British Classics

The remarkably honest and brilliantly entertaining memoir of one of our finest acting Dames whose long and celebrated career includes her much-loved performance as Livia in I, Claudius and who was married for 20 years to the hell-raising Hollywood star Peter O'Toole. Siân Phillips has a long and celebrated career on both stage and screen. For the first time, her two best-selling volumes of memoir Private Faces and Public Places will be available as a single volume with a brand new foreword by the author.

A delightfully oddball classic by G.K. Chesterton—now with illustrations and bonus whimsy! Dancing stars, leaping gentlemen, and poetic nonsense await in Greybeards at Play, Chesterton’s very first published work. This lighthearted collection pokes fun at literary seriousness while celebrating imagination in its purest form. This edition features 25 quirky poems (including a dedication, moral, and envoy), each paired with illustrations that capture the spirit and wit of the original work—bringing Chesterton’s humor to life like never before. BONUS CONTENT INCLUDED: At the end of the...

Determined to overcome Elizabeth’s objections to marriage, Darcy hatches a plot which inadvertently compromises them both. The undeniable tension comes to a head during an afternoon encounter that ensures she must belong to him forever, and though she feels their engagement is forced, Elizabeth finally succumbs. But the road to marriage is paved with external obstacles, and a brush with passion and death reveals an unexpected secret. Seduced to Marry is a steamy sensual Pride and Prejudice variation novella for readers who enjoy compromise, Darcy rescuing Elizabeth, rainstorms and touches...

During her lifetime Violet Paget, who wrote as Vernon Lee, was referred to as 'the greatest of modern exponents of the supernatural in fiction', and yet today she remains on the periphery of the genre. This collection of her uniquely weird short stories and dark fantasies proves why she was once considered among the best of the genre, and why she deserves to return to those ranks today.

Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett. The untold, steamy hot story… While staying at Hunsford Parsonage, Miss Elizabeth (“Lizzy”) Bennet befriends the clever and provocative Abby Trenwith, a woman dedicated to enlightening others in the pleasures of the flesh. Intrigued, Lizzy agrees to receive an education from a mentor appointed by her new friend. Little does she know that her masked mentor is the arrogant Mr. Darcy, a man who ruined her sister’s prospects for marital happiness. Darcy, a longtime friend of Abby, is desperately looking for a way to take his mind off the clever and ...

“Are you a detective, Mr Terhune? If you will forgive my saying so, you do not look like one.” Theodore Terhune, bookseller in the tranquil Kent village of Bray-in-the-Marsh, interrupts the attempted robbery of Helena Armstrong, secretary-companion to Lady Kylstone. Someone was trying to steal the key to the Kylstone burial vault, which will shortly be open to the public for the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. When the key goes missing, Terhune is certain there must be something in the vault the thieves are after, but why bother when it will shortly be accessible to all? A ...

With his partner away on a honeymoon, Yorkshire detective Andrew Dalziel tries to beat the blues by taking a vacation of his own. But after getting caught in a torrential rain and running into a funeral procession, he winds up accompanying a crowd of upper-class mourners to a crumbling country house. Dalziel isn't known for his elegant manners, but he has bigger problems than not fitting in: The owner of the home has died under unusual circumstances, and soon more bodies are turning up.

Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly abridged and remastered stories are now available to download for the first time. What was it like to love, live, and rebel in Britain during the 19th and 20th centuries? These beloved British novels offer three dramatically different but universally recognisable experiences. Read by three luminaries of the stage and screen: Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, and Sir John Gielgud.

Nicky Marlow needs a job. He's engaged to be married and the employment market in Britain in 1937 is pretty slim. So when his fiancée points out the position with an English armaments manufacturer in Italy, he jumps at the chance. Soon after he arrives, however, he learns the sinister truth about his predecessor's departure and finds himself courted by two agents with dangerously different agendas. In the process, Marlow realises that it's not so simple just to do the job he's paid for - not in fascist Italy, on the eve of a world war.

