"When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret her reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Swilt: flame-haired temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husband-poisoner. Her malicious intrigues fuel the plot of this gripping melodrama: a tale of confused identities, inherited curses, romantic rivalries, espionage, money--and murder. The character of Lydia...

On vacation from school, Denis goes to stay at Crome, an English country house inhabitated by several of Huxley's most outlandish characters--from Mr. Barbecue-Smith, who writes 1,500 publishable words an hour by "getting in touch" with his "subconscious," to Henry Wimbush, who is obsessed with writing the definitive history of chrome. Denis's stay proves to be a disaster amid his weak attempts to attract the girl of his dreams and the ridicule he...

Jacob Flanders, a sensitive young man raised in Edwardian England, discovers as an adult that his life is lacking, but his search for fulfillment is sidetracked by the outbreak of World War I.

This "jewel at the heart of English comic literature" chronicles the daily fortunes and misfortunes of a middle-age, middle-class clerk (William Trevor, The Mail on Sunday). Since its original publication in 1892, The Diary of a Nobody has become a much-loved classic. It is a fictional man's dissection of the everyday drama of his life as an office worker in a London firm. With dry wit, the authors step into the character of Charles Pooter as...

Small-town rivals engage in a ruthless battle of wits in the first novel of this beloved satirical series about the Edwardian upper class. The small English village of Riseholme may only have one street, but it contains many paths for the committed social climber. In this this eccentric enclave of the idle rich, Emmeline Lucas-known as Lucia-is the reigning social queen. And together with her husband Peppino and her best friend Georgie, she is determined...

"The Turn of the Screw tells the story of a young governess who is sent to Bly, a large country estate, to care for two children. She has strict instructions from their guardian never to write to him, never to ask about the history of the house, and never to abandon the children. It isn't long before the Governess starts to see apparitions around the grounds. When she describes the sightings, they are identified by the housekeeper as the previous...

Father Brown is an eccentric priest with his own particular way of dealing with crime. His innocence is the secret of his success: refusing the scientific method of deduction, he interprets each crime as a work of art, and each criminal as a man no worse than himself.

In early twentieth century New England, talkative, ten-year-old Rebecca goes to live with her spinster aunts, one harsh and demanding, the other soft and sentimental, and spends seven difficult but rewarding years growing up in their company.

Thirteen tales of crime and intrigue, including the remarkable story of Sherlock Holmes's return from the dead. It has been three years since Sherlock Holmes, locked in a fierce struggle with his arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty, disappeared over the edge of the Reichenbach Falls. The world has mourned his loss greatly, no one more so than his good friend and partner in the arts of detection, Dr. Watson. Imagine Watson's shock, then, when an elderly...

"In Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet a popular cultural phenomenon is born. We meet two of the most famous characters in modern literary history: the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, an army doctor home on sick leave, for the first time. Through Watson we learn a little about the eccentric figure who is his new room-mate at 221B Baker Street, before they encounter their first case: an American visitor to the city has been...