Sonny Liston gave Kid Dynamite the slightest hint of a smile and winked. In the build-up to a fight, Kid Dynamite's head swirls - with thoughts of his estranged father, his difficult relationship with his stepfather, the time he met his hero, and the sense that his own life is reaching a moment of change.

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles.

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles.

Brian Aldiss, who died in 2017, was best known for his science fiction - and in particular for a short story optioned by Stanley Kubrick, which would, under the direction of Steven Spielberg, become the film A.I. 'Sadness is just happiness in reverse,' says someone in a story within the story, 'We humans have to put up with it.'

Her story was this: she had been an orphan, her mother probably a whore. That's true of what brought her here too: was she IRA, or did she just take risks for the sake of a friend? Julia O'Faolain paints a portrait of young Irish girls and their unseverable connection, showing solidarity in places politics cannot reach.

The government has cleaned up Harare for the Queen of England's visit. 'The townships are too full of people, they said, gather them up and put them in the places the Queen will not see.' Four waves of people have settled on Easterly Farm since then, living on the margins in homes that will soon be destroyed. Among them is Martha Mupengo.

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.

As the headstrong Maggie Tulliver grows into womanhood, the deep love which she has for her brother Tom turns into conflict, because she cannot reconcile his bourgeois standards with her own lively intelligence. This story shows the ambiguity in which moral choice is subjected to the hypocrisy of the Victorian age.

Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party. Her thoughts and sensations on that one day, and the interior monologues of others whose lives are interwoven with hers gradually reveal the characters of the central protagonists. Clarissa's life is touched by tragedy as the events in her day run parallel to those of Septimus Warren Smith.

Introduces us to a group of memorable characters, variously eccentric, farcical and endearing. This book involves the reader in the labyrinthine creation of a purported autobiography. It anticipates modernism and postmodernism.

Written during her time as the inaugural fellow in the Beckett archive last year, Eimear McBride's three short, characteristically brilliant plays - collected in one work, Mouthpieces. Each play depicts a fragment of female experience, all of them told in in Eimear's vivid, original and sharp-witted style.

George Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a scathing satire of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Today, it remains a powerful fable about the nature of tyranny and corruption which applies for all ages.

Orwell's subjects in Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier are the political and social upheavals of his time. He focusses on the sense of profound injustice, incipient violence, and malign betrayal that were ubiquitous in Europe in the 1930s.

The Thought Police, Doublethink, Newspeak, Big Brother - '1984' itself: these terms have moved from the world of fiction into our everyday lives. They are central to our thinking about freedom and its suppression; yet they were created by George Orwell in 1949 as he conjured his dystopian vision of a world where totalitarian power is absolute.

Presents Little Women which describes the family life of the four March sisters living in a small New England community, and Good Wives which is the story of March sisters, some three years later, when, as young adults, they must face up to the inevitable trials and traumas of everyday life in their search for individual happiness.

First published to critical acclaim in 1886, this mesmerising thriller is a terrifying study of the duality of man's nature. This volume also includes a collection of Stevenson's short stories

Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly old skinflint. He hates everyone, especially children. But at Christmas three ghosts come to visit him, scare him into mending his ways, and he finds, as he celebrates with Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and their family, that geniality brings its own reward.

The garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has only one aim - that of finding a good match for each of her five daughters. In this, she is mocked by her cynical and indolent husband. This is an ironic novel of manners.

Jules Verne's third science fiction novel describes the discovery and exploration of a secret tunnel which leads through a volcano to the centre of the Earth in this classic thriller.

Contains De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, The Soul of Man under Socialism, The Decay of Lying and The Critic as Artist.

When the Cuthberts send to the orphanage for a boy to help them at their farm Green Gables, they are astonished when a talkative little girl steps off the train. Anne, an incurable romantic causes chaos at Green Gables and at the village, but her good nature endears her to the residents.

An American poetry classic, in which former citizens of a mythical midwestern town speak touchingly from the grave of the thwarted hopes and dreams of their lives.

Following the life of David Copperfield through sufferings and adversity, this book helps reader find many light-hearted moments in the company of a host of English fiction's stars including Mr Micawber, Traddles, Uriah Heep, Creakle, Betsy Trotwood, and the Peggoty family.