Fiction

The publication of this masterpiece of realism gave rise to an obscenity trial in 1857, which earned Flaubert an acquittal, and established Emma Bovary as one of literature's greatest characters. The eponymous Emma is a victim of the smug, self-deluding French bourgeoisie that Flaubert despised. Trapped in a marriage to a second-rate provincial doctor, she escapes the suffocating confines of her

Vanity Fair follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848 and is a satirisation of early 19th-century British society. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with conte

Edith Wharton's novella Ethan Frome (1911) is a classic of American literature. A young girl, Mattie Silver is hired to keep house on the bleak New England farm belonging to Ethan Frome and his sickly wife Zeena, who is her cousin. Mattie completely captures Ethan's heart but the would-be lovers are kept apart by the spiteful Zeena, who then banishes the girl without warning. Before she leaves,