Northanger Abbey

Three late-Victorian gentlemen, George, Harris and the writer himself, as well as their fox terrier Montmorency, take a trip in a boat along the River Thames to Oxford. What ensues is a hilarious journey through the English waterways full of anecdotes, and farcical incidents with Montmorency wreaking havoc along the way.

The victor belongs to the spoils.

Anthony and Gloria Patch are the bright lights of the 1920s New York smart set and lead a life of luxury, idleness and indulgence. But Jazz Age glamour comes at a price and, with Anthony's inheritance uncertain, the couple's decadent lifestyle begins to fall apart. Anthony is unable to hold down a job, and the couple descend into alcoholism and depression as their finances and marriage collapse. Fitzgerald's captivating tale of squandered talent is the classic account of the so-called Lost Generation.

‘Death and honour are thought to be the same, but today I have learned that sometimes they are not.’

Set in frontier America in the midst of the French-Indian war, as the French are attempting to overthrow an English fort, Cooper’s story follows Alice and Cora Munro, pioneer sisters who are trying to find their way back to their father, an English commander. Guided by an army major and Magua, an Indian from the Huron tribe, they soon meet Hawk-eye, a frontier scout and his Mohican Indian companions Chingachgook and Uncas. Magua is not all that he seems and the sisters are kidnapped. In The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper sets Indian tribe against Indian tribe and lays bare the brutality of the white man against the Mohicans.

"I’m an outsider to the end of my days!"

Jude Fawley’s hopes of a university education are lost when he is trapped into marrying the earthy Arabella, who later abandons him. Moving to the town of Christminster where he finds work as a stonemason, Jude meets and falls in love with his cousin Sue Bridehead, a sensitive, freethinking "New Woman." Refusing to marry merely for the sake of religious convention, Jude and Sue decide instead to live together, but they are shunned by society and poverty soon threatens to ruin them. Jude the Obscure, Hardy’s last novel, caused a public furor when it was first published, with its fearless and challenging exploration of class and sexual relationships.

This edition uses the unbowdlerized text of the first volume edition of 1895, and also includes a list for further reading, appendices and a glossary. In his introduction, Dennis Taylor examines biblical allusions and the critique of religion in Jude the Obscure, and its critical reception that led Hardy to abandon novel writing.

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