Fiction

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

The festive traditions that sprang up in Victorian times are often attributed in part to the Christmas stories of Charles Dickens and their evocative depictions of nineteenth-century life. This collection brings together five of Dickens' best-known Christmas stories: the universally loved 'A Christmas Carol', as well as 'The Chimes', 'The Cricket on theHearth', 'The Battle of Life', and 'The Hau

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.

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,

The Pickwick Papers, introducing the inimitable Samuel Pickwick Esquire, was Charles Dickens' first best-seller and every page still bursts with vitality and comic invention. A very welcome addition to the enduringly popular Arcturus Classics series. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary grap