Classics Library

Late one night Alice Creighton hears her father having an argument with a fairy - a snarling, bald beast with warts and needlelike teeth. The next day her father disappears, never to return. And Alice is sent to live with Master Geryon, an uncle she never even knew existed. Geryon has a dark, mysterious library which is strictly off-limits to Alice.

London in the 1830s was no place to be if you were a hungry 10-year-old boy, an orphan without friends or family, with no home to go to, and only a penny in your pocket to buy a piece of bread.But Oliver Twist finds some friends – Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and Charley Bates. They give him food and shelter, and play games with him, but it is not until some days later that Oliver finds out what kind of friends they are and what kind of ’games’ they play. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Charles Dickens original by Richard Rogers.

An American classic with a refrain that millions of kids love to chant: Hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats. Wanda Gág's enchanting tale of the very old man who went off in search of the prettiest cat in the world for his wife and returned instead with millions to choose from has become an American classic, widely recognized as the first modern picture book. First published in 1928, it was a recipient of the 1929 Newbery Honor Award and has gone on to sell over a million copies.

Classic Cat Stories is an anthology that includes fairy tales and fables from the likes of Rudyard Kipling and Charles Perrault as well as comic tales from Saki and E. F. Benson. Cats, of course, have always had a dark and mysterious side, which is explored to chilling effect by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe in 'The Black Cat'. But above all, we love them, and you’ll find here stories about all kinds of cats that tug at the heartstrings like 'The Man of the House' by Ethel Colburn Mayne and other stories that celebrate their curious ways.

When a handsome young man begins to court Catherine Sloper, she feels she is very lucky. She is a quiet, gentle girl, but neither beautiful nor clever; no one had ever admired her before, or come to the front parlour of her home in Washington Square to whisper soft words of love to her. But in New York in the 1840s young ladies are not free to marry where they please. Catherine must have her father’s permission, and Dr Sloper is a rich man.

Alcazar AudioWorks Presents A Children's Listening Library. This compilation includes nursery rhymes, fairy tales, animal stories, poetry and legends, something to enchant every young listener.

I wish I could get through into looking-glass house,’ Alice said. ’Let’s pretend that the glass has gone soft and . . . Why, I do believe it has! It’s turning into a kind of cloud!’ A moment later Alice is inside the looking-glass world. There she finds herself part of a great game of chess, travelling through forests and jumping across brooks. The chess pieces talk and argue with her, give orders and repeat poems . . .It is the strangest dream that anyone ever had...

Suddenly, there was a high voice screaming in the darkness: "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" It was Long John Silver’s parrot, Captain Flint! I turned to run . . .’But young Jim Hawkins does not escape from the pirates this time. Will he and his friends find the treasure before the pirates do? Will they escape from the island, and sail back to England with a ship full of gold?

The quest to find the Nine Gates that lead to the underworlds of Shyish and an audience with Nagash continues.... Tarsus of the Hallowed Knights leads his Stormcast Eternals into the unearthly city of Helstone. Their enigmatic guide, Mannfred von Carstein, assures them that what they need to find his necromantic master lies within its halls, but there is more than darkness lurking in the ruins. Chaos has already taken root, and a reckoning against the servants of the Plague God awaits.

Ever since Herbie Jones had to be Annabelle's partner in the class dance contest, he's been acting weird, even going to the library instead of going fishing with his best friend, Raymond. Lucky for Herbie, Raymond is determined to get to the bottom of this mess.

Josef Vadassy, a Hungarian refugee and language teacher living in France, is enjoying his first break for years in a small hotel on the Riviera. But when he takes his holiday photographs to be developed at a local chemists, he suddenly finds himself mistaken for a Gestapo agent, and a charge of espionage is levelled at him. To prove himself innocent to the French police, he must discover which one of his fellow guests at his pension is the real spy. As he desperately tries to uncover the true culprit's identity, Vadassy must risk his job, his safety and everything he holds dear.

This Raging Bull Publishing Box Set contains four Western books by Charles Alden Seltzer, including: The Boss of the Lazy Y (1915) - Calumet Marston returns to his father's ranch to find it's being run by a young woman who remains in charge until he accepts sundry conditions. Coming of the Law (1912) - A young eastern newspaper man goes West to a small town and takes charge of a run-down newspaper, fights against an association of cattle rustlers for the benefit of the small ranchers, and wins. ’Drag’ Harlan and ’Firebrand’ Trevison are also included.

The room was on the fourth floor, and the door was locked - with the key on the inside. The windows were closed and fastened - on the inside. The chimney was too narrow for a cat to get through. So how did the murderer escape? And whose were the two angry voices heard by the neighbours as they ran up the stairs? Nobody in Paris could find any answers to this mystery.Except Auguste Dupin, who could see further and think more clearly than other people.

Third-grader Jamie sees his baby sister being tossed across the room by his stepfather. His mother miraculously catches the baby, and what follows are the effects of the incident on Jamie.

Have you heard of the Star Maiden, Old Sally Cato, or Sweet Betsey from Pike? Everyone knows about Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Davy Crockett, But have you heard of these larger-than-life women? From Bess Call, who wrestles any and all challengers, to Molly Cottontail, who can outwit any critter in the woods, to Hekeke, who slays a giant singlehandedly, here are 15 funny, stormy, and always entertaining tall tales of legendary American women. They're as difference as can be, but still cut from the same cloth.

Confessions of a Book Lover was first published in 1922, and even though it is nearly a century old, it is a delightful rummage through a lifetime of reading. We have abbreviated the original with those sections we found most engaging.

Penguin Classics presents Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Freddie Jones. Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound. The terrible spectacle of the beast, the fog of the moor, the discovery of a body: this classic horror story pits detective against dog, rationalism against the supernatural, good against evil.

Georgia Douglas Johnson was a key contributor to the Harlem Renaissance - hosting an influential salon, breaking new ground as a Black playwright, and playing an important role as an anti-lynching activist. Her poetry, however, is what first brought her to national attention, and in the early works collected here, her wide-ranging talents are already quite evident. In The Heart of a Woman, Johnson’s exquisite verse captures the full emotional terrain of womanhood. These are poems about love and disillusionment, empowerment and fulfillment, loneliness and joy.

From ‘The Manchester Marriage’, in which a husband, supposedly drowned at sea, returns to find his daughter, to the two sisters who are comically adrift after the death of their domineering father in ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’, and a young girl who enlists the help of a sorceress to win back her boyfriend in ‘The Goodness of Saint Rocque’, Standing Her Ground showcases nine groundbreaking women writers.

"There is a disease that can twist men’s hearts and make them mad, and the name of that disease is jealousy." So begins this engaging retelling of one of William Shakespeare’s last plays - a fascinating and unique combination of intensity and whimsy. When King Leontes unfairly accuses his wife of infidelity, he sets off a terrible chain of events. But this is not one of Shakespeare’s tragedies. It’s a romance, and one with a healthy dose of fancy and surprise.