Classic Fiction

A rip-roaring caper novel by bestselling crime author Elmore Leonard. Mickey is bored and angry with her life as a housewife in suburban Detroit, trapped with her dreary, golf-obsessed husband. Then she is kidnapped by a deeply unimpressive criminal gang who want to trade her for a huge ransom from her—as it turns out—crooked husband. But what if she doesn't...

This illustrated collection includes hundreds of fables that have influenced our world for centuries. The stories attributed to Aesop, a slave and storyteller who lived in Greece around 620–564 BCE, were originally passed on through oral tradition before first being transcribed several centuries after his death. Many of these fables use animals as the main characters to convey deeper meanings...

Charles Dickens captures the spirit of Christmas in this classic holiday novella A Christmas Carol, Dickens’s timeless tale of greed, regret, and reform—featuring a beautiful new look! In one of the most popular holiday stories of all time, meet Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man who hates Christmas and all the people asking for money that the holiday brings. One...

Something was coming down the tide. It came down as quiet as a sleeping bairn, straight for him as he sat with his horse breasting the waters, and as it came, the moon crept out of a cloud and he saw a glint of yellow hair. From misty moors, crags, and clifftops comes a hoard of eighteen strange tales gathered...

This book is different from others. YOU decide what happens in this story. Your best friend Tom has mysteriously disappeared while investigating the ancient Mayan civilisation in Mexico. The only clue is a patch of fresh blood on an altar that Tom had been examining just hours before he vanished. Now, it is up to you to find him. Will...

A fun-filled collection of summer stories from the world's best-loved storyteller! Perfect for children aged 5 and up! Are you ready for the sunny season? From trips to the seaside and royal balls to fairy tea parties and yummy picnics, celebrate the summer with this short story collection by Enid Blyton. These traditional tales are ideal for younger children being...

A stunning full-colour illustrated adaptation of H.G. Wells' sci-fi classic, from the illustrator of The Iron Man and Animal Farm. 'Those who have never seen Martian life can scarcely imagine the horror.' 1894. Across space, this earth is being watched by envious eyes. What seems to be a meteorite falls to earth, but from the debris unfolds a terrifying alien...

The perfect read for fans of Richard Osman, JM Hall, MC Beaton, or Julia ChapmanA rousing whodunnit of oldsters taking life into their own hands

There's more to life than lessons at Malory Towers, Enid Blyton's best-loved boarding school series. This fantastic bumper collection contains Malory Towers books 1-3, with a brand-new cover illustrated by Pippa Curnick. First Term Darrell Rivers is thrilled to start her first term at boarding school. She soon makes friends - and mischief! Another new girl, Gwendoline, is beginning to...

The bard tiptoes out of his room, the crow-dream still echoing in his head, making him twitch at imaginary creaks of iron wings... The bard must leave Thornbury. It is not safe for him to stay. Rue, his new apprentice, travels with him—keen to learn his trade—and hear the next instalment in the legend of Podkin One-Ear... Podkin and his...

‘HELP! I am addicted to this series! Unputdownable’ – NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Chilling truths are buried in this snow… When a body dressed in a Santa Claus suit appears in the snow just outside a small village in Cumbria, DCI James Walker is the first to appear on the scene. Almost a year has passed since something so tragic has...

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. Sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, something happened, something... weird. In the dark halls of ivy-clad manors, in the ancient woodland escapes of New England, a generation of authors were inspired to...

'A writer with an utterly distinctive voice and a wild imagination' - Philip Pullman 'A truly compelling read … totally original and yet has the familiar feel of an established classic' - Jacqueline Wilson A story of friendship, hope and sweeping adventure in the snowy wilds of Russia, The Wolf Wilder is a modern classic from internationally bestselling author Katherine...

A perfect depiction of fin-de-siècle decadence, Oscar Wilde’s only novel highlights the tension between the polished surface and murky depths of Victorian high society. The Picture of Dorian Gray presents the story of Dorian Gray, a young, arrogant, and devastatingly handsome man. Confronted by his beauty in the form of a portrait, and struck by the terrible realisation that he...

