a compelling story of love and betrayal, brutal deeds and one of the most famous acts of revenge in world literature. Quasimodo, the hunchback of the title, is one of fiction's most extreme characters - beneath his monstrous disfigurement, his love for the beautiful Esmerelda reveals a heart full of intense emotion. The novel is set in the great cathedral of Notre-Dame and had a profound influence on the Romantic Movement. 480pp. Paperback.

This delightful portrayal of a picturesque rural society, tinged with gentle humour and quiet irony, established Hardy as a writer. However, the novel is not merely a charming rural idyll. The double-plot, in which the love story of Dick Dewey and Fancy Day is inter-related with a tragic chapter in the history of Mellstock Choir, hints at the poignant disappearance of a long-lived and highly-valued traditional way of life. 160pp. Paperback.

This collection of 100 of O Henry's finest stories is a showcase for the sheer variety of one of America's best and best-loved short story writers. The variety of the stories is amazing; O Henry is as at home describing life south of the Rio Grande as he is chronicling the activities and concerns of 'the four million' ordinary citizens who inhabited turn-of-the-century New York. They are marked by coincidence and surprise endings as well as the compassion and high humour that have made O Henry's stories popular for the last century. 752pp. Wordsworth paperback.

One of the greatest 19th century Russian novels, and has long been acclaimed as Turgenev's finest work. It is a political novel set in a domestic context, with a universal theme, the generational divide between fathers and sons. Set in 1859 at the moment when the Russian autocratic state began to move hesitantly towards social and political reform, the novel explores the conflict between the liberal-minded fathers of Russian reformist sympathies and their free-thinking intellectual sons whose revolutionary ideology threatened the stability of the state. At its centre is Evgeny Bazorov, a strong-willed antagonist of all forms of social orthodoxy who proclaims himself a nihilist and believes in the need to overthrow all the institutions of the state. The novel caused a bitter furore on its publication in 1862, and this, a year later, drove Turgenev from Russia. 208pp Paperback

'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious ‘tenant’ of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband. Defying convention, Helen leaves her husband to protect their young son from his father's influence, and earns her own living as an artist. Whilst in hiding at Wildfell Hall, she encounters Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her. On its first publication in 1848, Anne Brontë's second novel was criticised for being 'coarse' and 'brutal'. 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' challenges the social conventions of the early 19th century in a strong defence of women's rights in the face of psychological abuse from their husbands. Anne Brontë's style is bold, naturalistic and passionate, and this novel, which her sister Charlotte considered 'an entire mistake', has earned her a position in English Literature in her own right. 432pp. Paperback.

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.