RNIB National Library Service

Giant Print 24Classic fiction

Austen, JaneEmma. 1994. 5v. Emma Wodehouse has led a simple life, but during the course of this novel she at last reaps her share of the world's vexations. In this comedy of manners, the heroine learns to come to terms with the reality of other people, and with her own erring nature.

Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park. 2008. 5v. Adopted into the household of her Uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, Fanny Price grows up a meek outsider among her cousins in the unaccustomed elegance of Mansfield Park. Soon after Sir Thomas absents himself on estate business in Antigua, Mary Crawford and her brother Henry arive at Mansfield, bringing with them London glamour, and the seductive taste for flirtation and theatre that precipitates a crisis.

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Austen, Jane. Persuasion. 2008. 3v.Anne Elliot has been persuaded to break off her engagement, but meets Wentworth again after some time, and the story is concerned with the gradual revival of his passion for her.

Austen, Jane. Sense and sensibility. 2008. 4v. Mrs Dashwood and her two daughters must leave the family home and move to a small house in another part of the country. Soon Marianne and Elinor both fall in love, but they must first learn some terrible secrets before they find true happiness

Barr, Robert. Rock in the Baltic. 2008. 2v. A chance meeting with a beautiful girl in the banking hall of the Sixth National Bank in Bar Harbour, Maine, sets Lieutenant Alan Drummond of HMS Consternation off on a wild adventure and dark dealings in pre-revolutionary Russia and the Baltic.

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Bennett, Arnold The old wives' tale. 2009. 7v. Constance, a staid and sensible young woman, marries the estimable and superficially insignificant Samuel Povey, and spends all her life in Bursley. The more passionate and imaginative Sophia elopes with the fascinating but unprincipled Gerald Scales, who carries her off to Paris where she suffers many indignities and is finally deserted. But the sisters are reunited, and spend their last years together in Bursley.

Blackmore, R DLorna Doone. 1993. 7v. Set in the times of Charles II and James II, this is the story of John Ridd, an Exmoor yeoman, and his revenge for the murder of his father by the Doones. His love for Lorna complicates the issue until it is discovered that she is the daughter of a Scottish noble, so that the impediment to the marriage becomes one of social situation. This is soon overcome by her fidelity and by his services to an old kinsman of Lorna and to the king.

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Brebner, Percy James. The brown mask. 2008. 3v. The story of the mystery relating to the identity of a notorious highwayman whose lawlessness is mixed with deeds of daring and chivalry. It is set in the time of the Monmouth Rebellion in the late 17th Century.

Brontë, Anne. Agnes Grey. 2008. 2v. An inexperienced girl has to earn her living as a governess - a story of "small unhappiness suffered without a murmur". But her resignation is undercut by a gentle irony that borders at times on near-caustic satire, and gives the novel an edge over the more passionate, mystical and enigmatic books written by Anne's sisters.

Brontë, Anne The tenant of Wildfell Hall. 2009. 5v. The story of Helen Huntingdon and her swaggering, debauched husband and of Gilbert Markham, the man who falls in love with Helen.

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Bronte, Charlotte.Jane Eyre. 2000. 1v. The unhappy childhood of Jane Eyre, her time as governess at Thornfield Hall and her love for Mr Rochester.

Brontë, Charlotte Shirley. 2009. 8v. Romantic hope and the denial of feeling are the focus of this historical novel set in England at the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

Brontë, CharlotteVillette. 2009. 6v. A semi-autobiographical novel about a young, poor and unattractive English teacher who takes a post at a Belgian school where she gains esteem and affection through sheer strength of character.

Bronte, Emily.Wuthering Heights. 2003. 1v.Set in the wild, bleak Yorkshire Moors, the story tells of the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliffe.

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Bunyan, John The pilgrim's progress. 2009. 2v. Classic fiction.An allegorical account of Christian'sjourney toward heaven or hell.

Burgess, Anthony A clockwork orange. 2000. 2v. Fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends start an evening's mayhem by hitting an old man, tearing up his books and stripping him of money and clothes. Because of his delinquent excesses, Alex is jailed and made subject to "Ludovico's Technique", a chilling experiment in reclamation treatment.

