At just another drinks party that he very nearly chose not to go to, Jeremy catches sight of Maria and is instantly drawn by a frisson of sexual excitement. His rash and immediate reaction sets off an unstoppable chain of events that will divert the course of his life and those of many others.

A collection of stories which encompass the brittle dreams of a teenage boxer, Christmas in a psychiatric ward, a manic-depressive adolescent's passion for the heroine of "Tom Jones", an unemployed man's experiments with mice, and a Vietnam veteran's night-time swim across the English Channel.

Written in verse, this was Vikram Seth's first novel. Set in the 1980s, in the affluence and sunshine of California's silicon valley, it is the story of twenty-somethings looking for love, pleasure and the meaning of life.

When the corpse of the shady industrialist, who owns the local football team, is found both shot and stabbed with a Parmesan knife, Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen is called to Bologna to oversee the investigation. Recovering slowly from surgery, Zen is only too happy to take on what at first appears to be an undemanding assignment.

Aurelio Zen's final case brings him to remote town of Calabria, at the toe of Italy's boot, on what is supposed to be a routine assignment: the death of a scout for an American film company. But the case is complicated by a group of dangerous strangers who have arrived to uncover another local mystery - buried treasure...

Castagnetti (informally known as 'Casta') is a private detective who doesn't do things by the book. When a pompous notary commissions him to verify that a missing person is 'presumed dead' in order to dispose of a dead woman's estate to the other heirs, Casta smells a rat.

Sean Tallow has two desires in life. One is to step into the shoes of his glamorous friend Daniel Pagett and the other is to establish the truth about the School of the Night, a shadowy group of Elizabethans who clustered around Sir Walter Raleigh.

"A tribe of cats leaves their mountain home in search of a better life, and find themselves in a lush forest filled with water, prey, and unexpected dangers"--

It is Charlotte's first night at boarding school. But when she wakes up, the girl in the next bed is not the person who was sleeping there the evening before. And the new building outside her window seems to have metamorphosed into a huge, dark cedar tree! Somehow, Charlotte has slipped back forty years.

To Leo Suther, a harmonica is the harp of the gods and 1967 is the year he turns 18. To Leo Suther, life is simple. But when he discovers that his girlfriend's father is a communist and civil rights organizer and that the war in Vietnam isn't uncontested, he feels his existence changing.

Dorian is a good-natured young man until he falls in with the immoral Lord Henry and discovers the power of his own exceptional beauty. As he gradually sinks deep into a world of selfish luxury, he apparently remains physically unchanged and untouched by age. But up in his attic, hidden behind a curtain, his portrait tells a different story.

Emma is young, rich and independent. She has decided not to get married and instead spends her time organising her acquaintances' love affairs. Her plans for the matrimonial success of her new friend Harriet, however, lead her into complications that ultimately test her own detachment from the world of romance.

A young lawyer on an assignment finds himself imprisoned in a Transylvanian castle by his mysterious host. Back at home his fiancee and friends are menaced by a malevolent force which seems intent on imposing suffering and destruction. Can the devil really have arrived on England's shores? And what is it that he hungers for so desperately?

Set in New Mexico, St Agnes' Stand is a classic story of the American West.

Fay Weldon's first novel is a parable on the way people see themselves. It follows Esther Sussman who leaves her husband after they go on a diet that she soon realizes she does not want to be on. She sets out to show that happiness is not dependent on her size.

Presents an overview of Paine's career as political theorist and pamphleteer, and supplies background material to "Rights of Man". This book discusses how Paine created a language of modern politics that brought various issues to the common man and the working classes and assesses the debt owed to Paine by American and British radical traditions.

Dr Jekyll has been experimenting with his identity. He has developed a drug which separates the two sides of his nature and allows him to occasionally abandon himself to his most corrupt inclinations as the monstrous Mr Hyde. But gradually he begins to find that the journey back to goodness becomes more and more difficult.

The silence of the jungle is broken only by the ominous sound of drumming. Life on the river is brutal and unknown threats lurk in the darkness. Marlow's decision to hunt down the mysterious Mr Kurtz, an ivory trader who is the subject of sinister rumours, leads him into more than just physical peril.

Oliver is an orphan living on the dangerous London streets with no one but himself to rely on. Fleeing from poverty and hardship, he falls in with a criminal street gang who will not let him go, however hard he tries to escape. This work conjures up the capital's underworld, full of prostitutes, thieves and lost and homeless children.

Robinson Crusoe runs away from home to join the navy. After a series of adventures at sea, he is shipwrecked in a devastating storm, and finds himself alone on a remote desert island. He remains there many years, building a life for himself in solitude, until the day he discovers another man's footprint in the sand...

One of the most influential Gothic novels, The Castle of Otranto established the literary effects associated with the genre: an ancient castle, secret passages, supernatural visitations, an innocent girl threatened with violence, sudden revelations, terror, and excitement. This new edition explores the reasons for the novel's impact.