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald captures the flamboyance, the carelessness, and the cruelty of the wealthy during America's Jazz Age. The Great Gatsby lives mysteriously in a luxurious Long Island mansion, playing lavish host to hundreds of people. And yet no one seems to know him or how he became so rich. He is rumoured to be everything...

Crime doesn't stop for the holidays, as this anthology of gripping Christmas mysteries shows with its baffling robberies, mysterious deaths and family gatherings that go terribly wrong. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, cloth-bound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover....

Parties and Passions is a literary celebration. Love, betrayal, sadness, humour and more are explored in this collection of party stories by classic authors. Featuring tales from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Parties and Passions shows making merry doesn't always go to plan. Joy and disappointment, murder and mix-ups: there's a party for everyone here. Find stories of glamorous...

Bold and experimental, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is a landmark in twentieth-century fiction and a book that gets better and better with every reading. On a perfect June morning, Clarissa Dalloway – fashionable, worldly, wealthy and an accomplished hostess – sets off to buy flowers for the party she will host that evening. She is preoccupied with thoughts of the...

A bumper collection of five-minute short stories by the world's best-loved storyteller. Perfect for children aged 5 and up! Whizz through five-minute tales in this brilliant collection by Enid Blyton. From animal and school adventures to outdoor wanders and magical mischief and mayhem, there's a story for everyone! These traditional tales are ideal for younger children being read to and...

WINNER: 2019 QLD Literary Awards, Griffith University Children's Book AwardSHORT-LISTED: 2019 CBCA Book of the Year, Younger Readers I was taken by Whisperers at 2pm, so I never pulled the lever for the laundry chute. That's what bothered me most. This is way ahead in the story, though. A lot happened before that. The town of Spindrift is frequented by...

A biting psychological thriller from the bestselling author of Tokyo Express, now available in English for the first time. Onizuka Kumako is a fierce woman—tall, beautiful, and not afraid to speak her mind. In Tokyo bars, she seduces customers and commits petty crime, using her connections to the local yakuza to get by. When she meets Shirakawa Fukutaro, a rich...

In 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a cabin in the woods at Walden Pond to record a philosophical experiment in living: to simplify his life, to support himself entirely by his own labour, and to draw spiritual sustenance from his surroundings. The result was Walden: Or, Life in the Woods (1854). In 1846, Thoreau refused to pay a mandated...

The tale of Heathcliff and Cathy’s ungovernable love and suffering, and the havoc that their passion wreaks on the families of the Earnshaws and the Lintons, shocked the book’s first readers, with even Emily’s sister Charlotte wondering whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff. Replete with unforgettable characters and situations that have seared themselves into our...

'Strangely timeless . . . Both darkly comedic and tinged with tragic undertones' ELIF SHAFAK 'Swift, witty and satirical, with a fine eye for English manners and English snobbery' JULIAN BARNES 'It was now nearly ten years since Charles Herriton had fallen in love with Lilia Theobald because she was pretty, and during that time Mrs Herriton had hardly known...

A book that shifted my life... Epic, game-changing, moving and brilliant VIOLA DAVIS Will rewire the mind of whoever reads it... you don't emerge from the journey unaffected NNEDI OKORAFOR A PATTERNIST NOVEL: BOOK ONE It begins when two immortals meet in an African forest. Doro is an ancient spirit who, for thousands of years, has cultivated a small village...

Through a series of connected monologues, The Waves tells the story of six very different friends – Bernard, Louis, Neville, Jinny, Susan and Rhoda – as they progress from childhood to middle age. Interspersed with evocative descriptions of the seaside at different times of day, the poignant personal histories coalesce into a poetic tapestry of human experience. A commercial and...

Orlando by Virginia Woolf is a pioneering novel about a time-traveling sixteenth-century nobleman who wakes up in the body of a woman. This edition includes a new foreword by Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl. "A brilliant book that teaches you so much about identity and love—all these fundamental questions that we ask ourselves."...