Chesterton, G.K.The wisdom of Father Brown. 2008. 2v. The loveable amateur detective delves into more strange and baffling situations, applying his rich intuitive skills to solve mysteries that leave everyone else confounded.

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Chesterton, G.K. The innocence of Father Brown. 2008. 2v. Eleven more stories in which Father Brown, priest-detective, solves plots of murder and mystery.

Collins, Wilkie. The moonstone. 1994. 7v. An emormous diamond is bequeathed to Miss Rachel Verinder by her uncle. In anticipation of Miss Verinder's eighteenth birthday, the Moonstone is spirited out of India and brought back to England whereupon it goes missing. Stolen in the first place from a Hindu shrine, the ownership and indeed the whereabouts of the sacred diamond is the question around which the plot revolves. Credited with being the first example of detective fiction the tale is told as a series of eyewitness accounts.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of darkness. 2008. 1v. Heart of darkness is a chilling tale of horror set in the Congo during the period of rapid colonial expansion in the 19th century. The story deals

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with the highly disturbing effects of economic, social and political exploitation of European and African societies.

Conrad, JosephLord Jim. 1994. 5v. The central figure is Jim, the sensitive first mate of the Patna. "Lord Jim" traces the development of this character as he moulds himself and the society in which he is marooned. Plain Jim becomes Tuan or "Lord Jim".

Conrad, Joseph. The secret agent. 2008. 3v. An anarchist bomb plot fails through a woman's protective love for her simple-minded young brother.

Conrad, Joseph Typhoon. 2009. 1v. 'Typhoon' is the story of a steamship and her crew beset by tempest, and of the stolid captain whose dogged courage is tested to the limit.

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Defoe, Daniel. The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders. 1994. 4v. Abandoned at six months old, Moll has no option but to use her considerable wit and looks to make her way in a world where no mercy is given to the unadaptable. As a woman her options are limited and Moll embarks on a rollicking career of incest, bigamy and crime.

Defoe, DanielRobinson Crusoe. 1994. 3v. Robinson Crusoe, set ashore on an island after a terrible storm at sea, is forced to make do with only a knife, some tobacco, and a pipe. He learns how to build a canoe, make bread, and endure endless solitude. That is, until, twenty-four years later, when he confronts another human being.

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas carol. 1992. 1v.Ebenezer Scrooge is a heartless old miser who doesn't enjoy Christmas and doesn't think anyone else should, either. But, one Christmas Eve, some

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ghostly visitors take Scrooge on a journey that changes his mind for ever.

Dickens, Charles A tale of two cities. 2009. 4v. A story of the French Revolution set in London and Paris. Sydney Carton sacrifices his life on the guillotine for the happiness of Lucie Manette, the French girl he loves.

Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge: a tale of the riots of 'Eighty. 2010. 8v. Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. As London erupts into riot, fathers and sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters and anti-Catholic mobs rampage through the streets. Meanwhile Barnaby Rudge struggles to escape the curse of his own past.

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Dickens, Charles David Copperfield. 2009. 11v. David Copperfield relates the story of his life. On his journey, David encounters a gallery of memorable characters, kind, cruel or grotesque: Mr Micawber, Uriah Heep and Steerforth are among the many that shape his development.

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. 2010. 10v. Dombey has lost his beloved son, and his firm. His wife and daughter are estranged from him through his arrogance, and he lives alone and desolate until his daughter returns to take care of him.

Dickens, Charles. Great expectations. 1998. 5v.This novel charts Pip's progress from childhood to adulthood and the extraordinary characters he encounters, showing the danger of being driven by a desire for wealth and social status. This edition uses the text of the Clarendon edition.

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Dickens, Charles. Hard times. 1994. 3v.Charles Dickens gives us a close-up look into what appears to be the ivory tower of the bourgeoisie of his day, yet these middle-class characters are viewed from a singular perspective, the perspective of those at the bottom of the social and economic system.

