Set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a dingy haberdasher's shop in the passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, this novel tells how the heroine and her lover, Laurent, kill her husband, Camille, but are subsequently haunted by visions of the dead man and prevented from enjoying the fruits of their crime.

This novel is part of Oxford University Press' World's Classics series whereby some of the best loved novels are reissued with special introductions by today's most distinguished writers.

This novel explores the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a woman's life. Virginia Woolf is direct and vivid in her account of the details of Clarissa Dalloway's preparation for a party.

The disparity between Emma Woodhouse's self-confidence and self-knowledge, and her determination to arrange marriages for her friends while avoiding one for herself, leads to a painful series of misunderstandings for everyone who suffers from her well-meaning altruism - and with Mr Knightley being the only person of her acquaintance who has the good sense to challenge her, Emma must eventually recognize her match in every sense.

Tom Sawyer and his friends play truant from school and set off for an island near their home town. Here they decide to play pirates but their game is interrupted when they witness a murder. Tom has to grow up very quickly and do the right thing.

This is the only novel that Conrad set in London, and it communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894. Verloc, (a Russian spy who is also working for the police) is ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho.

This novel is an unashamed and picturesque portrait of the long-vanished pastoral society of early Victorian England. It is a humorous study of resistance to change, and it enabled Hardy to express his affection and love for the Wessex countryside.

This selection represents the full range of Blake's accomplishment as a poet, ranging from early Poetical Sketches to late lyrics and including such major works as The Book of Thel, Songs of Innocence, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Songs of Experience.

Mixing comedy and horror, melodrama and acid satire, Dickens depicts a world in which the exploitation and abuse of youth and innocence cannot ever fully vanquish kindness, affection and the joyful energies of life.