Like George Orwell, Franz Kafka has given his name to a world of nightmare, but in Kafka’s world, it is never completely clear just what the nightmare is. The Trial, where the rules…

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart…” Translated by Constance Garnett with an Introduction and Notes by Dr Keith Carabine, University of Kent at Canterbury.…

War and Peace is a vast epic centred on Napoleon’s war with Russia. While it expresses Tolstoy’s view that history is an inexorable process which man cannot influence, he peoples his great…

The Man in the Iron Mask is the final episode in the cycle of novels featuring Dumas’ celebrated foursome of D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, who first appeared in The Three Musketeers.…

Set in the mid-19th century, and written from the author’s first-hand experience, North and South follows the story of the heroine’s movement from the tranquil but moribund ways of southern England to the vital…

Set in Hardy’s Wessex, Tess is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its challenging sub-title, A Pure Woman, infuriated critics when the book was first published in 1891, and it…

None of the great Victorian novels is more vivid and readable than The Mayor of Casterbridge. Set in the heart of Hardy’s Wessex, the ‘partly real, partly dream country’ he founded on…