"The first-person narrative relates the coming-of-age of Pip (Philip Pirrip). Reared in the marshes of Kent by his disagreeable sister and her sweet-natured husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery, the young Pip one day helps a convict to escape. Later he is sent to live with Miss Havisham, a woman driven half-mad years earlier by her lover's departure on their wedding day....When an anonymous benefactor makes it possible for Pip to go to London for an...

Called the most widely read English novel of the twentieth century, D.H. Lawrence's largely auto-biographical "Sons and Lovers tells the story of Paul Morel, a young artist growing into manhood in a British working-class community near the Nottingham coalfields. His mother Gertrude, unhappily married to Paul's hard-drinking father, devotes all her energies to her son. They develop a powerful and passionate relationship, but eventually tensions arise...

The Don Quixote of 18th century England. 'Adams dealt him so sound a compliment over his face with his fist, that the blood immediately gushed out of his nose in a stream. The Host being unwilling to be outdone in courtesy, especially by a person of Adams's figure, returned the favour with so much gratitude, that the parson's nostrils likewise began to look a little redder than usual.' Inspired by the masterpiece Don Quixote de la Mancha, Henry Fielding,...

The History of Tom Jones is Henry Fielding's greatest work and one of literature's earliest examples of a fully realized protagonist, with both virtues and vices on abundant display. The picaresque story of the orphan Tom, his exile, then subsequent adventures and loves is bristling with the spirit of mid-18th century Britain yet remains a deeply ambitious novel. The frank portrayal of human nature and innovative narrative structure of this classic...

Tristram Shandy wants to tell his life story, but his narrative is so discursive and explanatory that he is unable ever to reach the present day.

Two of Dicken's novels are republished. The first follows a group from the tranquil roads of London to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror. The second follows the life of the orphaned Pip from the wild Kent marshes through a series of events as he abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman.