Historical Classics

Dispatched to Victorian London to seek out Jack the Ripper, things go badly wrong when he finds the St Mary's historians first. Stalked through the fog-shrouded streets of Whitechapel, Max is soon running for her life. Again. And that's just the start. Max finds herself in a race against time when an old enemy is intent on destroying St Mary's. An enemy willing, if necessary, to destroy History itself.

Filled with unforgettable characters, rich in history and social realism, Anna Karenina is a masterpiece of world literature, a story that fires the imagination and touches the heart.

This gripping tale follows Paul and his mates as they navigate the horror, boredom, and stupidity of the First World War. We see the pain of one comrade, who loses a leg, while his friends covet the pair of boots he can no longer wear. We follow Paul’s company as it is whittled down in combat from 150 men to 32. Paul, wounded, goes home on leave, but he feels alienated from his family, who do not understand what he has gone through and to whom he cannot explain it.

Max is back! New husband, new job, and a training regime that cannot fail - to go wrong! Take one interim Chief Training Officer, add five recruits, mix with Joan of Arc, a baby mammoth, a duplicitous Father of History, a bombed rat, Stone Age hunters, a couple of passing policemen who should have better things to do, and Dick the Turd. Stir well, bring to the boil – and wait for the bang! Join Max in the sixth instalment in the off-the-wall Chronicles of St Mary’s series."

H.G. Wells sets forth an intriguing first-hand observation of Italy, France, and Britain under severe duress during the "War to End All Wars," World War I. He insightfully examines the technological effects of modern warfare, particularly the introduction of the tank and aerial bombing on human nature.

. C. “Scar” Gordon was on the French Riviera recovering from a tour of combat in Southeast Asia, but he hadn’t given up his habit of scanning the personals in the newspaper. One ad in particular leapt out at him: "Are you a coward? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent English with some French, proficient with all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential...."

Ethan Cole is a gunslinger with a reputation for justice – no matter the cost. When his brother is murdered by Victor Slade, a ruthless outlaw building an empire in the lawless town of Red Hollow, Ethan rides in with one goal: vengeance. But Victor Slade is no ordinary criminal. He’s a man with a vision – to keep the West wild and free from the railroad’s reach. When Ethan barely survives an ambush in Red Hollow’s blood-soaked streets, he realizes he can’t take on Victor alone… Not without Rachel McCabe, a sharpshooter with her own score to settle. Together, they uncover a ...

The Deerslayer is the first of the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper. Here we meet Natty Bumppo as a young man living in upstate New York in the early 1740s. The action begins as Bumppo, called "Deerslayer", and his friend Hurry Harry approach Lake Glimmerglass, or Oswego, where the trapper Thomas Hutter lives with his daughters, the beautiful Judith and the feeble-minded Hetty. Hutter's floating log fort is attacked by Iroquois Indians, and the two frontiersmen join in the fight.

Set in the industrialising England of the Napoleonic wars, a period of bad harvests, Luddite riots, and economic unrest, Shirley is the story of two contrasting heroines and the men they love. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory, whose life represents the plight of single women in the 19th century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

In Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection.

Dar Oakley - the first Crow in all of history with a name of his own - was born two thousand years ago. When a man learns his language, Dar finally gets the chance to tell his story. He begins his tale as a young man, and how he went down to the human underworld and got hold of the immortality meant for humans, long before Julius Caesar came into the Celtic lands; how he sailed West to America with the Irish monks searching for the Paradise of the Saints; and how he continuously went down into the land of the dead and returned.

Augie is a poor but exuberant boy growing up in Chicago during the Depression. While his friends all settle into chosen professions, Augie demands a special destiny. He tests out a wild succession of occupations, proudly rejecting each as too limiting - until he tangles with the glamorous perfectionist Thea.

Early in May 1861, 21-year-old Sam R. Watkins of Columbia, Tennessee, joined the First Tennessee Regiment. He fought in all of its major battles, from Shiloh to Nashville. Twenty years later, with a "house full of young 'rebels' clustering around my knees and bumping about my elbows," he wrote the remarkable account of "Co. Aytch," its common foot soldiers, its commanders, its Yankee enemies, its victories and defeats, and its ultimate surrender on April 26, 1865.

A lo largo de una trama que discurre con la precisión de un mecanismo de relojería, Jane Austen perfila una galería de personajes que conforman un perfecto y sutil retrato de la época: las peripecias de una dama empeñada en casar a sus hijas con el mejor partido de la región, los vaivenes sentimentales de las hermanas, el oportunismo de un clérigo adulador...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and widely considered to be Edna Ferber’s greatest achievement, So Big is a classic novel of turn-of-the-century Chicago. So Big is the unforgettable story of the indomitable Selina Peake DeJong and her struggles to stay afloat and maintain her dignity in the face of a challenging marriage, widowhood, and single parenthood.

Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s.

Anne Elliot has grieved for seven years over the loss of her first love, Captain Frederick Wentworth. But events conspire to unravel the knots of deceit and misunderstanding in this beguiling and gently comic story of love and fidelity.

When The Centurions was first published in 1960, readers were riveted by the thrilling account of soldiers fighting for survival in hostile environments. They were equally transfixed by the chilling moral question the novel posed: how to fight when the "age of heroics is over". As relevant today as it was half a century ago, The Centurions is a gripping military adventure, an extended symposium on waging war in a new global order, and an essential investigation of the ethics of counterinsurgency.

Alden Pyle, an idealistic young American, is sent to Vietnam to promote democracy amidst the intrigue and violence of the French war with the Vietminh, while his friend, Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, looks on.

Waverley by Sir Walter Scott is an enthralling tale of love, war and divided loyalties. Taking place during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, the novel tells the story of proud English officer Edward Waverley. After being posted to Dundee, Edward eventually befriends chieftain of the Highland Clan Mac-Ivor and falls in love with his beautiful sister Flora. He then renounces his former loyalties in order actively to support Scotland in open rebellion against the Union with England. The book depicts stunning, romantic panoramas of the Highlands.