Based on the author's own experiences, The Yellow Wallpaper is the chilling tale of a woman driven to the brink of insanity by the "rest cure" prescribed after the birth of her child. Isolated in a crumbling colonial mansion, in a room with bars on the windows, the tortuous pattern of the yellow wallpaper winds its way into the recesses...

Love, ambition, and wealth take centre stage in this collection of classic stories from the Jazz Age. Often described as the “Great American Novel,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the quintessential story of love, ambition, and wealth in the Roaring Twenties. In the Long Island village of West Egg, the rich and mysterious Jay Gatsby pursues the now-married...

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood for the further adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends! The House at Pooh Corner, a follow-up novel to Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), brings readers back to the Hundred Acre Wood and the lovable Pooh, along with his friends Eeyore, Piglet, Roo, Owl, Kanga, and Christopher Robin—as well as a new face: Tigger. Each of the ten...

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, the British Library is reproducing, in beautiful facsimile form, a first edition of Pride and Prejudice from the Library's restricted collections. Pride and Prejudice has been enchanting readers for centuries with its universal story of premature judgement and stubbornness in love. Austen fans will now be able to own her iconic...

Haunting true crime stories of the supernatural and paranormal The most haunted home that world-famous ghost hunter Lorraine Warren ever stepped foot in was a three-bedroom brick home in suburban Sydney. Forget the horrors of Amityville and delve into Australia's most haunted places. Australian Ghost Stories is a spine-tingling collection of true crime tales that will leave you feeling haunted...

Set in London in 1968, A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder follows the lives of the inhabitants of a suburban London street. But this is no ordinary road. London, 1968. A suburban London street. But this is no ordinary road. "Ask anyone on Atbara Avenue how well they know their neighbours, and they'll answer 'well'. After all, they see each...

In this charming story from the blockbuster chapter-book series, Jack has to make an important decision! In The Class Party, Jack's class is voting on what to do for their end-of-term party, and Jack has the deciding vote. How will he know what to choose? From the Australian Children’s Laureate Sally Rippin comes this fantastic and beloved first chapter-book series....

In this charming story from the blockbuster chapter-book series, Jack and Billie bake a cake! In The Big Mess, Jack's filming a cooking show with his best friend Billie. But what will happen if he messes everything up? From the Australian Children’s Laureate Sally Rippin comes this fantastic and beloved first chapter-book series. Every story follows Jack, a friendly, everyday...

In her first story from this hilarious graphic novel series about twiggy best friends, Noodle wants to make some art! Noodle isn’t just a twig – she’s an ARTIST too. And she knows exactly what she wants to paint. There’s just one problem: the twigs have made red paint, green paint and yellow paint for her to use – but...

ABC of Australian Animals is a classic board book from Australia's foremost indigenous illustrator. Inspired by her deep love of country, Bronwyn is a master craftswoman of vibrant, visual narratives, and her way of capturing the beauty of Australia is unparalleled. ABC of Australian Animals is the stunning companion to 123 of Australian Animals.

A charming story of romantic misadventures where a young couple's love is threatened by the power of money, by one of the greatest authors of her age. Nick Lansing and Susy Branch are young and attractive, but penniless. Gracefully moving through New York high society, they have the right connections but none of the wealth. When they inconveniently fall in...

Often described as the gay Gatsby - Dancer from the Dance is the 1970s cult classic of gay liberation. 'Astonishingly beautiful... The best gay novel written by anyone of our generation' Harpers 'A life changing read for me. Describes a New York that has completely disappeared and for which I longed - stuck in closed-on-Sundays London' Rupert Everett Young, divinely...

The narrator of Cold Nights of Childhood grows up in a rapidly changing Turkey, where the atmosphere is nationalist, patriarchal, and technocratic. As a misfit in search of freedom, love, and happiness, she escapes to Berlin, becomes overcome by depression on her return, and is trapped in a psychiatry clinic for five years. After electroshock therapy and inhumane treatment, she...

