The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes contains Conan Doyle's last twelve stories about his great fictional detective. Compared with earlier collections these tales are darker, exploring such themes as treachery, mutilation and the terrible consequences of infidelity, and containing such gothic touches as a blood-sucking vampire and crypts at midnight.

This classic adventure, set in nineteenth-century France and Italy, tells the story of Edmund Dants, a young man falsely imprisoned who eventually finds himself in a position of power and able to seek his revenge against those who plotted against him. Eventually he begins to question his obsessive search for revenge.

Crime and Punishment is the story of a brutal double murder and its aftermath. Raskolnikov, a poor student, kills a pawnbroker and her sister, and then has to face up to the moral consequences of his actions. The novel is compelling and rewarding, full of meaning and symbolism, and raises profound questions about the individual and society, and the nature of free will.

Oliver Twist is one of Dickens's most popular novels, with many famous film, television and musical adaptations. It is a classic story of good against evil, packed with humour and pathos, drama and suspense, in which the orphaned Oliver is brought up in a harsh workhouse, and then taken in and exploited by the criminal Fagin, before being eventually rescued and taken in by a loving family.

A tour de force of wit and sparkling dialogue, Pride and Prejudice shows how the headstrong Elizabeth Bennett and the aristocratic Mr Darcy must have their pride humbled and their prejudices dissolved before they can acknowledge their love for each other.

The Scarlet Letter is the story of three New England settlers at odds with the Puritan society in which they live. Roger Chillingworth, an ageing scholar, arrives in New England after two years' separation from his wife Hester to find her on trial for adultery. She refuses to reveal her lover's identity and is condemned to wear a scarlet letter 'A' sewn on to her clothes. Roger resolves to discover the man's identity, and over the next seven years the participants in the love triangle suffer the consequences of betrayal, cowardice and humiliation, before moving towards redemption at the novel's climax.

To the Lighthouse, considered by many to be Virginia Woolf's finest novel, is a remarkably original work, showing the thoughts and actions of the members of a family and their guests on two separate occasions ten years apart. The setting is Mr and Mrs Ramsay's house on a Scottish island, where they traditionally take their summer holidays, overlooking a bay with a lighthouse. As a modernist author Woolf explored the ways in which fiction could represent reality, and To the Lighthouse can be seen as an experimental work that pushes the limits of what we know about the world and ourselves. It is one of the most beautifully crafted of all novels written in the English language.

One of the most irrepressible and exuberant characters in the history of literature, Tom Sawyer explodes onto the page in a whirl of bad behaviour and incredible adventures. Whether he is heaving clods of earth at his brother, faking a gangrenous toe, or trying to convince the world that he is dead, Tom's infectious energy and good humor shine through. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is Mark Twain's joyful and nostalgic recollection of tall tales from his own boyhood by the Mississippi some 'thirty or forty years ago', an instant success on first publication in 1876 and a delight to children of all ages ever since.

Ten years after the supposed death of Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls, Arthur Conan Doyle was to bow to popular pressure and the large fees offered by publishers to revive the detective's career. To the astonishment of Dr Watson and the delight of his readers Holmes returns to Baker Street, explains how he escaped death at the Falls and is ready to commence detective work once more. Doyle provided a rich and fascinating set of mysteries to challenge his sleuth in this collection. As before, Watson is the superb narrator and his magic remains unchanged and undimmed. In His Last Bow, the final story of this collection, we are told how Sherlock Holmes is brought out of retirement to help the Government fight the German threat at the approach of the First World War. It is the last time that Holmes and Watson work together. As well as his witty and illuminating Afterword to this edition, David Stuart Davies, the illustrious editor of Sherlock magazine, has provided a fascinating chronology of the Sherlock Holmes Stories.

«Part of the «Collector's Library» series, this title includes an Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list.»

«Each volume in the «Collector's Library» series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword for this edition of «The Tenant of Wildfell Hall» is by Kathryn White, an established expert on the Bronte family and former Librarian of The Bronte Parsonage Museum at Haworth on the Yorkshire Moors.»

Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword for this edition of is by David Stuart Davies.These fifteen short stories, chosen by David Stuart Davies, former Editor of Sherlock magazine, show the master detective Sherlock Holmes at his most ingenious. Faithfully supported by his chronicler, Dr Watson, Holmes pits his wits against 'the Napoleon of Crime', Professor Moriarty, assists European royalty threatened by disgrace, the mysterious death of a young woman due to be married and other intrigues that defeat the detectives of Scotland Yard.

Each volume in the Collector's Library series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword for this edition of is by Ned Halley. Following his adventures foiling the plans of the Black Stone gang in The Thirty-Nine Steps, Richard Hannay is called in to investigate rumours of an uprising in the Muslim world, and undertakes a perilous journey through enemy territory to meet up with his friend Sandy in Constantinople. Once there, he and his friends must thwart the Germans' plans to use religion to help them win the war, climaxing at the battle of Erzurum.As well as being a gripping adventure story, Greenmantle is surprisingly modern in the concept of using a Jihad to mobilise Muslim forces, and is disturbingly relevant to the modern world.

Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The afterword for this edition is by David Stuart Davies. The challenge and pleasure of these stories is the simultaneous appeal to both child and adult with their themes of love, truth and sacrifice, which are as relevant today as when they were written. In this collection are to be found some of the brightest gems from the treasure trove of Oscar Wilde's incomparable writing.

Each volume in the Collector's Library series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword for this edition of is by David Stuart Davies. The Jungle Book shows Kipling's writing for children at its best. It is a collection of short stories and poems, revolving round the boy Mowgli, who was raised by a pack of wolves in India. We meet the tiger Shere Khan who attacked and drove off Mowgli's parents, Bagheera, the black panther, Baloo 'the sleepy brown bear, and the evil python, Kaa. Other stories include Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, The White Seal and Toomai of the Elephants, and the book contains the original illustrations of J Lockwood Kipling (Rudyard's father) and W H Drake.

Each volume in the Collector's Library series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword for this edition of is by Ned Halley.Set in Scotland in 1751, Kidnapped tells of how young David Balfour, orphaned, and betrayed by his uncle Ebenezer who should have been his guardian, is kidnapped, and falls in with Alan Breck, the unscrupulous but heroic champion of the Jacobite cause. The novel revolves around their friendship and their differences, suggesting a metaphor for Scotland itself.Modern critics see the novel as more than a boy's adventure yarn; at the heart of it lies what Henry James described as the 'really excellent' chapters of the flight in the heather that raise the novel to greatness.

The Limerick packs laughs anatomical into space that is quite economical, but the good ones I've seen so seldom are clean, and the clean ones so rarely are comical. This collection of witty Limericks, some clean, many filthy, and some packed with double-entendre has been assembled to add gaiety to nations. It contains over 1,000 Limericks historical, wistful, whimsical, clerical, medical, cynical and gastronomical, all of which will delight connoisseurs of the English language.

The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, a cycle of 154 linked poems, were first published — that is to say, entered at Stationers' Hall by the publisher Thomas Thorpe — on 20th May 1609. This 400th-anniversary edition contains all of the poems and they deal with many of Shakespeare's most common themes: jealousy, betrayal, melancholy, and are written in the same beautiful and innovative language that we have come to know from his plays. They ache with unfulfilled longing, and for many they are the most complete and moving meditations on love ever written.

Each volume in the Collector's Library series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword is by leading UK playwright, novelist and eminent Sherlockian, David Stuart Davies.