Classic Fiction

Occult or psychic detective tales have been chilling readers for almost as long as there have been ghost stories. This beguiling subgenre follows specialists in occult lore—often with years of arcane training—investigating strange supernatural occurrences and pitting their wits against the bizarre and inexplicable. With tales featuring the most prominent psychic detectives, such as William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki, the Ghost...

Two deaths, eighteen years apart. A tension-filled mystery by debut author Joanna Morrison. Gracie Flynn may be dead, but she's not gone. Three university friends are divided by a tragic death. Eighteen years later, chance reunites them. Robyn is still haunted by memories of her best friend Gracie, and Cohen's heart has never healed. Only Sam seems to have moved...

This chilling anthology, first published in 1898, features classic gothic authors Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Thomas de Quincey, and Hans Christian Andersen alongside well-known and influential fairy tales and folklore. All of the macabre stories and extracts from longer works have hints of the supernatural, and many include malevolent spirits and grotesque murders. This varied selection also features melancholy...

Not everything that goes bump in the night brings gifts ... As the nights draw in, the veil between worlds thins, and all sorts of ghosts and ghouls come tumbling in. In the shadows, under the bed, in wind-whipped snowy landscapes and in rooms lit by guttering candles, the dead of winter are waiting for us ... and their hearts...

Darkness now was around me and sound. I seemed to stand in the centre of some yelling planet, the row resembling the resounding of many thousands of cannon, punctuated by strange crashing. The violent peals of a disconnected bell in the night; a trudging footfall in the hush of an abandoned manor; the whisper of a deathly voice in the...

He spoke of a new kind of terre-mauvaise, of strange regions, connected, indeed, with definite geographical limits upon the earth, yet somehow apart from them and beyond them. A poet comes to a fork in the road where three parallel destinies orbit the same violent fate; a child's rebellious escapade to the city becomes a nightmare when the portal to...

Fired up by the accounts of exploring parties in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, writers of the weird and supernatural began to construct a literary Arctic and Antarctic in which terrors lay undiscovered in the ice and gateways to bizarre hidden worlds were waiting. From James Hogg's lurid North Pole narrative of life amongst polar bears in 'The Surpassing...

Her cheeks were pale, and her eyes had the wild and stolid glare which Rodolph had observed when she awakened from the slumber of the grave; she quitted the castle, and after gazing around her, as if uncertain which way to go, she proceeded towards the village. In the mid-1800s, the inexpensive publications known as penny bloods were all the...

Named one of the best books of the year by the Wall Street Journal There's something strange about Walter Kopple's farm. It begins with his grandson, who senselessly murders one of Walter's pigs. But then rumours spread that Walter's grandson heard a voice commanding him to kill. And that the voice belongs to a most peculiar creature: the pig named...

The sea that night sang rather than chanted; all along the far-running shore a rising tide dropped thick foam, and the waves, white-crested, came steadily in with the swing of a deliberate purpose. From foreboding cliffs and lonely lighthouses to rumbling shingles and silted estuaries, the coasts of the British Isles have stoked the imaginations of storytellers for millennia, lending...

A beautiful boxed set of the major works by the three great Stoic philosophers, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith 'Perfection of character is this- to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.' This collection presents the greatest works by the three major Stoic philosophers, in beautiful hardback editions designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Meditations,...

Kafka Journal by Bodleian Library pays homage to Franz Kafka, best known as the author of The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle. Although Kafka passed away before reaching the age of forty, his groundbreaking work has left a profound cultural legacy, continuing to influence writers and artists today. Kafka was a highly visual writer, often drawing sketches and doodles...

I hear from Mrs Barlow, who is a good gossip, that your mother and your sister are both ill. You must, then, have very little company. Very little human company, she replied. On a moonlit night, a wearied traveller dressed as the Devil calls at the mossy gates of Holcot Grange. Fleeing some bloody misadventure in London, the stranger claims...