Discover the story of Peter Pan with this pop-out sound book. Join Peter, Wendy, Tinker Bell and Captain Hook in this sound book adventure and prepare to be swept away with one of the world's best-loved stories for the stage. Press the musical note on every page to hear classical music that will transport you to the world of Neverland....

A heady, rapturous novel of love and self-discovery in the south of France written by famed publisher Helen Wolff, based on her early life with Kurt Wolff In a giddy rush, a young woman and her older lover escape the rising fascism of 1930s Berlin for a summer vacation on the Côte d'Azur. As they drive along stunning bays and...

One of the all-time greats of Scottish literature, truly revolutionary, A Scots Quair is a trilogy of novels: Sunset Song (1932), Cloud Howe (1933) and Grey Granite (1934). At each book's core is the heroine Chris Guthrie, as she grows from a child into adulthood through the Great War to the development of communism in the 1920s. Grassic Gibbon's writing...

An endearing and witty middle grade fantasy that will enchant and amuse princess and anti-princess fans alike. "A delightful blend of whimsy and wisdom... Wicked Marigold is an insightful fantasy adventure that puts an enchanting twist on the classic tale of princess and witch." – Soman Chainani, New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good and Evil Princess...

The Holy City is No Place for Mercy 'Matthew Plampin should rank with the best' Sunday Times 'Plampin is heartbreakingly good' The Times 'Gripping, immersive, at times very funny and beautifully written, this is historical fiction of the highest quality' Elizabeth Fremantle Rome, 1650. The streets are teeming as thousands of pilgrims flood in for the Holy Jubilee, but behind...

‘Two of the greatest children’s books ever written’ – The Times on Box of Delights and The Midnight Folk. ‘You ought to know about the treasure, Kay … for until it is restored or traced, no man of our name ought to rest.’ Determined to recover the long-lost family treasure, Kay finds himself in a race against the evil Abner...

'A mischievous boy hero and an equally amusing ghoul,’ Guardian An iconic ghost story for children from Penelope Lively, one of the modern greats of British fiction. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there… James is fed up. His family has moved to a new cottage – with grounds that are great for excavations, and trees...

Julia Golding’s award-winning adventure series is perfect for fans of Katherine Woodfine, Robin Stevens, and J.T. Williams. This HarperCollins Children’s Classics edition features special bonus material. Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Award. 'I am Cat Royal – Orphan, Adventurer, Actress… Reader, you are set to embark on an adventure about one...

A timeless classic adventure illustrated by former Children’s Laureate Quentin Blake. A magical old man has asked Kay to protect the Box of Delights, a box with which he can travel through time. But Kay is in danger: Abner Brown will stop at nothing to get his hands on it. The police don't believe Kay, so when his family and...

HarperCollins is proud to present a range of best-loved, essential classics. He whom Love touches not walks in darkness. At an elite Athenian drinking party in 416 BCE, a group of friends take their turn to speak in praise of Eros, god of love. At this symposium the guests, including statesmen, playwrights, poets, and Plato’s teacher, the famed philosopher Socrates,...

I Died at Fallow Hall has been praised by the Guardian as "both a traditional country-house mystery and an examination of loneliness, the difficulty of making connections with others, and how hard it can be to escape the roles imposed on us by family and society". Superbly and elegantly written: Irish Independent commends it as "executed with skill, finesse and...

A new collection for 2025 of classic science fiction stories from a master of the genre, including the story that inspired Steven Spielberg's blockbuster film, AI: Artificial Intelligence. Hello Earth, Are You There includes twenty-seven short stories from Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author, Brian Aldiss, OBE. A Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America and vice-president of the...

The Whitbread 2000 Book of the Year is a haunting and captivating work of historical fiction for children. The Coram man takes babies and money from desperate mothers, promising to deliver them safely to a Foundling Hospital in London. Instead, he murders them and buries them by the roadside, to the helpless horror of his mentally ill son, Mish. Mish...

A classic children’s story from one of our best-loved authors, former Children’s Laureate Anne Fine. This edition is illustrated throughout by Mark Beech and features special bonus material. Bill's New Frock tells the tale of Bill Simpson, who wakes up to find he's a girl—and his mother insists he wear a frilly pink dress to school. How on earth is...

