Item category 1: Classics

Review: "Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife Susan and baby daughter. Eighteen years later Susan and her daughter seek him out, only to discover that he has become the most prominent man in Casterbridge. Henchard attempts to...

The moving, humane tragedy of a deeply flawed and self-destructive man, The Mayor of Casterbridge is the story of Michael Henchard, who sells his wife and baby daughter at a country fair in a fit of drunken anger.

In 1941, Rob Coram is six. The war feels far removed from Geraldton in Western Australia. But when his favourite older cousin Rick leaves to join the army, the war takes a step closer. When Rick returns several years later, he has changed and the old merry-go-round that represents Rob's dream of ...

Hailed by Eliot, Pound, Lawrence and Hemingway, and based on the author's own experiences, The Middle Parts of Fortune is a breathtaking account of the Great War and the men who fought it.

This title is presented with an introduction by Marina Lewycka. Maggie and Tom Tulliver are both willful, passionate children, and their relationship has always been tempestuous. As they grow up together on the banks of the River Floss, Tom's self-righteous stubbornness and Maggie's emotional int...

Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, when, owing to a case o...