2010 August

A defining moment in American literature, Walt Whitman’s landmark collection of poetry is a beautiful celebration of self.

In Hard Times, Charles Dickens takes us to Coketown, a typical northern mill town in Victorian England, to expose the misery of the industrial revolution.

Charles Dickens takes aim at the British courts in this tangled tale of scandal, lost love and a legal case that has gone on so long no-one remembers how it started.

When Jim joins the rest of his ship’s crew in abandoning the sinking vessel and all its eight hundred passengers, he finds his life is haunted by his shameful act and heads east to escape his past.

After meeting a strange woman in white Walter Hartright finds himself faced with the task of exposing a dark criminal plot.

A comic tale of three men and a dog who take a vacation travelling up the River Thames by boat to escape from their shared illness of ‘overwork’.

An endearing story of family life during the American Civil War, Little Women’s tale of dreams and aspirations, poverty and hardship has an appeal that spans generations.

When the Archdeacon of Notre-Dame falls for the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda, he sends his deformed bell-ringer Quasimodo to kidnap her – a decision that leads to tragedy.

Aldous Huxely’s debut novel, set at a house party in the country home Crome, is a witty satire of the pretensions of the British establishment.

When the respectable Dr Jekyll decides to make the abominable Mr Hyde the beneficiary of his will, his lawyer Gabriel John Utterson decides to investigate the chilling connection between the two men…