Dickens, Charles Little Dorrit. 2009. 10v. William Dorrit is a long-term inmate in the debtors' prison, Marshalsea. For her entire life so far, his daughter Amy has faithfully nursed him in jail. Trying to keep herself out of debt she works as a seamstress for the stern Mrs Clennam. When Mrs Clennam's son, Arthur, returns home from years abroad working for the family business, Amy's life begins to change.

Dickens, Charles Nicholas Nickleby. 2009. 10v. Nicholas goes as usher to Dotheboys Hall, where he meets the sadistic Squeers and his family. He

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foils the wicked plans of his uncle Ralph and rescues his sister from Sir Mulberry Hawk.

Dickens, CharlesOliver Twist. 1994. 3v. Oliver Twist is an orphan who was born in a workhouse. After an unhappy apprenticeship, Oliver runs away to London where he falls in with thieves, headed by Fagin. He is rescued by Mr Brownlow but the gang kidnap him back. Oliver discovers the identity of his parents and the gang is exposed.

Dickens, Charles. Our mutual friend. 2010. 10v. The novel follows the fortunes of Bella Wilfer, denied an inheritance by the death of the man she was to marry, and the Boffins, who receive the bequest in her place.

Dickens, Charles. The mystery of Edwin Drood. 2010. 3v. The betrothal of Edwin and Rosa by their fathers when they were

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still very young leads to unhappiness, jealousy and violent quarrels.

Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir. Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. 2008. 3v. Eleven adventures of the Baker Street detective.

Dumas, Alexandre. The man in the iron mask. 2010. 6v. The Musketeers are back in another exciting adventure! This time a terrible secret threatens to bring down the throne of France. Aramis, Athos, Porthos, and D'Artagnan must rally once again to serve their king and save the country.

Dumas, Alexandre. The three musketeers. 2010. 8v. The classic historical adventure novel, set in the 1620s at the court of Louis XIII, where the musketeers are engaged in a battle against Richelieu, the King's minister, and a beautiful, unscrupulous spy.

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Eliot, George Middlemarch. 2009. 10v. Dorothea Brooke marries Mr Casaubon, believing his researches into ancient mythologies are worthwhile. But sterility pervades his work and their marriage. Parallel to this runs the story of Lydgate, a young doctor also engaged in research but frustrated by his shallow wife, Rosamond. In contrast to Mr Casaubon, Will Ladislaw, his young cousin, is intensely alive and he and Dorothea are brought together at last.

Eliot, George The mill on the Floss. 2009. 7v. The story of the gifted Maggie Tulliver and her spoilt, selfish brother.

Fitzgerald, F ScottTender is the night: a romance. 2000. 4v. To the French Riviera come Dick and Nicole Diver. Handsome, rich and glamorous, their dinners are legendary, their atmosphere magnetic. But something is wrong - Nicole has a secret and Dick a weakness.

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Fitzgerald, F. Scott.The Great Gatsby. 1990. 1v. Set against a background of Long Island glamour and New York squalor, this is the story of a mysterious financier's passion for a young lady, and a tale of adultery and murder.

Forster, E M A passage to India. 2005. 4v. A strange event at the Marabar caves involves Adela Quested, newly come from England, and the presumed guilt of the charming, mercurial Dr Aziz.

Forster, E M A room with a view.1990, c1978. 3v. The love of a young British woman named Lucy Honeychurch for a British expatriate living in Italy is condemned by her stuffy, middle-class guardians, who prefer an eligible man of their own choosing.

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Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. 2008. 4v. Emma Rouault leaves her father to marry Charles Bovary and live among the bourgeoisie of Yonville. She fills her head with notions of gallantry and high romance, which she finds in a tempestuous love affair with the local squire.

Galsworthy, JohnThe Forsyte saga. 2008. 10v. The Forsyte Saga traces the changing fortunes of the wealthy Forsyte dynasty through fifty years of material triumph and emotional disaster.