Do you know your Dashwoods from your Darcys? Why was Northanger Abbey such a disappointment to Catherine? Jane had an aunt whose name is also a type of cheese...but what is it? Regale with all things Regency and put your knowledge to the test with 52 trivia and game cards, each one featuring a multiple-choice trivia question, charade, game or...

Holy Ghosts presents a chilling narrative with the line, "I confess I have a particular dislike to remain in a church after dusk; it recalls to my mind the most painful story I ever heard." In these words, an unsettling atmosphere unfolds, inviting readers to explore the eerie tales contained within. A festering evil lurks in the grotesque carvings of...

But something odd does happen here at Christmas time. When I first heard the story, I thought it was an old wives' tale, but—well, these old houses—you hear strange things— He lifted his shoulders and stared into the fire... From the troves of the British Library collections comes a new volume for Christmas nights—when the boundary between the mundane and...

A special edition of an anthology of the 100 best ghost stories ever written, selected by award-winning author Louise Welsh. A special reissue from Head of Zeus's bestselling anthology collection of 100 scary stories to read with the lights on, selected and introduced by award-winning author Louise Welsh. Haunted houses, mysterious counts, weeping widows, and restless souls; here is the...

Timothy followed, in his dream, and saw the ungainly, yet agile creature clamber in through the cat-flap... He could hear the flip-flop as it went up the stairs, and he woke himself, screaming, in a tangle of sheet and blanket. On Sunday night the dream was even worse. Through eighteen dark tales bubbling with the ghostly and the occult, Mike...

Estella is a haunting and darkly beautiful retelling of Dickens's Great Expectations,' says Karen Brooks, author. The icily enigmatic anti-hero of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations tells her own story and changes the ending in this beguiling feminist take on a classic for readers of Pip Williams and Karen Brooks. At just three years of age, Estella is taken from her...

Dracula and Other Horror Classics collects the most memorable tales of horror by Bram Stoker. In addition to Dracula—the landmark vampire novel that set the pattern for virtually all vampire fiction written after its publication in 1897—this omnibus collects the novels The Jewel of Seven Stars and The Lair of the White Worm. It also includes a dozen of Stoker's...

The classic Caldecott Honor-winning picture book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! is now in board book format, perfect for the littlest Pigeon nay-sayers! Mo Willems, #1 New York Times best-selling creator and three-time Caldecott Honoree, presents the book that started it all – Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Finally, a book you can say "no" to!...

In 1915, two days before being sent to fight in WWI, Jack O'Rourke dived into Sydney Harbour to save a drowning stranger, Samuel Lomond. Four years later, battle-scarred and weary, Jack returns home only to discover that Samuel has been brutally murdered – and that he's been left his rural property, Booroomba. When Jack arrives in Warrawolong, a small town...

The doll wasn't lying on the floor of the cage, but was standing against the padlocked door. And as the curtains parted it turned its face sharply towards me... As mannequins, automata, effigies and dummies, dolls have haunted our imagination since ancient times, invoked throughout the years in literature and film as quintessential symbols of the uncanny. In this collection...

In this modern reimagining of Anne of Green Gables, effervescent extrovert Dan Stewart-Álvarez is surprised to find home and community in rural Tennessee. Despite a life on the road with his free-spirited mother, fifteen-year-old Dan Stewart-Álvarez has always wanted to settle down. He just didn't think it'd be like this—with his mother abandoning him in rural Tennessee with two strangers—his...

Crawling Horror 'Its long antennae waved inquiringly back and forth, its tiny eyes sparkled black with crimson points, and then it began to run. The Professor caught it in his hand as it toppled from the edge of the counter. It bit him.' A brush with a killer hornet upends a reverend's life. A moth wreaks a strange vengeance on...

This cornucopia of thrills and chills features 25 of the finest English-language tales of the uncanny and macabre. In addition to works by such stellar authors as Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Henry S. Whitehead, the book features three complete short novels: A Phantom Lover by Vernon Lee, Serapion...

