Mr. Bennet's five eligible daughters will never inherit their father's money. Neither will their scatterbrained mother. The family fortunes are destined, in the absence of a male heir, to pass to a cousin, William Collins, a pompous parson. Should one of the daughters marry him? Or is there a chance for the rich empty-headed bachelor Charles Bingley? And what about the aristocratic and supercilious Fitzwilliam Darcy? Yet both these men seem less exciting...

When impetuous Helen Schlegel believes herself to be in love with Paul, the youngest of the Wilcox sons, she sparks off a connection between the two families that leads to collision.

John Harmon is a young man estranged from his family, yet nonetheless on his way from South Africa to London to receive his inheritance - but, according to his father's will, he can only claim it if he marries Bella Wilfer, a beautiful London girl whom he has never met.

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, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced with another.

For the character of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, Dickens drew upon the tragedy in his own life. His characters are startlingly powerful, especially Quilp, the antithesis of Little Nell.

Dickens died before completing his last novel, leaving its mystery unsolved and encouraging successive generations of readers to try and work out what happened next. This book contains a chronology, notes and Dickens's plans for the story.

The squire of Greshamsbury has fallen on hard times, and it is incumbent on his son Frank to make a good marriage. But Frank loves the doctor's niece, Mary Thorne, a girl with no money and mysterious parentage. He faces a terrible dilemma: should he save the estate, or marry the girl he loves?

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...

Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as 'The Pickwick Papers'. Readers were immediately captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle and, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, and his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller.

Written at a time of social unrest in Victorian Britain, 'Barnaby Rudge' explores the relationship between repression and liberation in private and public life.