García Márquez, Gabriel. Love in the time of cholera. 2007. 4v. When Dr. Juvenal Urbino died, aged eighty-one-and-a-half, his widow, the once breath-taking Fermina Daza, instinctively recoiled from the one hand extended to steady and comfort her. A hand which for her long life had always been within reach but which, in her haughtiness and guilt, she would not acknowledge: the hand of Florentino Ariza. Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the

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1982 Nobel Prize for Literature, tells a haunting love story.

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel One hundred years of solitude. 2000. 4v. A saga spanning three generations of the Buendia family. Jose Buendia founds a town in the heart of the South American Jungle and the family is dominated by his passion for alchemy. But the world is changing, and succeeding generations are caught up in a political and social turmoil.Gaskell, Elizabeth

Gaskell, ElizabethCranford and other stories. 2007. 5v. In the village of Cranford, decorum is maintained at all times. Despite their poverty, the ladies are never vulgar about money (or their lack of it), and always follow the rules of propriety. But this discretion and gentility does not keep away tragedy; and when the worst happens, the Amazons of Cranford show the true strength of their honest affections.

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Graves, RobertI, Claudius: from the autobiography of Tiberius Claudius. 2006. 5v. Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. In I, Claudius he watches from the sidelines to record the reigns of its emperors.

Greene, Graham. The third man, and, The fallen idol. 2001. 2v. "The Third Man" is Graham Greene's brilliant recreation of post-war Vienna, a 'smashed dreary city' occupied by the four Allied powers. Rollo Martins, a second-rate novelist, arrives penniless to visit his friend and hero, Harry Lime. But Harry has died in suspicious circumstances, and the police are closing in on his associates..."The Fallen Idol" is the chilling story of a small boy caught up in the games that adults play. Left in the care of the butler and his wife whilst his parents go on a fortnight's holiday, Philip realises

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too late the danger of lies and deceit. But the truth is even deadlier.

Goldsmith, Oliver. The vicar of Wakefield. 2008. 2v. A witty account of the adventures of a clergyman and his family reduced to poverty.

Green, A.K. Dark hollow. 2008. 3v. The plot of this classic thriller includes two murderers, one house of mystery surrounded by high fences, one woman dressed entirely in purple and heavily veiled, many policemen and four corpses.

Haggard, H. Rider. Ayesha: the return of She. 2008. 4v. I die not, I shall come again, and shall once more be beautiful. I swear it - it is true. These were Ayeshas strange last words before her death, and Leo Vinley and Ludwig Horace Holly set out to determine if they are true. Exotic characters include the Hesea of the House of Fire, a cult of

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Isis worshippers, and Khan, an insanely jealous husband who has a pack of death hounds.

Haggard, H. Rider. King Solomon's mines. 2008. 3v. Following a map drawn in blood, adventurer Allan Quatermain sets out with his intrepid companions to find King Solomon's legendary diamond mines in Africa. But their path is fraught with dangers, especially when they encounter the evil 'wise woman' who holds the secret of the mines.

Hardy, ThomasJude the obscure. 1994. 5v. Jude Fawley, a stone-mason, has already suffered. His academic ambitions were thwarted by his poverty and class: trapped in a loveless marriage, he is now alone but not free. He comes to love his cousin Sue who, seemingly emancipated, is herself miserably married. Together they defy conventional morality to seize a chance of happiness.

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Hardy, Thomas.Tess of the d'Urbervilles. 1979. 4v.Tess is driven by her poverty into the service of her wealthy relations. Her lowly position leads her to become the victim of her cousin, Alec, her seducer and nemesis. When she marries Angel Clare, she confesses her past, but Clare is unforgiving and cruelly leaves her to face her destiny alone.

Hardy, Thomas. The mayor of Casterbridge. 1994. 4v. One of the Wessex tales, this tells the story of the brooding, and sometimes brutal Michael Henchard and the women with whom he searches for happiness in the harsh world of 19th-century rural England.

Hardy, Thomas. The woodlanders. 2010. 4v. Grace Melbury, daughter of a well-to-do timber merchant, returns home from finishing school; and her father arranges her marriage to a young doctor.