Penguin Weird Fiction - a celebration of the very best of the weird, a store of novels and tales that for generations have delighted and horrified. Woken from sleep by an urgent request to attend to a new patient, Dr. John Vanaman is soon at the home of Jesse J. Robinson, a wealthy industrialist, struck gravely ill after a struggle...

In the wood, the grey stone rose from the grass, and she cried out and ran back in panicked terror. 'What a silly little girl,' the nurse had said. 'It's only the... stone.' Standing stones, stone circles, tumps, barrows, and ancient clearings still remain across the British Isles, and though their specific significance may be obscured by the passing of...

"The tiles of the hall floor were as pretty as ever, as cold as ever, and bore, as always on Christmas Eve, the trickling pattern of dark blood." The gifts are unwrapped, the feast has been consumed, and the fire is well fed, but the ghosts are still hungry. The ghosts are at the door. Welcome to a new collection...

Illustrated throughout, The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents specially curated comic book anthologies of the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel's transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy. A Penguin Classics Marvel Collection Edition The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel...

Classic fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm with a creatively embroidered cover. This creatively designed edition of Brothers Grimm: 101 Fairy Tales includes cherished favourites such as “Sleeping Beauty,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Little Red Cap,” and many more in their original versions. These are the stories of characters we’ve known since childhood: Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella. But the works originally...

SHORT-LISTED: CBCA Book of the Year, Younger Readers, 2019 Ursula Dubosarsky is the Australian Children's Laureate for 2020 - 2021 This is a story about a boy called Pender and a kangaroo called Brindabella, about how they became friends, and all the things that happened to them because of it. Pender and his father live in an old house made...

Illustrated throughout, The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents specially curated comic book anthologies of the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel's transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy. A Penguin Classics Marvel Collection Edition Collects Fantastic Four #52-53 (1966); Jungle Action #6-21 (1973-1976). It is impossible to imagine American popular...

Drawing from a lifetime of supernatural short-story writing, this new collection of Edith Wharton's greatest and most chilling tales showcases one of the most talented ghost story practitioners of all time at her very best. This new edition features a new introductory essay discussing Wharton's indelible influence on the ghost story genre, as well as rarely anthologised tales from the...

A new edition of the collected letters of P.G. Wodehouse, complete with a refreshed cover look, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Britain's best-loved comic author. Charming, witty, and profound, this stylish 50th anniversary hardback edition of A Life in Letters is the perfect addition to any Wodehouse-lover's bookcase. 'The letters, gossipy in the kindliest, most amused/bemused...

Do you know your dormice from your dodo birds? Exactly how tall is the Caterpillar? What does the liquid in the bottle labelled 'Drink Me' taste of? Tumble down the rabbit hole and put your knowledge to the test with 52 trivia and game cards. Each one features a multiple-choice trivia question, charade, game or challenge about the people and...

Put your little grey cells to the test with this dastardly deck of Christie questions! What's the name of the (seemingly) picturesque village where Miss Marple lives? Which water sport was Agatha Christie a natural at? And just how tall is that diminutive Belgian detective? Divided into ten cunning categories - including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, famous...

Calling all ghosts and ghouls! Venture into 31 Days of Spooky—a fully illustrated, delightfully scary collection of short stories that will send a chill down your spine every day of the Halloween season. When it's not lurking on your nightstand, this beautiful book is perfectly designed to sit alongside your autumn decorations or tablescapes. With its one-of-a-kind daily format, 31...

This is the story of three grumpy bears, who couldn’t see anyone’s viewpoint, but theirs. Until, with a bowl ... and a bed ... and a stool, a little girl taught them the Golden Grr-rule!

When Seren Rhys is given a newspaper parcel by a stranger late at night in an empty train station, she has no idea what trouble it contains. Armed with a talking bird who might not be telling the truth, a magical snow globe and her own indomitable courage, Seren sets off on a journey into a midnight world of snow...

