Japan's celebrated Buddhist poet balances the smallness of humanity with nature's epic drama in these magical seventeenth-century haikus.
Composed by a slave in Greek antiquity, some of the most ancient, sharp-witted and mysterious stories ever.
A moving nineteenth-century account - lost for many decades - of a Chinese official's all-consuming love for his wife.
Entertaining, touching and sharp-tongued letters between the great eighteenth-century composer and his mentor father.
The pioneering nineteenth-century poet's best-known and most darkly imaginative verses on love, death and loss.
Adventures of shipwreck, colossal beasts and fantastical island from One Thousand and One Nights.
Japan's modernist master explores family, art and the fear of madness in exquisite autobiographical pieces and a short story.
A parable of a Russian peasant's bargain with the devil - considered by James Joyce to be the world's greatest story
Wilde's supremely witty tale of dandies, anarchists and a murderous prophecy in London high society.