2011 September

Although born in the frozen wilds of the Yukon, the part-dog, part-wolf White Fang soon ends up in the world of men. But can the once wild beast put his past behind him and make the journey from wolf pack to human companion?

Niccolò Machiavelli’s 16th century guide to statecraft is a uncompromising examination of the ethics and methods that lie behind political power that spawned the term Machiavellian.

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.

This dark tale set on the dark moors of Yorkshire charts the doomed love affair of childhood friends Heathcliff and Catherine. But when fate, betrayal and the envy of others tears them apart, the intensity of their love consumes them both with horrific consequences.

Spanish literature’s most famous work tells the wonderfully entertaining tale of a man besotted by stories of knights and chivalry, who decides to become the knight Don Quixote and seek adventure.

It’s the age of steam and the opening of a new railway in India prompts claims that it is now possible to circumnavigate the world in just 80 days. For a bet, Phileas Fogg decides to prove that such a feat is possible and sets out on a perilous and exciting race across the world.

Born into poverty, Oliver Twist grows up in the miserable confines of a Victorian workhouse but when he dares to ask for more food, his troubles really start.

After learning in prison about a hidden fortune, Edmond Dantes escapes and reinvents himself as the Count of Monte Cristo and prepares to seek his revenge on those who had him imprisoned.

When a terrible storm sinks his ship and drowns his fellow crew members, Robinson Crusoe is left stranded on a remote island and faced with the daunting task of surviving on this lonely outpost in the ocean.

Although she has no interest in love or marriage herself, Emma Woodhouse likes nothing more than being the match-maker of Highbury village. But when her best-laid plans for others go comically wrong, she finds out just how little she knows about love…