Carved by Old Gepetto, Pinocchio has an enormous nose which grows even longer whenever he tells a lie. And Pinocchio is such a scamp that he gets into all sorts of mischief. He runs away and joins a circus but eventually the conscience of a talking cricket and Pinocchio's guardian fairy restore him to good behaviour, obedience and care for others.

It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain and France struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for possession of the same lands and between the native peoples and white colonisers. Through these layers of conflict Cooper threads a thrilling narrative, in which Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of a British commander on the front line of the colonial war, attempt to join their father. Thwarted by Magua, the sinister 'Indian runner', they find help in the person of Hawkeye, the white woodsman, and his companions, the Mohican Chingachgook and Uncas, his son, the last of his tribe. Cooper's novel is full of vivid incident pursuits through wild terrain, skirmishes, treachery and brutality but reflects also on the interaction between the colonists and the native peoples. Through the character of Hawkeye, Cooper raises lasting questions about the practises of the American frontier and the eclipse of the indigenous cultures.

Set in the reign of Richard I, Coeur de Lion, Ivanhoe is packed with memorable incidents — sieges, ambushes and combats — and equally memorable characters: Cedric of Rotherwood, the die-hard Saxon; his ward Rowena; the fierce Templar knight, Sir Brian de Bois-Gilbert; the Jew, Isaac of York, and his beautiful, spirited daughter Rebecca; Wamba and Gurth, jester and swineherd respectively. Scott explores the conflicts between the Crown and the powerful Barons, between the Norman overlords and the conquered Saxons, and between Richard and his scheming brother, Prince John. At the same time he brings into the novel the legendary Robin Hood and his band, and creates a brilliant, colourful account of the age of chivalry with all its elaborate rituals and costumes and its values of honour and personal glory.

The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), with its combination of the sentimental, the grotesque and the socially concerned, and its story of pursuit and courage, which sets the downtrodden and the plucky against the malevolent and the villainous, was an immediate popular success. Little Nell quickly became one of Dickens' most celebrated characters, who so captured the imagination of his readers that while the novel was being serialised, many of them wrote to him about her fate. Dickens was conscious of the 'many friends' the novel had won for him, and 'the many hearts it turned to me when they were full of private sorrow', and it remains one of the most familiar and well-loved of his works.

Unusually for Dickens, Hard Times is set, not in London, but in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby. However human joy is not excluded thanks to Mr Sleary's Horse-Riding circus, a gin-soaked and hilarious troupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who act as an antidote to all the drudgery and misery endured by the ordinary citizens of Coketown.

The Phoenix and the Carpet is E. Nesbit's second fantasy novel and is the sequel to Five Children and It. From Robert, Anthea, Jane and Cyril's new nursery carpet there falls a mysterious egg which is hatched in the fire to reveal a benevolent, resourceful and ingenious Phoenix who explains that the carpet is possessed of magic qualities. And so begins a series of fantastic and bizarre adventures as the carpet transports the children and the Phoenix to places as diverse as a chilling French castle, a desert island and even the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company's offices, which the Phoenix believes to be a shrine for his followers.

The Little Prince is a classic tale of equal appeal to children and adults. On one level it is the story of an airman's discovery in the desert of a small boy from another planet — the Little Prince of the title — and his stories of intergalactic travel, while on the other hand it is a thought-provoking allegory of the human condition. First published in 1943, the year before the author's death in action, this new translation contains Saint-Exupery's delightful illustrations.

Traditional rhymes and stories have been collected under the wing of Mother Goose for centuries, and this collection of favourite nursery rhymes has been put together by the masterly illustrator Arthur Rackham. It is a wonderful collection of old favourites, from Jack and Jill, Baa, Baa, Black Sheep and Who Killed Cock Robin? to comic alphabets and the fearful fate of Anthony Rowley. It is illustrated with Rackham's beautiful pen and ink drawings, and is one of his finest books.

When the Cuthberts send to an orphanage for a boy to help them at Green Gables, their farm in Canada, they are astonished when a talkative little girl steps off the train. Anne, red-headed, pugnacious and incurably romantic, causes chaos at Green Gables and in the village, but her wit and good nature delight the fictional community of Prince Edward Island, Canada, and ensure that Anne of Green Gables continues to be a firm favourite with readers worldwide. Anne of Avonlea continues Anne’s story. Now half-past sixteen but as strong-headed and romantic as ever, Anne becomes a teacher at her old school and dreams of its improvement. But her responsible position and mature ambitions do not prevent her entanglement in the scrapes that still seem to beset her in spite of her best intentions. Thoroughly charming and amusing, with a supporting cast of colourful and endearing characters, both books will enchant and entertain readers, guaranteeing that Anne’s adventures capture their affections as well as their imaginations.

The 64 poems in “A Child's Garden of Verses” are a masterly evocation of childhood from the author of “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped”. They are full of delightful irony, wit and the fantasy worlds of childhood imagination, and introduce for the first time the Land of Nod. But they are also touched with a genuine and gentle pathos at times as they recall a world which seems so far away from us now. This edition, which includes Charles Robinson's charming illustrations and vignettes, is described as the definitive edition by “The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature”.