Hush, Grandma Poss and all their bush friends are the perfect companions to your precious new baby’s first records. Possum Magic: My First Three Years Baby Book has a gorgeous new design and additional content to capture baby’s first three years. Possum Magic has captivated and enchanted children and adults for over 40 years. Mem Fox’s lovable characters, together with...

"They ended as all great passions do-by a misunderstanding." A French soldier escapes captivity and stumbles into something stranger than war: solitude, survival, and a wild intimacy with a panther in the sands of Egypt. What begins in fear turns to ritual, fascination, and a bond as mysterious as it is fatal. Balzac's tale is swift, elemental, and aching with...

Introduce young readers to poetry with The Very Hungry Caterpillar in the first-ever collection of original poems from the World of Eric Carle! Introduce young readers to poetry with The Very Hungry Caterpillar in the first-ever collection of original poems from the World of Eric Carle! Caterpillar's Wish I made a little wish on the first star in the sky....

Feeling alone and abandoned by everyone, a young man and self-confessed dreamer decides to take to the streets of St Petersburg during one of its long summer nights. As he roams around the empty city, he chances upon a weeping girl, whom he approaches and rescues from the unwanted attentions of an importunate gentleman. The two agree to meet again...

I'm taking a revolver to Thrackley. You never know with blokes like Carson. I hate these harmless, potty people - they're always up to something. Jim Henderson is one of six guests summoned by the mysterious Edwin Carson, a collector of precious stones, to a weekend party at his country house, Thrackley. The house is gloomy and forbidding, but the...

When New Orleans coffee merchant Louis Durand first meets his bride-to-be after a months-long courtship by mail, he's shocked that she doesn't match the photographs sent with her correspondence. But Durand has told his own fibs, concealing from her the details of his wealth, and so he mostly feels fortunate to find her so much more beautiful than expected. Soon...

The journey of the Mexico City-bound Pullman seems ill-fated from the outset, with engine troubles and the threat of an impending railway strike. However, no one aboard expects the terror that will descend upon the luxury train between Laredo and its destination. First, a man dies as the vehicle passes through a dark tunnel, and then, just as United States...

From a dancing automaton running amok at a ball, to a prehistoric beast lurking in the depths of a Yorkshire cave, this anthology explores the nature of the 'old weird', and unordinary stories which go outside the boundaries of everyday life. The anthology includes not only stories by well-known writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jerome K. Jerome, but...

A woman is on trial for her life, accused of murder. The twelve members of the jury each carry their own secret burden of guilt and prejudice which could affect the outcome. In this extraordinary crime novel, we follow the trial through the eyes of the jurors as they hear the evidence and try to reach a unanimous verdict. Will...

Mei Mei Goh, domestic servant to the Hamilton family in post-colonial Singapore, must suppress her imagination to survive, but she is dying and her long-held secrets are revealed. Imagination suppressed. Secrets divulged. A lost child found. Personal demons overcome. Heaven imagined. Friendship betrayed. When successful London real estate agent, Isabelle Goh, is left close to death in an attempted assassination,...

A lost novel from the golden age of crime, published for the very first time. It happened on a dark and misty night; the night of the ball at The Prince's Hall, Fordings. Abuzz with rumours surrounding the disappearance of Rosemary Reeve on the eve of last year's ball, the date proves ill-fated again when two homebound partygoers, Nick and...

Tour de Force is "written with much ingenuity, gaiety of colour and bright, joyful malice," according to Julian Symons in the Times Literary Supplement, 1955. Inspector Cockrill has finally booked a holiday, destined for a Mediterranean tour with a motley crew of fellow vacationers. By the time they have reached the island of San Juan el Pirata off the Italian...

Inspector Littlejohn is once again summoned to the Isle of Man when a local vicar is accused of murder in this long-running British mystery series. As a rule, the towns of the Isle of Man are eerily silent after dark. But that silence is shattered one black night by an explosion followed by the violent ringing of the church bell....