An immersive and really satisfying mystery – Faith Martin As an iced drink in a heatwave ... These characters and their families feel like old friends. A fantastic addition to the series. – Fiona Leitch Retired schoolteachers and amateur sleuths Liz, Pat, and Thelma have a brand-new mystery to solve in this wonderfully witty cosy mystery. Retired schoolteachers Pat, Liz,...

On a dismally foggy night in Hampstead, London, a curious party has gathered in an artist's studio to weather the wartime blackout. A civil servant and a government scientist are matching wits in a game of chess, while an artist paints the portrait of his characterful sitter, bedecked in Cardinal's robes at the other end of the room. In the...

That is the case. Alison has been murdered. His blazing body was seen running about the battlements of Castle Skull. And so a dark shadow looms over the Rhineland where Inspector Henri Bencolin and his accomplice Jeff Marle have arrived from Paris. Entreated by the Belgian financier D'Aunay to investigate the gruesome and grimly theatrical death of actor Myron Alison,...

With its fascinating mix of people—rich and poor, British and foreign, worthy and suspicious—London is a city where anything can happen. The possibilities for criminals and for the crime writer are endless. London has been home to many of fiction's finest detectives, and the setting for mystery novels and short stories of the highest quality. Capital Crimes is an eclectic...

A gripping new thriller from the master of crime… ‘It’s a winner, involving bent MPs, snatched heiresses, sex, drugs, and double dealing’ Time Out In the 1980s, London is a melting pot of cultures, but race and class create sharp divisions. Black British journalist Sam Dean looks for stories, not missing persons. But when an old friend asks for help...

There is much heavily pregnant Grace still doesn't know about her new husband King's background. So, when word comes that King's father is dying, Grace is eager to accompany him to his childhood home, Blackwater, located in a remote part of Tasmania. Things go badly from the start. The house is in terrible repair, King's dying father yells at Grace...

A classic from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. "One of the best books by a mystery novelist whose work is always of first rank." - The New York Times Something is afoot at the Ivory Gallery in London. A string of suspicious incidents—a Kang-Tse vase broken, a specially commissioned catalogue burned, and now a painting slashed—has young Frances Ivory...

Captain Jimmy Cook Discovers X Marks the Spot by Kate Temple and Jol Temple follows the thrilling adventures of Captain Jimmy Cook, who is on the verge of making a Top Secret Important Discovery. A discovery even more vital than anything the other Captain Cook from the olden days ever uncovered—a real dinosaur footprint! Everyone knows that beneath a real...

The discovery of Sir Robert Boniface's body on the floor of his blue limousine was made quite accidentally on a sultry Friday evening towards the end of June. The industrial and financial tycoon, and former stalwart of the British Cabinet, had been shot in the head and left in the quiet Vale of Health alongside London's Hampstead Heath. Nearby, a...

Enter classic literature's famous pirate story, and make choices to survive Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in this Choose Your Path adventure. Captain Flint's hoards of gold are buried somewhere on Treasure Island, and only you have the map to find it. You are Jim Hawkins, a quiet youth who stumbles into a thrilling quest. You and your friends set...

Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them. Lina Aysgarth had lived with her husband for nearly eight years before she realised that she was married to a murderer. Following the success of Malice Aforethought, novelist Anthony Berkeley Cox returned to his Francis Iles pen-name for another experiment in the inverted mystery....

The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (May Gibbs) invites you to join the delightful journey of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, a pair of Gumnut brothers exploring the Australian bush with the dream of seeing a Human for the first time. Along their adventure, they meet and befriend Little Ragged Blossom and Little Obelia, embarking on lively escapades and encountering a...

Rediscover the Puffin Classics collection and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this irresistible illustrated edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 125th anniversary of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Follow the yellow brick road! Dorothy thinks she is lost forever when a terrifying tornado crashes through Kansas and whisks her and her dog, Toto, far...

