An English scientist, known only as the Time Traveler, constructs a machine that allows him to move back and forth through different periods of time. Testing this machine, the man travels forward to AD 802,701. Here he discovers a lazy, non disciplined group of people who do not seem interested in anything. Thinking he has seen all he needs for his research, he decides to travel back home. Upon returning to where he left his time machine, he discovers an intelligent, violent group of people...
In The Boscombe Valley Mystery, Inspector Lestrade summons Holmes to a community in Herefordshire, where a local landowner has been murdered outdoors. The deceased's estranged son is strongly implicated. Holmes, employing his trusty magnifying glass quickly determines that a mysterious third man may be responsible for the crime, unraveling a thread involving a secret criminal past, thwarted love, and blackmail. This is the fourth of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...
In The Secret Agent, a Soho shopkeeper is a member of a terrorist cell, supported by a foreign power, plotting to undermine the English state by means of a bomb plot. Published in 1907, it is considered to be among Conrad's finest novels, written at a time when he was moving away from the seafaring themes which he was known for. Prescient in its depictions of terrorism and political instability, it has become mandatory reading for anyone wishing to understand terrorism and counterterrorism...
In The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Violet Hunter asks Holmes, whether she should accept a job with very strange conditions. She has been offered £120 per year as a governess, but only if she will cut her long hair short. This is only one of many peculiar conditions to which she must agree. The employer, Jephro Rucastle, seems pleasant enough, yet Miss Hunter obviously has her suspicions. After a fortnight, Miss Hunter beseeches Holmes to come and see her in Winchester, as the situation has...
The Pilgrim's Progress is a 1678 Christian allegory written by the Puritan preacher John Bunyan. Begun while Bunyan served a 12-year jail sentence for his nonconformist preaching, the novel unfolds over two parts, one concerning Christian, and the other his wife Christiana and their sons. Both concern the central characters’ ordeals in traveling from the worldly to the sublime, and are filled with allegorical characters with names like Hypocrisy and Prudence, and places like Plain Ease, and...
In The Silver Chair, Eustace Scrubb returns to Narnia with his schoolmate Jill Pole only to find his friend King Caspian an old man. Caspian's dying wish is to find his son, Prince Rilian who has been kidnapped by an evil witch. With the help of Aslan and a Marsh-wiggle named Puddleglum, Eustace and Jill embark on a harrowing quest to find Rilian that takes them on a journey through the city of giants and the Underworld. The fourth book of the Chronicles of Narnia, it was first published in...
In The Last Battle, an evil ape tricks a donkey into wearing a lion's skin and makes the people of Narnia believe it is Aslan. Teaming up with the base Calormenes to the south, the ape enslaves the inhabitants of Narnia and sets its very destruction in motion. King Rilian's fervent appeal for help effects the return of Eustace and Jill. But will the others return as well? Will Aslan save Narnia in its darkest hour? The sixth book of the Chronicles of Narnia, it was first published in...
In 1642, a pregnant Hester Prynne is found guilty of adultery, shunned by her neighbors, and forced to wear a scarlet letter 'A' on her dress. Meanwhile, Hester's husband – long thought to be lost at sea – has returned to Boston under the assumed name 'Roger Chillingworth' and plots to uncover her lover's identity. After her daughter Pearl is born, Hester is frequently visited by both Reverend Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, but always refuses to name her lover. As...
In The Horse and His Boy, two children of Calormene: Shasta, a slave boy and Aravis a rich girl, join up with two talking horses of Narnia in a bid to escape their lives in Calormene. Set during the reign of King Peter, Shasta and Aravis cross paths with Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy and quickly become mixed up in a war between Narnia and Calormene. With the fearsome aid of Aslan, will the children save Susan from a marriage to the cruel Prince Rabadash of Calormene? The fifth book of the...
Collins Classics brings you a selection of the best-loved novels by Jane Austen, including ‘Pride and Prejudice’ which, in 2013, celebrates the 200th anniversary of its publication.Complete with a Life & Times section, which offers insight into the author, her works and the time of publication, and a handy glossary adapted from the Collins English Dictionary, this Collins Classics Collection will enhance your reading experience of Jane Austen’s novels.PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Austen's best-loved...
HarperCollins is pround to present a range of best-loved, essential classics.'My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am!'Challenging the hypocrisy and social conventions of the rural Victorian world, Tess of the D'Urbervilles follows the story of Tess Durbeyfield as she attempts to escape the poverty of her background, seeking wealth by claiming connection with the aristocratic...