Everyman's Library CLASSICS – serie

Middlemarch- A Study of Provincial Life, published 1871-2, is set in the imaginary county of Loamshire during the years of unrest preceding the 1832 Reform Bill. With its complex plot, broad canvas and huge cast of characters, it has long been recognized as one of the few truly classic English novels.

Describing his collection of Essays as ‘a book consubstantial with its author’, Montaigne identified both the power and the charm of a work which introduces us to one of the most attractive figures in European literature. A humanist, a sceptic, an acute observer of himself and others, he reflects the great themes of existence through the prism of his own self-consciousness. Apparent in every line he wrote, his virtues of tolerance, moderation and disinterested inquiry amount to an undeclared manifesto for the Enlightenment, whose prophet he is. This complete edition of his works supplements the Essays with travel diaries and letters, thereby completing the portrait of a true Renaissance man.

Dostoesky's drama of sin, guilt and redemption transmutes the sordid story of an old woman's murder by a desperate student into the nineteenth century's profoundest and most compelling philosophical novel. Grim in theme and setting, the book nevertheless seduces by its combination of superbly drawn characters, narrative brilliance and manic comedy.

Tolstoy is said to have called Les Miserables the greatest novel ever written, and it exerted a powerful influence on the creation of War and Peace. At one level a detective story in which the relentless Inspector Javert obsessively pursues the escaped convict Jean Valjean, culminating in a dramatic chase through the sewers of Paris, at another level Hugo's masterpiece is a drama of crime, punishment and rehabilitation set against a panoramic description of French society in the years after Napoleon's fall from power. But this book is also about the metaphysical struggle between good and evil in the soul of every man and every community. Coloured by Hugo's distinctive philosophy, it is a plea for social justice, political enlightenment and personal charity which continues to speak with the undiminished authority more than a century after its first appearance.

Tom Sawyer, a shrewd and adventurous boy, is as much at home in the respectable world of his Aunt Polly as in the self-reliant and parentless world of his friend Huck Finn. The two enjoy a series of adventures, accidentally witnessing a murder, establishing the innocence of the man wrongly accused, as well as being hunted by Injun Joe, the true murderer, eventually escaping and finding the treasure that Joe had buried.Huckleberry Finn recounts the further adventures of Huck, who runs away from a drunken and brutal father, and meets up with the escaped slave Jim. They float down the Mississippi on a raft, participating in the lives of the characters they meet, witnessing corruption, moral decay and intellectual impoverishment.

The name of Giacomo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt (1725-1798), in now synonymous with amorous exploits, and there are plenty of these, vividly narrated, in him memoirs. But Casanova was not just an energetic lover. In his time he was diplomat, business man, trainee priest, traveller, prisoner, magician, confidence trickster, gambler, professional entertainer and chalatan. He financed business projects, organised lotteries, wrote opera libretti and dabbled in high politics. Above all he was an autobiographer of enduring brilliance and subtlety who left behind him what is probably the most remarkable confession ever written. Casanova was a Venetian who explored to the full all the possibilities 18th century Venice offered by way of love and profit before being imprisoned, escaping from gaol, and fleeing from the city to begin travels which took him across Europe. In Moscow and London, Berlin and Constantinople, he met the famous men and women of the time - Catherine the Great, Voltaire, Louis XV, Rousseau - and recorded his encounters for the memoirs he wrote in retirement at the end of his life. These memoirs are by turns subtle, touching, thrilling, wonderfully comic and quite irresistible. Although the present edition includes one third of Casanova's enormous (though unfinished) book, it contains all his major adventures and all is greatest affairs of the heart. 'Casanova is unsurpassed as the recreator of the daily talking interests of 18th century Europe. he ranges from slut to patrician, from closet to cabinet, waterfront to palace.' - V S PRITCHETT

This is about the quest of Captain Ahab, a man consumed by his obsession with a legendary, giant white whale, Moby Dick. As the ship sails into dangerous waters, The captain's hysterical pursuit becomes a symbol for the inherent, often destructive, nature of human ambition. "Moby-Dick" is not merely a tale of daring do; it is a profound meditation on the human condition itself. It can be read as part thriller, part sea adventure and part allegory.

This brilliantly coloured tale of the French Revolution is an historical romance set in Paris and London. Famous for the character of Sidney Carton who sacrifices himself upon the guillotine' it is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done '- the novel is also a powerful study of crowd psychology and the dark emotions aroused by the Revolution, illuminated by Dickens' lively comedy

In a novella which remains highly controversial to this day, Conrad explores the relations between Africa and Europe. On the surface, this is a horrifying tale of colonial exploitation. The narrator, Marlowe journeys on business deep into the heart of Africa. But there he encounters Kurtz, an idealist apparently crazed and depraved by his power over the natives, and the meeting prompts Marlowe to reflect on the darkness at the heart of all men. This short but complex and often ambiguous story, which has been the basis of several films and plays, continues to provoke interpretation and discussion.

