Item category 1: Classics

At first the virus wiping out grass and crops is of little concern to John Custance. It has decimated Asia, causing mass starvation and riots, but Europe is safe and a counter-virus is expected any day. Except, it turns out, the governments have been lying to their people. When the deadly disease...

The story of the life and death at the age of forty-five, of a high court prosecutor in 19th-century Russia, it is an intense and moving examination of loss and the possibilities of redemption, in which Tolstoy explores the dichotomy between the artificial and the authentic life.

Revised for the seven hundredth anniversary of the author's birth, this tale of medieval Italian life details how ten young Florentines retreat to the countryside to escape the plague-infested city and entertain themselves by telling stories.

A tie-in edition of Waugh's first and funniest novel to accompany the new BBC adaptation starring Jack Whitehall. Sent down from Oxford University for indecent behaviour, Paul Pennyfeather embarks on a series of bizarre adventures that start in a minor public school and end in one of Her Majesty'...

In Delta of Venus, Anais Nin conjures up a glittering cascade of sexual encounters. Creating her own 'language of the senses', she explores an area that was previously the domain of male writers and brings to it her own unique perceptions. Her vibrant and impassioned prose evokes the essence of f...

With an introduction by Michael Irwin. The young Thomas Hardy was working as an architect, but fired with literary ambition, tried for years to get into print. He finally succeeded with Desperate Remedies, a sensation novel in the mode of Wilkie Collins. Here was a racy specimen of the genre, rep...

She pouts. I was expecting more of a story, she says. It is difficult to get into the swing when the subject keeps changing. An ageing writer fills his journal: he has opinions about everything. He is challenged by Anya, the smart, irreverent young woman he hires to type his notes.