Crime author Dick Markham is in love again; his fiancée is the mysterious newcomer to the village, Lesley Grant. When Grant accidentally shoots the fortune teller through the side of his tent at the local fair, following a very strange reaction to his predictions, Markham is reluctantly brought into a scheme to expose his betrothed as a suspected serial husband-poisoner....

Aurora Teagarden's decision to become a real estate agent turns out to be a life-or-death choice in this mystery from No. 1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris. Aurora 'Roe' Teagarden had always worked for a living, until an unexpected legacy gave her the money to quit her librarian job. Now, with time on her hands,...

No observer, ignorant of the situation, would have guessed that death lurked nearby, and that only a little distance from the glitter of silver and glass and the hum of voices, two victims lay silent on a studio floor. On a fine autumn weekend, Lord Aveling hosts a hunting party at his country house, Bragley Court. Among the guests are...

Jefferson Farjeon is quite unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures.- Dorothy L. Sayers Richard Temperley arrives at Euston station early on a fogbound London morning. He takes refuge in a nearby hotel, along with a disagreeable fellow passenger, who had snored his way through the train journey. But within minutes the other man has snored for the last time—he...

'There are a dozen clever deceptions in the book, twice as many as most writers would have given us.' Julian Symons in Bloody Murder Hugh Everton was intent on nothing more than quietly drinking in the second-rate hotel he found himself in on England's south coast. Then in walked his old flame Lucy and her new husband and ex-Judge, Gregory...

For the staff of the library at the centre of The Widening Stain, it's easy enough to dismiss the death of a woman who fell from a rolling ladder as nothing more than an unfortunate accident. It's more difficult, however, to explain away the strangled corpse of a man found inside a locked room, surrounded by rare and obscure erotica....

Then the rhythm of the train changed, and she seemed to be sliding backwards down a long slope. Click-click-click-click. The wheels rattled over the rails, with a sound of castanets. Travelling home from a European holiday, Iris Carr ends up alone at the station after a quarrel with her friends. Struck by a mysterious assailant and waking up just in...

... a political thriller in the Robert Harris mould ... Jones cleverly weaves fact and fiction - and has great fun painting 'real' characters like the wilful Lionel Murphy. Jennifer Byrne, The Australian Women's Weekly An engaging political thriller ... reminds us of the importance of investigative journalism in a democracy. The Sydney Morning Herald In September 1972, journalist Anna...

From the Dagger-nominated author of The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas come twelve even stranger stories. With a tale for each day of Christmas, these spooky stories are the perfect companion for long, dark winter nights. So wrap up warm and let yourself get lost in the world of the strange, the scary and the supernatural...

You’re trapped underground. There’s no way out. And there’s a killer on the loose… ‘Full of twists and amazing turns that will have you guessing till the very end!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review When former Detective Inspector Jess boards the London Underground, it should be just a few short stops home. But as the tube barrels towards Baker Street, it’s brought...

The business of death has given insurance investigator Miles Bredon a unique outlook on life in this witty Golden Age mystery. The Three Taps introduces us to Jephthah Mottram, a very wealthy man who has received dire news from his doctor—he has just two years left to live. However, he doesn't even manage to make it that far. While enjoying...

E.C.R. Lorac must be seriously considered for the position of leading writer of classic detective stories. – Birmingham Post While hot on the heels of serial coupon-racketeer Gordon Ginner, Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard receives word of a peculiar incident up in Lancashire. The fishing cottage of a local farmer has been broken into, with an assortment of seemingly...

Already it looked as if the police were up against a carefully planned and cleverly executed murder, and, what was more, a murder without a corpse! Two brothers, John and William Rother, live together at Chalklands Farm in the beautiful Sussex Downs. Their peaceful rural life is shattered when John Rother disappears and his abandoned car is found. Has he...

Trusted surgeon. Loving wife. Murderer? Before my world came crashing down, I had it all. The successful career I dreamed of. The beautiful red-brick home where I could relax in front of the fire. The handsome, devoted husband whose blue eyes and charming smile always made me feel safe. As I call time of death, my voice is steady. My...