A Little Clothbound Classic bringing together Hans Christian Andersen's most cherished Christmas tales in one timeless edition. Step into the enchanting world of Hans Christian Andersen with this collection of timeless Christmas tales, capturing both the magic and melancholy of the season. This selection brings together Andersen's most beloved works, from the magical journey of The Snow Queen to the...

Return to Oz with Tip and his strange new friends as they embark on a magical adventure to find old friends, defeat General Jinjur, and reclaim the Emerald Kingdom. Tip is sick of being bossed around by his guardian, Mombi. When she threatens to turn him to stone for using magic to bring Jack Pumpkinhead to life as a prank,...

Puffin Clothbound Classics are stunning collectable hardback editions of some of the best-loved classics in the world, including this haunting edition of Tales of Mystery and Terror by Edgar Allan Poe. Enter the dark, doom-laden world of Edgar Allan Poe with a selection of some of his most chilling tales, chosen for children aged 10+. ‘There was an iciness, a...

Return to the magical land of Oz in the third book in the beloved Oz series, newly re-published in Puffin Classics. Join Dorothy and her new friends as they embark on a perilous journey to rescue the royal family of Ev from the clutches of the wicked Nome King. Dorothy Gale and her uncle Henry are travelling to Australia by...

As he walked away from the phone, there was a puzzled expression on Blampignon's massive countenance. He was thinking: Le Touquet again! With some trepidation, Nigel Derry approaches the country house of his enigmatic and unpredictable aunt Gwenny for an Easter holiday visit. After a tense few days in which her guests' interactions range from awkward dinners to a knife...

After all, said our host, it's Christmas. Why not let the cat out of the bag? A postman murdered while delivering cards on Christmas morning. A Christmas pine growing over a forgotten homicide. A Yuletide heist gone horribly wrong. When there's as much murder as magic in the air and the facts seem to point to the impossible, it's up...

54-CARD DECK: A set of playing cards featuring illustrations of Dickens' most famous characters. Features standard playing card suits, numbers, and court cards. FUN, COLOURFUL ILLUSTRATIONS: Illustrator Barry Falls perfectly captures Dickens' most memorable characters. Suits are themed on character traits, with hearts for the Heroines and Heroes and spades for the Villains and Revengers. BOOKLET INCLUDED: The accompanying booklet...

I am waiting for someone to kill me. Tonight would be a good night for it. Agent Seventeen, the most infamous hitman in the world, has quit. But whoever wants to become Assassin Eighteen must track him down and kill him first. So when a bullet hits the glass inches from his face, he knows who fired it - doesn't...

Join the Cat Kid Comic Club for five hilarious and heartfelt stories featuring mini-comics, action, and more by the worldwide bestselling author and artist of the Dog Man graphic novel series, Dav Pilkey.

Get ready to thwip with this Spider-Man storybook collection! Travel to New York City, Wakanda and beyond in this deluxe set of seven action-packed illustrated books, with stories from all over the Spider- Verse. Are you ready to join Peter, Gwen and Miles on these heroic adventures? This Spider-Man 7-Book Set includes 7 hardcover books and a deluxe slipcase.

Antidote to Venom by Freeman Wills Crofts delivers a captivating puzzle for all mystery enthusiasts, as praised by the Times Literary Supplement: "Mr Wills Crofts is deservedly a first favourite with all who want a real puzzle." Similarly, the Daily Mirror commends, "He always manages to give us something that really keeps us guessing." George Surridge, the director of the...

Agatha Raisin: There Goes The Bride by M.C. Beaton follows Agatha as she navigates life's unexpected challenges. Agatha's former husband James is engaged to a beautiful, young woman, and Agatha has been kindly invited to the wedding. To take her mind off this, she decides she has fallen for Sylvan, a Frenchman she met at James' engagement party. Seeking further...

Though Roe has proven she can handle just about anything, even this part-time librarian may not be ready for the full-time crisis that comes her way in the sixth Aurora Teagarden mystery... Roe's life finally seems to have settled into a comfortable pattern. Her marriage to Martin is going well, she's back at work at the Lawrenceton library—and best of...