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Hardy, Thomas. Under the greenwood tree. 2010. 2v. The arrival of two newcomers in the quiet village of Mellstock arouses a bitter feud and leaves a convoluted love affair in its wake. While the Reverend Maybold creates a furore among the villages musicians with his decision to abolish the churchs traditional string choir and replace it with a modern mechanical organ, the new schoolteacher, Fancy Day, causes an upheaval of a more romantic nature, winning the hearts of three very different men a local farmer, a church musician and Maybold himself.

Hemingway, ErnestA farewell to arms. 1999. 3v. An American's love for an English nurse during the First World War ends in tragedy.

Hornung, E. W. Mr Justice Raffles. 2008. 2v. Raffles crosses the path of Brigstock, an unscrupulous moneylender who preys upon the facilities of the idle sons of rich men. Raffles

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decides to teach Brigstock a lesson he will not forget.

Hughes, Thomas.Tom Brown's schooldays. 1999. 3v.A classic of Victorian literature, and one of the earliest books written specifically for boys, Tom Brown's schooldays has long had an influence well beyond the middle-class, public school world that it describes.

Huxley, Aldous.Brave new world. 1994. 2v. Written in 1932, when the Western world was poised on the brink of social and scientific revolution, this novel is Huxley's nightmare vision of the future.

Irving, Washington The legend of Sleepy Hollow and other stories. 1999. 1v. Ichabod Crane, a schoolmaster in Sleepy Hollow, loves Katrina Van Tassel, a wealthy farmer's daughter. His chief rival for her affection is Brom Van Brunt, a powerfully-built mischief-maker

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known as Brom Bones. At a "merry making" one evening, Crane hears of a headless horseman who haunts the region, and with whom he will soon have a terrifying encounter.

Irving, Washington Rip van Winkle and other stories. 1986. 1v. The legendary enchantment of Rip Van Winkle in the Kaatskill Mountains; the gruesome end of Ichabod Crane, who met the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow; the spectre bridegroom who turned out to be happily substantial; the pride of an English village and the come-uppance of the over-zealous Mountjoy - these witty, perceptive and captivating tales range from fantasy to romance.

James, Henry. Washington Square. 2008. 2v. James provides an acute analysis of middle-class manners and behaviour in the New York of the 1870s.Through the relationships between Austin Sloper: a celebrated physician, his sister Lavinia Penniman, his daughter Catherine, and

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Catherines suitor, Morris Townsend, James observes the contemporary scene.

Jerome, Jerome K Three men in a boat. 2009. 2v. Suffering from every malady in the book, three men and a dog decide to head for a restful vacation on the Thames. They encounter the joys of roughing it, of getting their boat stuck in locks, of having to eat their own cooking, and of course, the glorious English weather.

Joyce, JamesA portrait of the artist as a young man. 2000. 4v. The portrayal of Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, his quest for identity through art and his gradual emancipation from the claims of family, religion and Ireland itself, is also an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce and a universal testament to the artist's 'eternal imagination'.

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Joyce, JamesUlysses. 2000. 10v. The novel deals with the events of one day in Dublin, 16th June 1904, now known as "Bloomsday". The principal characters are Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly.

Kafka, Franz. The trial. 2009. 2v. Josef K, 30, lives in a large town in an unspecified country. He is summonsed to answer a charge and appears in the court room for his trial. This title aims to evoke the reality of trial without any of the specifics in a society that seems to have degraded into chaos: squalid environment, rats, yellow liquid shooting out of a hole in the wall.

Lawrence, D.H. Aaron's rod. 2008. 4v. Aaron leaves his wife and family and his job at a Midlands Pit taking only his flute Aaron's rod and goes to London. He meets Lilly, a sympathetic man who looks after him when he is ill. Subsequently both meet again in Italy. The theme

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of this book is about self-knowledge and much of it is about Lawrence himself, who is represented in both Lilly and Aaron.

Lawrence, D HLady Chatterley's lover. 2006. 5v. Constance Chatterley is deeply unhappy; married to an invalid, she is almost as inwardly paralysed as her husband. Oppressed by her dreary life, she finds refuge and regeneration in the arms of Mellors the game-keeper.

Lawrence, D.H. Sons and lovers. 2008. 5v. Gertrude Morel, a delicate yet determined woman, no longer loves her boorish, inarticulate husband and devotes herself to her sons, William and Paul. There is conflict when Paul falls in love and seeks to escape his mother's suffocating grasp. Set in the period leading up to the First World War, the text reflects the problems of transition between the agricultural past and the industrial future, between one generation and the next, and between childhood and adolescence.

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Lawrence, D.H.The virgin and the gypsy. 2008. 1v.Set in a small village in the English countryside, this is the story of a secluded, sensitive rector's daughter who yearns for meaning beyond the life to which she seems doomed. When she meets a handsome young gipsy whose life appears different from hers in every way, she is immediately smitten and yet still paralyzed by her own fear and social convention. Not until a natural catastrophe suddenly, miraculously sweeps away the world as she knew it does a new world of passion open for her.

Lawrence, D HWomen in love. 2007. 7v. This continues the story of Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen begun in "The Rainbow". The Brangwen sisters are now teachers in Beldover, a small town dominated by a colliery. Ursula falls in love with Birkin, while Gudrun has a tragic affair with Gerald, son of the colliery owner.

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Leroux, Gaston. The phantom of the opera. 2008. 3v. Under the Paris Opera House lives a disfigured musical genius who uses music to win the love of a beautiful opera singer.

Melville, Herman Moby Dick. 2009. 6v. A young seaman joins the crew of the fanatical Captain Ahab in pursuit of the white whale Moby Dick.

Orwell, George.Nineteen eighty-four. 1998. 3v.The book is set in a society run by Big Brother where people are made to conform to orthodoxy by the Thought Police. Winston Smith yearns for truth and liberty, but he comes to realize that he cannot outwit the forces at work.

Rhys, Jean Wide Sargasso Sea. 2000. 2v. The life of Rochester's first wife, the mad woman kept hidden at Thornfield Hall who later haunted Jane Eyre.

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Scott, Walter, Sir.Ivanhoe. 2008. 5v. Scott's noble knight, Ivanhoe, returns home from the Crusades to claim Rowena, an Anglo-Saxon princess, to be his bride. Before long he is embroiled in the struggle between Prince John and his brother Richard the Lionheart.

Scott, Walter, Sir. Kenilworth. 2008. 5v. A story of the Earl of Leicester, favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, and of his secret marriage to the beautiful Amy Robsart.

Scott, Walter, Sir. Quentin Durward. 2008. 5v. The young Scottish adventurer, Quentin Durward, embarks on a dangerous journey through the forest of the Ardennes, seeking a name, a partner and a position in the world. Meanwhile, the machiavellian King Louis XI of France manoeuvres his realm out of the hands of the feudal barons, and into the centralised control that Scott believed to characterise the modern state.

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Solzhenitsyn, AleksandrOne day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. 1963. 2v.Ivan is serving a ten-year sentence in a Siberian labour camp. This is the story of one typical day. It is a glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin, which shocked the world when it first appeared.

Spark, MurielThe prime of Miss Jean Brodie. 2000. 2v. Miss Jean Brodie was a schoolmistress with a difference. Proud, cultured, romantic, her ideas were progressive, even shocking. And when she decided to transform a group of young girls under her tutelage into the "crème de la crème" of Marcia Blaine school, no one could have predicted the outcome.

Steinbeck, John.Of mice and men. 2000. 1v.George and Lennie are migrant American labourers. George protects his strong but stupid

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friend and shares with him a dream of one day settling down and farming their own land.

Steinbeck, John The grapes of wrath. 2000. 6v. Set against the background of dust bowl Oklahoma and Californian migrant life, it tells of the Joad family, who, like thousands of others, are forced to travel West in search of the promised land. Their story is one of false hopes, thwarted desires and broken dreams.

Thackeray, W. M. Vanity Fair. 2009. 8v. A story of English society during the Napoleonic wars, in which Thackerey chronicles the exploits of Becky Sharp, an unscrupulous young woman who is determined to achieve wealth and social success.