Stanley Featherstonehough Ukridge is positively convinced that his complete ignorance of chicken farming gives him a particular advantage in the subject. A bombastic blowhard, he persuades his wife and his mild-mannered chum to start a chicken farm with him. What could go wrong?

A fascinating collection of tales from some of Great Britain's finest classic authors.

For a century Bram Stoker's Dracula has reigned supreme as the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing. We have all grown up under the shadow of the elegant Count, at once an attractive, brutal and erotic creature of the night. The gothic tale of Frankenstein and his construction of a human being which runs amok, has, with the help of numerous films, become one of the most vivid horror stories.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother.

Take Me to Your President is another brilliant political satire by the author of The Mouse That Roared. After chasing his dog (who was chasing a rabbit), a simple farmer from a small village in England finds himself inexplicably on board a top-secret intergalactic missile. Before he can sort it out, the farmer finds himself touching down in the United States of America where he is mistaken for a Martian. And now it’s up to him to bring world peace. “Once again Leonard Wibberley—author of The Mouse That Roared—has conjured a unique sort of comedy from a blend of fantasy, blandly ...

A fun adventure in a Spain that never was, in the vein of Dumas and Stevenson, with more than a taste of Cervantes. Don Rodriguez is a young nobleman who is banished from the family castle, and must set out with his rapier and mandolin to win his own estate, and perhaps even a bride. Along with his trusty servant Morano, he journeys far into the heart of the mythical Shadow Valley. Echoes of The Princess Bride resonate throughout.

They were meant to be safe on Fleet Ward: psychiatric patients monitored, treated, cared for. But now one of their number is found murdered, and the accusations begin to fly. Was it one of his fellow patients? A member of staff? Or did someone come in from the outside? DC Alice Armitage is methodical, tireless, and she's quickly on the trail of the killer. The only problem is, Alice is a patient too.

‘The perfect murder must be so simple that no one would suspect it to be murder.’ This Way Out Philip Marshall is locked in a long and hellish marriage with his wife Cora, with divorce not an option. Cora delights in tormenting Philip, ready to pour bile in his ear at the slightest provocation; complaining of “his weaknesses…his failure as a money-maker…his deficiencies as a lover” to almost anyone who will listen. Home life is so unpleasant that their son John has moved out, telling his landlady he is an orphan. By chance, Philip meets young Mary Grey and finds the warmth and ...

The Hunters (A Crime Thriller) ‘To follow… the brilliantly inspired tracking of Hill’s two detectives is a joy, apart from the brain-teasing pleasure of accepting the author’s challenge to identify the murderer.’ London Evening News 'Staunton walked out into the field. He stopped about twenty yards in, squatted down on his haunches and stared at the ditch where the girl’s body had been found. Then he was motionless for a while, absorbing the details of the place, picturing it in darkness, the girl, her screams muffled by the murderer’s hand, being dragged along the inside of ...

“Frank Hugh Smallwood was first murdered on the 15th of April, 1927” Bookseller Theodore Terhune investigates an old homicide case after he stumbles on the freshly murdered corpse of seaman Frank Smallwood, a man thought to have been murdered nearly twenty years previously during a houseboat party on the Thames. Smallwood’s alleged killer Charles Cockburn was convicted and served a lengthy prison sentence before being killed in the war. So who wanted Smallwood dead now? And what actually happened between Smallwood and Cockburn all those years ago? A book of poetry found lying near the...

You can’t fight love. Darcy knows he is falling for Elizabeth Bennet, but he doesn’t want to be connected to her ill-bred family, so he struggles to put her out of his mind. Until he receives an anonymous valentine. Caroline Bingley sent the valentine, but Darcy thinks it is from Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth thinks Mr. Darcy is an arrogant, disagreeable man, until he shows up on her doorstep, declaring his undying love for her. She is astonished. He is only half as obnoxious as he was before. What could have made the difference? A Valentine for Darcy is a Pride and Prejudice Variation ...