A piercingly beautiful and candid novel of love, sex, and independence in 1920s Japan by a trailblazing Japanese writer. Growing up in a remote mountain village, Kazue always nurtured a spirit of independence. Ignoring the values of her traditional community, she rejects an early arranged marriage and embarks on a scandalous affair. Exiled from her home, Kazue departs to follow...

A chilling classic thriller from the 1930s, by the author of The Lady Vanishes 'Adept at laying one icy finger on the back of your neck' Spectator 'An astonishing and diabolical shock... Required reading' New York Herald Tribune Everyone is talking about it: a serial killer is on the loose. Women are being slain across the countryside surrounding the isolated...

When the body of a cowboy is discovered in London while Sherlock Holmes is incapacitated, it is up to Watson to fill his shoes. He discovers a mad genius and three beautiful women bent on killing the world's leaders and rendering all of humanity slaves to love. Tired and filled with self-doubt, Watson must find the confidence and inner strength...

Should detectives go to parties? Was it consistent with the dignity of the Yard? The inspector tossed for it—and went. Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. Despite a handful of misgivings, the inspector joins a guestlist of novelists and thriller writers disguised...

Samuel Whitehead, landlord of the Rose and Crown, is a stranger in the lonely East Anglian village of High Eldersham. When the newcomer is stabbed to death in his pub, and Scotland Yard are called to the scene, it seems that the veil dividing High Eldersham from the outside world is about to be lifted. Detective-Inspector Young forms a theory...

Over a long career in the courts, Justice Horace Ireton has garnered a reputation for merciless rulings and his dedication to meting out strict, impartial justice. Taking a break from his duty after a session of assizes, Ireton retreats to his seaside bungalow in Devon and turns his attention to family, specifically in attempting to bribe his daughter's lover, Morrell,...

Aunt Mildred declared that no good could come of the Melbury family Christmas gatherings at their country residence, Flaxmere. So when Sir Osmond Melbury, the family patriarch, is discovered—by a guest dressed as Santa Klaus—with a bullet in his head on Christmas Day, the festivities are plunged into chaos. Nearly every member of the party stands to reap some sort...

A collection of thirteen short stories brings back an acclaimed Golden Age mystery author's beloved sleuth, as well as a host of fresh characters and genres. Margery Allingham fans will delight at being reunited with the Queen of Crime's most thrilling detective, Albert Campion. From capers and traditional mysteries to slice-of-life stories, romantic tales, and even a Christmas story, this...

The murder, a brutal stabbing, definitely took place on Guy Fawkes' night. It was definitely by the bonfire on the village green. There were definitely a number of witnesses. And yet, was it definitely clear to anybody exactly what they had seen? In the writhing, violent shadows, it seems as if the truth may have gone up in smoke. The...

The Notting Hill Mystery has been widely described as the first detective novel. The story is told by the insurance investigator Ralph Henderson, who is building a case against the sinister Baron R___, suspected of murdering his wife to claim her life insurance. Henderson descends into a maze of intrigue, including a diabolical mesmerist, kidnapping by gypsies, slow-poisoners, a rich...

The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Defaced Men takes Sherlock Holmes into the intriguing world of early cinema as motion picture pioneer Eadweard Muybridge seeks his help to unravel a mystery that promises to keep you up all night. The year is 1896, and a new client arrives at Baker Street with a peculiar problem: he claims he's...

A timeless narrative of suspense and intrigue, Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886) is the original Australian best-selling crime novel set in pre-Federation Melbourne. From the salons of the city's elite to the slums of Little Bourke St, the exquisitely plotted story follows the investigation, inquest, and trial of the murder of a little-known English migrant. At...

Taking a break from his holiday visiting his nephew, Jim, Athelstan Digby agrees to look after the old bookshop of Keldstone so that his hosts, the Lavenders, can attend their cousin's funeral. On the first day of his tenure, three suspicious characters enquire after a copy of The Life and Times of Mr Badman by John Bunyan. When a copy...