Trollope, Anthony. Barchester Towers. 2008. 6v. The Barsetshire chronicles; book 2. Clerical feuds in Barchester centre round Mr. Slope, the

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Bishop's Chaplain, and Mrs. Proudie, the Bishop's wife.

Trollope, Anthony. The warden. 2008. 2v. The Barsetshire chronicles; book 1. This book centres on Reverend Harding and his youngest daughter Eleanor. With humour and satire, it tells of the moral dilema he faces when accused of living on the funds that should be distributed to the almshouse for which he is warden. One of his chief critics is John Bold, with whom Eleanor is in love. Harding wants to act courageously but in a way which will not alienate Eleanor or her lover…

Verne, Jules. Around the world in 80 days. 2008. 2v. Phileas Fogg is certain that he can travel around the world in eighty days - an incredibly short period of time in 1873. He's so sure that it can be done that he's wagered half of his fortune and set off on the grand adventure with his servant Passepartout.

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Verne, Jules. Journey to the centre of the earth. 1996. 2v. Professor Lidenbrock, a neurotically impatient scientist, discovers a cryptic manuscript written by a long-dead explorer; with the help of his nephew, he decodes the cryptogram to read an account of a journey to the center of the earth begun beneath a dormant volcano in Iceland.

Wallace, Edgar. Clue of the twisted candle. 2008. 2v. Mystery writer John Lexman is sentenced for the killing of a moneylender. Commander T.X. Meredith, convinced there has been a miscarriage of justice, searchs for evidence to clear his friend. Wealthy Greek Remington Kara has other plans.

Walpole, Horace. The castle of Otranto. 2001. 2v. The earliest and most influential of the Gothic novels. This book gives us a series of catastrophes, ghostly interventions, revelations of identity, and exciting contests. Crammed with invention, entertainment, terror, and pathos, the novel was an immediate

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success and Walpole's own favourite among his numerous works.

Waugh, EvelynBrideshead revisited: the sacred and the profane memories of Captain Charles Ryder. 2003. 5v. This tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmain family and the rapidly disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize his spiritual and social distance from them.

Waugh, EvelynDecline and fall. 2001. 2v. When pious Paul Pennyfeather is sent down from Scone College, Oxford for "indecent behaviour" he is cast out into a chaotic world to earn his living. He embarks upon a series of bizarre adventures which start in a minor public school and end in Egdon Heath Prison.

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Wells, H GThe history of Mr Polly. 2005. 3v. The 'little man', inefficient and lovable, prepares for suicide when his unprofitable shop, based in a small seaside town, faces bankruptcy. But courage fails him and he sets fire to the place instead. He calls upon resources he never knew he had to save himself from his landlady's ferocious nephew ....

Wells, H GThe invisible man. 2005. 2v. The classic story of the extraordinary experiences of a chemistry student who succeeded in making himself invisible.

Wharton, Edith Ethan Frome. 2009. 1v. Ethan Frome works his New England farm, and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult wife, Zeenie. But when Zeenie's cousin enters their household, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and the happiness she comes to represent. The ill-starred trio move towards their tragic destinies.

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Wharton, Edith. The age of innocence. 2008. 3v. Fashionable life of the 1870s in New York and Newport as seen by a woman looking back from the changed post-war world to a girlhood passed amidst the totems of these vanished tribes.

Woolf, Virginia A room of one's own. 2002. 1v. "A room of one's own" grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928. Ranging over Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and why neither of them could have written "War and peace", over the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted (and imaginary) sister and over the effects of poverty and chastity on female creativity.

Woolf, Virginia Mrs Dalloway. 1996. 2v. Past, present and future are brought together one day in June 1923. Clarissa Dalloway prepares for her party, remembering those she once loved. In another part of London, Septimus Smith is on the

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brink of madness. His day interweaves with Clarissa's.

Woolf, VirginiaTo the lighthouse. 2000. 3v. This is the story of the Ramsays, based on Virginia Woolf's own family. Written in the stream-of-consciousness style, the book examines family relationships, the traditional roles of the sexes, the tensions and love between husband and wife and the resentment children can feel for their parents.

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