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"A House to Let" is a short story by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter. It was originally published in 1858 in the Christmas edition of Dickens' Household Words magazine. Collins wrote the introduction and collaborated with Dickens on the second story and ending, while Gaskell and Proctor wrote the remainder.

Beginning with an 'expert' introduction to the perils of ill-educated discourse, Swift seeks to offer a remedy for conversational disasters. His aim: to ensure one is always equipped with the correct response no matter the situation, and the means with which to stoke up conversation when it lapses into an awkward silence. To prove his theses, he then proffers three mock dialogues, citing the drawing-room as the most suitable place to display the art of elegant and polite conversation. The result is a hilarious and deeply ironic analysis that is as relevant today as when it was first conceived.

A 1638 work of erotic fiction features nun-to-nun dialogues in the sexual arts "Is it right that a girl so accomplished be secluded as you are? No, no, my child, I want to share with you my most secret habits, and to give you a true notion of the deeds of a wise nun." This landmark erotic novelsalaciously presents the education, one might say indoctrination, of green Catholic nun Sister Agnes at the hands of her more experienced cohort Sister Angelique. Religious demystification coincides with sexual awakening in a scurrilous work which stands as a precursor to those of authors such as the Marquis de Sade.

A critically acclaimed early work from the author of The Radetzky March-one of the most significant literary German novels ever written After the end of World War I, Gabriel Dan is released from a POW camp in Russia and begins making his way home to Austria. He comes to an industrial town in Poland, and checks in the ramshackle Hotel Savoy while awaiting financial aid from his family. Here he meets a kaleidoscope of characters, a microcosm of society in which rich and poor, itinerants, dissidents, and malcontents live lives of hope, expectancy, and despair in an atmosphere pregnant with revolutionary fervor.

Beginning with an 'expert' introduction to the perils of ill-educated discourse, Swift seeks to offer a remedy for conversational disasters. His aim: to ensure one is always equipped with the correct response no matter the situation, and the means with which to stoke up conversation when it lapses into an awkward silence. To prove his theses, he then proffers three mock dialogues, citing the drawing-room as the most suitable place to display the art of elegant and polite conversation. The result is a hilarious and deeply ironic analysis that is as relevant today as when it was first conceived.

"A tale of gothic glamour, depicting European culture at its most corrupt, like Edgar Allan Poe with lashings of lust and facepaint" -Kate Pullinger At a fashionable party in Paris, an appalled young lady hears the story of the mysterious figure that haunts the elegant de Lanty household... Parisian artist Sarrasine travels to Italy to pursue his vocation of sculpture. At the opera, he falls in love with the beautiful prima donna, Zambinella. Entirely captivated by her beauty and her charms, he sets to sculpting a tribute to her perfect femininity while also attempting to court her. However, all is not as it seems, and on making a shocking discovery, Sarrasine's love suddenly turns to murderous rage. A vivid evocation of nineteenth-century Europe, Balzac's tragic tale of mistaken identity was the text used by Roland Barthes in his influential work of structuralist theory, S/Z. It is accompanied here by another of Balzac's short stories, the orientalist fable A Passion in the Desert.

Growing up in Yorkshire, the daughter of a deceased clergyman, Maggie Browne is encouraged to devote herself to her brother, Edward, upon whom their widowed mother dotes. Through the example and guidance of her mentor, Mrs. Buxton, Maggie learns that self-sacrifice is the key to living a fulfilled life. How much personal happiness will she forgo in the name of duty and devotion to her brother? The Moorland Cottage was originally written in 1850 as part of a Christmas edition and is the precursor to, and arguably the template for, George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss. Depicting the struggle of a strong-minded Victorian woman, torn between her dreams and her duty towards her family, Gaskell's novel engages with a multitude of contemporary issues-yet Maggie's love story, Edward's perfidy, and the dramatic conclusion at sea make The Moorland Cottage a timeless tale.