A brilliant short novel based on Tolstoy's early life as a soldier in the Caucusus, THE COSSACKS has all the energy and poetry of youth while at the same time foreshadowing the great themes of Tolstoy's later years. A young officer finds himself living among tribesmen on the borders of southern Russia. In depicting his experience, Tolstoy explores the birth and death of love, the transience of life, the love of honour and the pain of war, all portrayed amidst the wild and magnificent landscape of the mountains and described in exquisite detail.

ON WAR is the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832 it has been read throughout the world, and has stimulated generations of soilders statemen, and intellectuals from Marx and Bismarck to Raymond Aron.

Chekhov, widely hailed as the supreme master of the short story, also wrote five works long enough to be called short novels. The Steppe-the most lyrical of the five-is an account of a nine-year-old boy's frightening journey by wagon train across the steppe of southern Russia to enroll in a distant school. The Duel sets two decadent figures-a fanatical rationalist and a man of literary sensibility-on a collision course that ends in a series of surprising reversals. In The Story of an Unknown Man, a political radical plans to spy on an important official by serving as valet to his son, however, as he gradually becomes involved as a silent witness in the intimate life of his young employer, he finds that his own terminal illness has changed his long-held priorities in startling ways. Three Years recounts a complex series of ironies in the personal life of a rich but passive Moscow merchant, engaging time as a narrative element in a way unusual in Chekhov's fiction. In My Life, a man renounces wealth and social position for a life of manual labour, and the resulting conflict between the moral simplicity of his ideals and the complex realities of human nature culminates in an apocalyptic vision that is unique in Chekhov's work.

Benjamin Franklin’s account of his rise from poverty and obscurity to affluence and fame is a self-portrait of a quintessential American which has charmed every generation of readers since it first appeared in 1791. Begun as a collection of anecdotes for his son, the memoir grew into a history of his remarkable achievements in the literary, scientific and political realms. A printer, inventor, scientist, diplomat and statesman, Franklin was also a brilliant writer whose wit and wisdom shine on every page. Franklin was a remarkably prolific author, well known in his lifetime for his humorous, philosophical, parodic and satirical writings, and for the parables and maxims which he published under an astonishing number of pen names, including Poor Richard, the Busy-Body, and Silence Dogood. This Everyman edition contains a varied selection of these, including 'The Kite Experiment', 'A Parable Against Persecution', 'Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind', 'Rules for Making Oneself a Disagreeable Companion' and 'The Way to Wealth'.

The first great novel - and perhaps still the most influential - Don Quixote contains within it all the seeds of modern fiction. A fantastic compound of reality and illusion in which the besotted Don Quixote and his down-to-earth companion, the faithful Sancho Panza, set out to right the world's wrongs in knightly combat, the narrative moves from philosophical speculation to broad comedy, taking in pastoral, farce and fantasy on the way. Between the Don's dreams of chivalry which inaugurate the novel, and his death which concludes it, Cervantes explores a range of experience and feeling worthy of his great contemporary, Shakespeare.

Social realism and fairy tale combine in Lucky Per, a bildungsroman about the ambitious son of a clergyman who rejects his faith and flees a restricted life in rural Jutland for Denmark's capital city. Per is a gifted young man who firmly believes that 'you had to hunt down luck as if it were a wild creature, a crooked-fanged beast ... and capture and bind it'. He falls in with Copenhagen's Jewish community, and falls for Jakobe Salomon, a wealthy heiress, who is not only the strongest character in the book but among the great Jewish heroines of European literature.Per becomes obsessed with a grand engineering scheme that he believes will both reshape Denmark's landscape and correct its minor position in the world. Eventually personal and his career ambitions alike come to grief. At the heart of Lucky Per lies the question of the relationship of 'luck' to 'happiness' (the Danish word in the title can have both meanings), a relationship which Per comes to view differently by the end of his life.

Gothic, ghostly and glorious. Emily Brontë's tragic novel about the all-consuming, destructive love between the passionate Catherine Earnshaw and the brooding Heathcliff, set against the wild Yorkshire moors; after Catherine marries for social status, Heathcliff returns seeking brutal revenge on everyone who wronged them, leading to cycles of abuse, obsession, and intertwined family feuds across generations at the estates of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, ultimately exploring themes of love, class, revenge, and the supernatural.

The original American in Paris. This dark comedy, seen as one of the masterpieces of James's final period, has all the elements of great writing, brilliant plot and gorgeous setting- An Edwardian gentleman from the States arrives in seedy and sophisticated Paris to rescue his wayward future step son. But his innocent American background has not prepared him for such seduction...Beautiful hardback gift edition of this collectable classic.This complex tale of self-discovery -- considered by the author to be his best work -- traces the path of an aging idealist, Lambert Strether. Arriving in Paris with the intention of persuading his young charge to abandon an obsession with a French woman and return home, Strether reaches unexpected conclusions.

Uses the narrative of a mock travel writer to explore exotic and imaginary locations. This book mounts a scathing attack on the morals, politics and learning of the 18th century, culminating in possibly the greatest satire ever written: the story of the Houyhnhnms.

