The novel that launched Dickens as an international celebrity, The Pickwick Papers is a loose collection of Samuel Pickwick's adventures with his friends, and became a serialisation phenomenon upon its release.
Its genesis a real attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894, Conrad's novel offers an ironic meditation not only on anarchy and revolution, with all the deception and intrigue they imply, but also on loyalty - to friends and family, to country and ideals.
Hardy's favourite of his own novels; a powerful work with brooding sexual undertones, ahead of its time in addressing themes of divorce, social inequality and land tenure.
Hardy's classic 'pastoral tale' of wilful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors, the faithful shepherd, the lonely widower and the dashing but faithless soldier.
Swift's scornful satire, written "e;to vex the world rather than divert it"e;, takes a caustic look at those most contemporary concerns irrational prejudice, social inequality, ivory tower elitism and the correct way to open a boiled egg.
Set in the 12th century, during the reign of Richard the Lionheart, Ivanhoe tells of the love of Wilfred of Ivanhoe for the Lady Rowena, his father Cedric's ward.
The story of weaver Silas Marner, wrongly cast out of his religious community, who finds a reason for living when, one winter night, a little girl wanders into his cottage out of the snow.
'Now he found out a new thing - namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
