"Do you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all them adventures? No, he wasn't. It only just pisoned him for more." So Huck declares at the start of these once-celebrated but now little-known seq…
As these three specially commissioned stories amply demonstrate, Conrad is our greatest writer of the sea. His characters are tested by dramatic events 'that show in the light of day the inner wort…
One of Shakespeare's most haunting and enigmatic late plays, The Winter's Tale is a fine example of Shakespeare's fascination with the dramatic genre of "romance": the portrayal of magical lands, f…
In the final section, “The Lighthouse,” some of the remaining Ramsays and other guests return to their summer home ten years after the events of Part I. Mr Ramsay finally plans on taking the lo…
Far from fading with time, Kenneth Grahame's classic tale of fantasy has attracted a growing audience in each generation. Rat, Mole, Badger and the preposterous Mr Toad (with his ‘Poop-poop-poop…
One of Woolf’s most experimental novels, The Waves presents six characters in monologue - from morning until night, from childhood into old age - against a background of the sea. The result is a …
Lord Jim, first published in 1900, confirmed Conrad's place in literature as one of the first 'modernists' of English letters. Set in the Malay Archipelago, not only does the novel provide a grippi…
Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a 'T'. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the tr…
With an Introduction and Notes by Charles P.C. Pettit Thomas Hardy's only historical novel, The Trumpet Major is set in Wessex during the Napoleonic Wars. Hardy skilfully immerses us in the life of…
This book is a tough read. It is very Baroque despite being late 19th century. The prose is heavily ornamented with many asides and qualifications. It explores every avenue of a particular thread o…