Fiction

'It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known' is perhaps one of literature's most famous lines. Spoken by the dissolute barrister Sydney Carton as he goes to his death at the guillotine, it sees the end of a passionate story that moves between two great European capitals, London and Paris, before and during the F

Published in 1826, The Last of the Mohicans is an adventure story centred on the kinship between white frontiersman, Natty Bumppo - or 'Hawkeye' - and two Mohican Indians, Chingachgook and his son Uncas. The action takes place during the French and Indian War. Alice and Cora, daughters of a British fort commander, are on a perilous journey through the dark forests of western New York. Their Huron

First published in serial form in Le Gaulois, Gaston Leroux's bitter-sweet tale of love and rejection was inspired by real events that took place at the Paris Opera, now the Opera Garnier, in the 19th century. It tells the tale of the opera singer, Christine, her love for her childhood sweetheart Raoul, and the obsessions of the 'phantom', a disfigured man called Erik who lives beneath the Opera

Gibran's masterpiece has furnished individuals the world over with words of joy or consolation on occasions of birth, marriage, death and all of life's other milestones. The concise and deeply profound discourses cover a whole range of topics on life and the human condition, including love, children, work, delight and sorrow, reason and passion, self-knowledge, freedom, pleasure and beauty. Sta

Reading A Christmas Carol has become for many a tradition during the festive season. The character of Ebenezer Scrooge has become the epitome of miserliness, but A Christmas Carol is a story of redemption as Scrooge is visited in turn by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics wo

Jim was first mate on the Patna, when the ship and passengers were abandoned by the crew in the Red Sea. Accused of cowardice, Jim immerses himself in work on a remote colonial trading post yet, despite the locals†high regard for him, the guilt of the Patna remains.

Set in Dublin in the 1900s, Joyce's autobiographical novel follows Stephen Daedalus from childhood, through adolescent crises and disillusionments to the realization of his vocation as a poet and the decision to leave Ireland.

The Yellow Wallpaper, first published in January 1892, is regarded as an important piece of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental. It explores key issues imposed by the patriarchal society and paved the way for other leading feminist writers; Sylvia Plath and Alice Walker. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics

When shy Fanny Price arrives at Mansfield Park to live with her cousins, she is overwhelmed and only put at ease by her cousin, Edmund Bertram, whom she soon comes to love. But Edmund's head is turned by the beautiful Mary Crawford and she and her brother Henry spark a series of romantic entanglements that lead the Bertram family to the brink of social disaster. It becomes apparent to Fanny that

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,

Follow curious Alice as she ventures down a rabbit hole and into Wonderland, filled with unforgettable characters such as the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts. Then enter a topsy-turvy universe the other side of the Looking Glass, where Alice encounters old and new friends, like Humpty Dumpty and Tweedledum and Tweedledee. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Class