Tacitus was the greatest historian of the Roman empire. Born in about AD 55, he served as administrator and leading senator. This career gave him an intimate view of the empire at its highest levels, experience brought to bear on his writing.His major works are the Annals and the Histories, both of which have come down to us incomplete. Between them, they cover a period of about 80 years, from the death of the first emperor, Augustus, to the death of Domitian in 96AD. In addition, Tacitus also composed two short historical books or essays, the Agricola (about his father-in-law, a distinguished provincial governor) and the Germania, an account of the tribes beyond the Rhine.Tacitus is a brilliant narrator and master stylist who had ample material for his story in the dramatic, violent and often bloody events of the first century. His portraits - especially those of Tiberius, Nero, and Nero's immediate circle - are unforgettable, his scene-setting masterly, his psychological analysis as acute as any novelist. He is also a fierce critic of the decadence and corruption which marked struggles for the imperial succession. As Robin Lane Fox writes in his brilliant introduction, 'Above all Tacitus was supremely wary of the distortions and "spin" of official announcements. He had no illusions about the capacities of presidential, one-man rule.' Napoleon disliked him, not surprisingly.Everyman reprints the classic translation by A.J. Church and W.J. Brodribb, with extensive notes considerably revised and updated by Dr Eleanor Cowan.

Hugo's grand medieval melodrama tells the story of the beautiful Esmeralda, a gypsy girl loved by three men: Archdeacon Frollo, his adoptive son Quasimodo, bell-ringer of Notre-Dame cathedral, and Captain Phoebus. Falsely accused of trying to murder Phoebus, who attempts to rape her, Esmeralda is sentenced to death and rescued from the gallows by Quasimodo who defends her to the last.The subject of many adaptations for stage and screen, this remains perhaps one of the most romantic yet gripping stories ever told.

In the opening volume of Proust's great novel, the narrator travels backwards in time in order to tell the story of a love affair that had taken place before his own birth. Swann's jealous love for Odette provides a prophetic model of the narrator's own relationships. All Proust's great themes - time and memory, love and loss, art and the artistic vocation - are here in kernel form.

In this second volume of In Search of Lost Time, the narrator turns from the childhood reminiscences of Swann’s Way to memories of his adolescence. Having gradually become indifferent to Swann’s daughter Gilberte, the narrator visits the seaside resort of Balbec with his grandmother and meets a new object of attention—Albertine, “a girl with brilliant, laughing eyes and plump, matt cheeks.”For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of Á la recherché du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).

In The Guermantes Way Proust's narrator recalls his initiation into the dazzling world of Parisian high society. Looking back over his time in the glamorous salons of the aristocracy, he satirises this shallow world and his own youthful infatuation with it. His observations, and his experiences with his lover Albertine, also educate him in the volatile nature of desire as he walks the path towards adulthood.

Marcel continues his voyage of discovery through the homosexual world, where affairs of the ageing Baron de Charlus lead to unexpected and hilarious adventures.

Though Stoker did not invent vampires - and in fact based his character's life-in-death on extensive research into European folklore - his novel elevated the nocturnal monster to iconic stature, spawning a genre of stories and movies which flourishes to this day. A century of imitation has done nothing to diminish its power. As the suave and chilling Count stalks his prey from a crumbling castle in the Carpathians to a lunatic asylum in Purfleet and the bedrooms of his swooning female victims, the drama builds to a fever pitch of sensuality and suspense.Dracula is not only a classic of Gothic horror and a wellspring of modern mythology: it is also irresistible entertainment.

Donne created new forms of lyric, satire, elegiac and religious verse, and his independence of view, compact manner of expression encompassing conflicting moods, impassioned paradox, outbreaks of cynicism and wry humour make his work particularly appealing to the twentieth-century mind. His poetry reflects every stage of his development from the piratical Jack Donne who sailed with Ralegh against the Spaniards and spent riotous nights in the London streets, to the penitent John Donne who became Dean of St Paul's and the most celebrated preacher of his age. C. A. Patrides' edition of Donne's English poems is undoubtedly the most complete and scholarly available.

Young Pip lives with his sister and her husband the blacksmith, with few prospects for advancement until a mysterious benefaction takes him from the Kent marshes to London. Pip is haunted by figures from his past - the escaped convict Magwitch, the time-withered Miss Havisham and her proud and beautiful ward, Estella - and in time uncovers not just the origins of his great expectations but the mystery of his own heart.

This is a three-volume boxed set of Tolstoy's historical chronicle of Russia's struggle with Napoleon. The novel is an affirmation of life itself, focusing on the lives of individuals and the physical reality of human experience and its bewildering complexity.

In a book that is part fairy tale and part thinly veiled autobiography, Dickens transmutes his life experience into a brilliant series of comic and sentimental adventures in the spirit of the great eighteenth-century novelists he so much admired. Few readers can fail to be touched by David's fate, and fewer still to be delighted by his story. The cruel Murdstone, the feckless Micawber, the unctuous and sinister Uriah Heep, and David Copperfield himself, into whose portrait Dickens puts so much of his own early life, form a central part of our literary legacy.This edition reprints the original Everyman preface by G. K. Chesterton and includes thirty-nine illustrations by Phiz.