Hardy's first collection of short stories was written between 1879-1888, with many of the tales set before Hardy's birth in 1840. These humorous and affectionate observations of rustic life include the following tales: 'An Imaginative Woman', 'The Three Strangers', 'The Withered Arm', 'Fellow-Townsmen', 'Interlopers at the Knap' and 'The Distracted...

Floral designer Larry and his feisty young wife, Dorrie, spend their honeymoon in England. At Hampton Court Larry discovers a new passion for mazes. Perhaps his ever-growing obsession with their secrets will help him find a way through the bewilderment deepening about him as, through twenty years and two failed marriages, he endeavours to understan...

Bizarre, amusing and grotesque, these tales enter the unexpected world of Dahl. They illustrate the different lives that people lead: a life of chance, of risk and of plain bad luck. The stories are specially chosen for teenagers to introduce them to Dahl's work for adults. The stories included are: 'Katina', 'Man from the South', 'Mrs Bixby and th...

Charles Paris, actor and amateur sleuth, is working in television as the brainless bobby sidekick to a suave detective. The accidental death of an unpromising actress causes little suspicion, except in Charles' mind. He decides to investigate.

Philip Marlowe is the centre of a succession of curious and increasingly violent happenings when he agrees to take on a case for Little Sister. He is swept into a series of collisions with movie stars, gangsters, small town girls and the police.

The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which reads: A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30pm. Is it a hoax? As the time approaches a crowd gathers, and then the lights go out. Miss Marple investigates.

Howard Kirk is the trendiest of radical tutors at a fashionable university. Timid Vice-Chancellors pale before his threats of disruption and reactionary colleagues are crushed beneath his merciless Marxist logic. Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Estate of Malcolm Bradbury. Copyright Malcolm Bradbury 1975...

In a dingy apartment on the Passage du Pont Neuf in Paris, Therese Raquin is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin Camille. The tedium of her life is suddenly shattered when she embarks on an affair with her husband's friend Laurent, and their passion for each other soon causes the lovers to commit a shocking crime that will haunt the...

The human voices of the story are those of the BBC in the first years of the Second World War when the Concert Hall was turned into a dormitory for both sexes. The whole building became a target for enemy bombers, and in the BBC as elsewhere, some had to fail and some had to die.

Set in Russia 1913, Frank Reid arrives home from work on a day just like any other to find that his wife has left him. How should he cope? 'The Beginning of Spring' tells the story of how the family copes with this unexpected event, set against a turbulent political backdrop.

Harry Silver has it all. A successful job in TV, a gorgeous wife, a lovely child. And in one moment of madness, he chucks it all away. This is the story of how he comes to terms with his mistakes and achieves a degree of self-respect whilst bringing up his son alone. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE.

Set in the summer of 1939 on the day of the annual village pageant at Pointz Hall, the novel weaves together the musings of several disparate characters and their reactions to the imminence of the Second World War, which provides the novel with its dark undercurrent. Before the book was published in the spring of 1941, Virginia Woolf had taken her...

Jacob's Room is Virginia Woolf's first truly experimental novel. It is a portrait of a young man, who is both representative and victim of the social values which led Edwardian society into war. Jacob Flanders first appears as a child playing by the seaside. The novel follows his progress to school, Cambridge, London, Paris, Italy, Greece and to hi...

A retelling of John Bunyan's classic story that is filled with drama, excitement and adventure. On his journey of a life-time to the City of Gold, Christian meets an extraordinary cast of characters, such as the terrible Giant Despair and the monster Apollyon. Together with Hopeful, his steadfast companion, he survives the snipers and mantraps, the...

'The Waves', more than any of Virginia Woolf's other novels, conveys the complexities of human experience. Tracing the lives of a group of friends, 'The Waves' follows their development from childhood to youth and middle age. The novel is most remarkable for the rich poetic language that conveys the aspirations, triumphs and regrets of her characte...

Colin is in many ways an ideal citizen. A responsible job for the council, visits to his aged mother Norah, and cooking and shopping for her. But no-one knows about his other - much more secret - life that involves a garden shed, a circus acrobat, and a much-adored three-year-old charmer.

When the murdered body of a local boy is found in the woods, suspicions transform young Marsha's once-secure neighbourhood. Marsha begins to watch her neighbours and when Mr Green, the shy bachelor from next-door, takes an interest in her mother, Marsha is drawn into a cruel chain of events. Winner of the Orange Prize.

In this novelisation of a playscript, the formula for a powerful explosive is stolen. Locking his guests in the library, Sir Claud switches off the lights to let the thief replace it, no questions asked. When the lights come on, Sir Claud is dead and Hercule Poirot must act quickly to prevent a global catastrophe. (Adapted by Charles Osborne).

When it comes to the mating game, Jane is still learning how to play. When she resorts to a hilarious old fashioned guide - 'How to Meet and Marry Mr Right', Jane discovers that with love, life and men, a girl doesn't always need rules. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND ADULT THEMES.

Adrian Mole is now thirty and three-quarters. An accidental celebrity, with a spreading bald patch, despairing of family values, Mole is still worrying: Is Viagra cheating? Why won't the BBC produce his serial killer comedy 'White Van'? Mole chronicles the closing years of the 20th century with slanderous abandon.

Set in London during and just after the Second World War, the love affair between novelist Maurice Bendix and his married lover, Sarah Miles, ends when she suddenly and without explanation breaks it off. Two years later a chance meeting rekindles his love and jealousy. Maurice hires a private detective to follow Sarah and slowly his love for her tu...