HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'It happen'd one Day about Noon going towards my Boat, I was exceedingly surpriz'd with the Print of a Man's naked Foot on the Shore.' Shipwrecked in a storm at sea, Robinson Crusoe is washed up on a remote and desolate island. As he struggles to piece together a life for himself, Crusoe's physical, moral and spi…
Catherine Earnshaw had no idea that the boy her father took in from the streets of Liverpool would one day become her lover, her soul mate. Nor did she know that her decision to marry someone else would send him down the path of destruction. Once a novel criticised for its display of mental and physical cruelty, Wuthering Heights is now a considered a 19th century classic. It's themes of gen…
Daisy Miller is a fascinating portrait of a young woman from Schenectady, New York, who, traveling in Europe, runs afoul of the socially pretentious American expatriate community in Rome. First published in 1878, the novella brought American novelist Henry James (1843–1916), then living in London, his first international success. Like many of James' early works, it portrays a venturesome Amer…
The narrative drive of Stowe's classic novel is often overlooked in the heat of the controversies surrounding its anti-slavery sentiments. In fact, it is a compelling adventure story with richly drawn characters and has earned a place in both literary and American history.
What did happen to Miss Quested in the Marabar Caves? This tantalizing question provides the intense drama of racial tension at the centre of Forster's last and greatest novel. After a mysterious incident during their visit to the caves, the charming Dr Aziz is accused of assaulting Adela Quested, a naive young Englishwoman new to India. As he is brought to trial, the fragile structure of An…
When Phileas Fogg, a man of habit whose every day is like the one before, makes a bet that he can circle the globe in just 80 days, the race is on. Verne's classic story bubbles with excitement, suspense, and colorful locations. Illustrations.
Of all the contenders for the title of The Great American Novel, none has a better claim than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Intended at first as a simple story of a boy's adventures in the Mississippi Valley-a sequel to Tom Sawyer-the book grew and matured under Twain's hand into a work of immeasurable richness and complexity. More than a century after its publication, the critical debate…
Why some groovy Greek girls ran about naked pretending to be bears ? Who had the world's first flushing toilet ? Why dedicated doctors tasted their patients' ear wax ? Discover all the foul facts about the Groovy Greeks - all the gore and more !