Hector bidding farewell to his wife and baby son, Odysseus bound to the mast listening to the Sirens, Penelope at the loom, Achilles dragging Hector's body round the walls of Troy - scenes from Homer have been reportrayed in every generation. The questions about mortality and identity that Homer's heroes ask, the bonds of love, respect and fellowship that motivate them, have gripped audiences for three millennia. Chapman's Iliad and Odyssey are great English epic poems, but they are also two of the liveliest and most readable translations of Homer. Poetry is driven by the excitement of the Renaissance discovery of classical civilisation as at once vital and distant. 976pp. Paperback.

The generous selection in this volume represents the wide range of his writing, both poetry and prose. Arranged chronologically, the accompanying introductory essays set Shelley's works in their historical, social and political context. They provide a vivid insight into the life and times of this volcanic spirit, whose inspiring voice called on the people of England to: 'Rise like lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number; Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you - Ye are many, they are few.' The Mask of Anarchy. 752pp. Paperback.

In 1888 Henry James wrote 'There was the customary novel by Mr Le Fanu for the bedside; the ideal reading in a country house for the hours after midnight'. Madam Crowl's Ghost & Other Stories are tales selected from Le Fanu's stories which mostly appeared in The Dublin University Magazine and other periodicals, and their haunting, sinister qualities still have an enormous appeal for the modern reader. The great M.R. James, who collected and introduces the stories in this book, considered that Le Fanu 'stands absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories.' 192pp.

Wilkie Collins is a master of mystery, and 'The Woman in White' is his first excursion into the genre. When the hero, Walter Hartright, on a moonlit night in north London, encounters a solitary, terrified and beautiful woman dressed in white, he feels impelled to solve the mystery of her distress. The intricate plot is peopled with a finely characterised cast, from the peevish invalid Mr Fairlie to the corpulent villain Count Fosco and the enigmatic woman herself. 502pp. Paperback.

Here are two great, neglected horror novels by Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, together in one volume for the first time. It is a double treat for lovers of blood-curdling fantasy fiction. The Lady of the Shroud, published here in its full and unabridged form, is a fascinating and engrossing concoction of a vampire tale, Ruritanian adventure story and science fiction romance. The novel fully demonstrates the breadth and ingenuity of Stoker's imagination. The spine-chilling The Lair of the White Worm features a monstrous worm secreted for thousands of years in a bottomless well and able to metamorphose into a seductive woman of a reptilian beauty who survives on her victim's life blood. The novel contains some of Stoker's most graphic and grisly moments of horror. 431 page Wordsworth paperback.

Few writers have had a more demonstrable impact on the development of the modern world than has Karl Marx (1818-1883). Born in Trier into a middle-class Jewish family in 1818, by the time of his death in London in 1883, Marx claimed a growing international reputation. Of central importance then and later was his book Das Kapital, or, as it is known to English readers, simply Capital. Volume One of Capital was published in Paris in 1867. This was the only volume published during Marx's lifetime and the only to have come directly from his pen. Volume Two, published in 1884, was based on notes Marx left, but written by his friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). Readers from the 19th century to the present have been captivated by the unmistakable power and urgency of this classic of world literature. Marx's critique of the capitalist system is rife with big themes: his theory of 'surplus value', his discussion of the exploitation of the working class, and his forecast of class conflict on a grand scale. Marx wrote with purpose. As he famously put it, 'Philosophers have previously tried to explain the world, our task is to change it.' Paperback, 1136pp. New from Wordsworth.

Although Tennyson (1809-1892) has often been characterized as an austere, bearded patriarch and laureate of the Victorian age, his poems speak clearly to the imagination of the late 20th century. His mastery of rhyme, metre, imagery and mood communicate their dark, sensuous and sometimes morbid messages. Much given to melancholy and feelings of aching desolation, Tennyson's verse also carries clear messages of hope: 'Ring out the old, ring in the new', and 'Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all'. 640pp. Paperback.

Each of these short stories was written specifically for Christmas. They combine concern for social ills with the myths and memories of childhood and traditional Christmas spirit-lore. The stories include 'A Christmas Carol', 'The Chimes', 'The Battle of Life' and 'The Cricket on the Hearth.' 400 page Wordsworth paperback.

Thomas Hardy started composing poetry in the heyday of Tennyson and Browning. He was still writing with unimpaired power sixty years later, when Eliot and Yeats were the leading names in the field. His extraordinary stamina and a consistent individuality of style and vision made him a survivor, immune to literary fashion. At the start of the twenty-first century his reputation stands higher than it ever did, even in his own lifetime. He is now recognised not only as a great poet, but as one who is widely loved. He speaks with directness, humanity and humour to scholarly or ordinary readers alike. 960pp. Paperback.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the most important and innovative figures of the European Middle Ages. The 'Comedy' tells of the journey of a character who is at one and the same time both Dante himself and Everyman through the three realms of the Christian afterlife: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. On this journey Dante's protagonist, and his reader, meet characters who are variously noble, grotesque, beguiling, fearful, ridiculous, admirable, horrific and tender, and through them he is shown the consequences of sin, repentance and virtue, as he learns to avoid Hell and, through cleansing in Purgatory, to taste the joys of Heaven. 566 pages, paperback.