«Robert Burns, the most celebrated of all Scottish poets, is remembered with great devotion — his birthday on 25th January provokes fervour and festivity among Scots and many others the world over. Born in 1759 into miserable rustic poverty, by the age of eighteen Burns had acquired a good knowledge of both classical and English literature. In June 1786 his first collection of verse, «Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect», which included «To a Mouse» and «The Cotter's Saturday Night», was greeted with huge acclaim by all classes of society. His later poems and ballads include Auld Lang Syne, the beautiful song «My Love is like a Red Red Rose», «Highland Mary», «Scots Wha Hae» and his masterpiece, «Tam o'Shanter».»

This edition of the poetry of Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) includes all the poems contained in the Definitive Edition of 1940. In his lifetime, Kipling was widely regarded as the unofficial Poet Laureate, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. His poetry is striking for its many rhythms and popular forms of speech, and Kipling was equally at home with dramatic monologues and extended ballads. He is often thought of as glorifying war, militarism, and the British Empire, but an attentive reading of the poems does not confirm that view. This edition reprints George Orwell's hard-hitting account of Kipling's poems, first published in 1942, and generally regarded as one of the most important contributions to critical discussion of Kipling.

John Donne (1572-1631) is a poet of concerted emotional and intellectual force, whose strenuously original approach to the subject matter, diction and form of verse re-made English poetry. Donne’s poetry combines paradoxical wit, scientific and theological learning with the rhythms and diction of spoken language. Crises of love, conscience, and faith are the great concerns of his poetry which is by turns exalted or disenchanted, direct or oblique, morally profound or outrageously spiteful.

Housman's melodic and memorable poems have been popular for over a century. He writes typically of lost love, of the brevity of happiness, of young soldiers doomed to die. Admirers have found his work elegant and resonant; detractors have thought much of it mannered and glib. But Housman speaks with two voices: the smooth texts conceal a dark sub-text. This tormented and secretive man wrote poems alive with indirect self-disclosure.

Although Tennyson (1809-1892) has often been characterized as an austere, bearded patriarch and laureate of the Victorian age, his poems speak clearly to the imagination of the late 20th century. His mastery of rhyme, metre, imagery and mood communicate their dark, sensuous and sometimes morbid messages. Much given to melancholy and feelings of aching desolation, Tennyson's verse also carries clear messages of hope: 'Ring out the old, ring in the new', and 'Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all'.

«Daisy Miller» is one of Henry James's most attractive heroines: she represents youth and frivolity. As a tourist in Italy, her American freedom and freshness of spirit come up against the corruption and hypocrisy of European manners. From its first publication, readers on both sides of the Atlantic have quarrelled about her, defending or attacking the liberties that Daisy takes and the conventions that she ignores. All three tales in this collection, «Daisy Miller», «An International Episode» and «Lady Barbarina», express James's most notable subject, 'the international theme', the encounters, romantic and cultural, between Americans and Europeans. His heroes and heroines approach each other on unfamiliar ground with new freedoms, yet find themselves unexpectedly hampered by old constraints. In «An International Episode», an English lord visiting Newport, Rhode Island, falls in love with an American girl, but their relationship becomes more complicated when she travels to London. In the light-hearted comedy «Lady Barbarina», a rich young American seeks an English aristocratic bride. The unusual outcomes of these three tales pose a number of social questions about marriage and the traditional roles of men and women. Is an international marriage symbolic of the highest cultural fusion of values or is it an old style raid and capture? Is marriage to remain the feminine destination?»

«The Diamond as Big as the Ritz» is an ominous fable about the pursuit of great wealth. Readers will be transported to a fabulous fantasy land of such opulence that its very existence has to remain a jealously guarded secret. Fatal consequences lie in store for 'bona fide' guests and uninvited visitors alike, while the sybaritic luxury of the place is evoked in an effortless prose style which is quintessentially F. Scott Fitzgerald. Also featured in this volume are «The Cut-Glass Bowl», «May Day», «The Rich Boy», «Crazy Sunday», «An Alcoholic Case», «The Lees of Happiness», «The Lost Decade» and «Babylon Revisited».»

«The diary is that of a man who acknowledges that he is not a «Somebody» — Charles Pooter of 'The Laurels', Brickfield Terrace, Holloway, a clerk in the city of London — and it chronicles in hilarious detail the everyday life of the lower middle class during the Great Victorian age.»

When Jerry, Jimmy and Cathy discover a tunnel that leads to a castle, they pretend that it is enchanted. But when they discover a Sleeping Princess at the centre of a maze, astonishing things begin to happen. Amongst a horde of jewels they discover a ring that grants wishes. But wishes granted are not always wishes wanted, so the children find themselves grappling with invisibility, dinosaurs, a ghost and the fearsome Ugli-Wuglies before it is all resolved. This edition of The Enchanted Castle has forty-seven evocative illustrations by H.R. Millar

This book contains over forty of the best-loved fairy stories, beautifully illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Favourites such as Jack the Giant-killer, Jack and the Beanstalk, Dick Whittington, The Three Little Pigs and The Babes in the Wood are all here among many others, but stories from different traditions also make their appearance, including The Three Bears and Little Red Hiding Hood.