When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless elite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought, and find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced...

Ambrose Ashley, Philip's cousin, guardian and god, married Rachel in Italy, and died there. Jealous of his marriage and grief-stricken by his death, Philip prepares to meet his cousin's widow with hatred in his heart.

Edna O'Brien's classic, rocket of a novel, 'Night', is narrated by one of her most memorably, unhinged characters, Mary Hooligan. Lying on a four-poster bed, unable to sleep, she recounts (mis)adventures, courtships, and sexual encounters of the most transgressive kind, in a narrative voice of blistering originality.

Lawrence wrote these three 'novelettes' between November 1920 and December 1921, and they were enthusiastically received by his English publisher and his readers.

Set in England during the 1920s, 'The Good Companions' follows the adventures, antics and disappointments of a troupe of thespians as they sing, dance, drink and squabble their way from theatre to theatre.

Daisy Miller is one of Henry James's great heroines - a young, independent American travelling in Europe, whose flouting of social conventions has the potential to lead to disaster. Her story is here accompanied by six more set among English castles, Swiss hotels and French ports, and all riffing on a classic Jamesian theme: the clash between the old world and new, Europe and America.

The undergraduate narrator of this novel lives with his uncle in Dublin, drinks too much and invents stories peopled with hilarious and unlikely characters, one of whom creates a means by which women can give birth to full-grown people.

Dorothea Brooke is a beautiful and idealistic young woman set on filling her life with good deeds. She pursues the pompous Edward Casuabon, convinced that he embodies these principles, and becomes trapped in an unhappy marriage. Then there is Tertius Lydgate, an anguished progressive whose determination to bring modern medicine to the provinces is muddied by unrequited love. They, and a multitude of other brilliantly drawn characters, reside in the...

At the centre of this novel is the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff - recounted with such emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy.

The year is 1984, and life in Oceania is ruled by the Party. Under the gaze of Big Brother, Winston Smith yearns for intimacy and love - 'thought crimes' that, if uncovered, would mean imprisonment, or death. But Winston is not alone in his defiance, and an illicit affair will draw him into the mysterious Brotherhood and the realities of resistance. 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' has been described as chilling, absorbing, satirical, momentous, prophetic and...