Series: Collins Classics

Animal Farm by George Orwell is a compelling and satirical allegory that delves into the dynamics of power, corruption, and politics within a seemingly utopian environment. Set on Manor Farm, the story begins with the animals growing increasingly dissatisfied with their neglectful and inebriated owner, Farmer Jones. Inspired by a visionary and idealistic boar named Old Major, the animals dream...

The Art of War by Sun Tzu is a timeless masterpiece on strategy and tactics. This ancient Chinese text, written in the 5th century BC, offers profound insights into military strategy, leadership, and the application of power. Although originally intended for military leaders, its principles extend far beyond the battlefield, influencing various fields including business, sports, and politics. HarperCollins is...

In the drab and oppressive world of 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell introduces us to Winston Smith, a man haunted by the omnipresent surveillance and control exercised by the Party and its enigmatic leader, Big Brother. Winston works diligently at the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to alter historical records to fit the ever-changing narrative dictated by the...

Letters from a Stoic by Lucius Annaeus Seneca offers readers an intimate glimpse into the mind of one of Rome's eminent philosophers. The book comprises a series of letters that Seneca, an advisor to Emperor Nero, wrote to his friend Lucilius. These letters explore themes central to Stoic thought, such as the pursuit of wisdom, coping with adversity, and the...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. The Confessions of Saint Augustine is a profound autobiographical work that traces the remarkable journey of Augustine, from his youth spent in pursuit of worldly pleasures to his ultimate transformation into one of Christianity's most influential thinkers. This seminal work captures his internal struggles with sin, his profound...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Our life is what our thoughts make it. The extraordinary writings of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180), the only Roman emperor to have also been a stoic philosopher, have for centuries been praised for their wisdom, insight, and guidance by leaders and great thinkers alike. Never intended for publication,...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. The discourses of the great Stoic philosopher Epictetus are regarded as some of the most influential teachings of the ancient world. Born into slavery and sent into exile before setting up a school of philosophy, Epictetus delivered a series of lectures where he argued that true happiness comes...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Plato's Republic has influenced Western philosophers for centuries, with its main focus on what makes a well-balanced society and individual.

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. A Tale of Two Cities begins with the famous line, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Set in Paris and London against the backdrop of the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities tells the story of Lucie Manette and her father Alexandre,...

Few literary masterpieces cast quite as awesome a shadow as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Captain Ahab’s quest for the white whale is a timeless epic – a thrilling tale of vengeance and obsession, and a searing parable about humanity lost in a universe of moral ambiguity. Inspired by true events, Moby Dick is a work of astonishing psychological depth. It...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. When Basil Hallward paints the portrait of young, handsome Dorian Gray, he falls prey to his dazzling beauty. Afraid that his youth and looks will waste away, Dorian expresses a wish that his portrait,...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me’ Six friends traverse the uneven road of life together in Virginia Woolf’s most unconventional classic. Bernard, Jinny, Louis, Neville, Rhoda, and Susan first meet as children by the sea, and their lives...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee…’ Few literary masterpieces cast quite as awesome a shadow as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Captain...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. The wise are free from perplexities; the virtuous from anxiety; and the bold from fear. Born Kong Qiu (孔丘) in what is now eastern China, Confucius began teaching a harmonious way of life based on humility, respect and the careful study of the ancients in the late sixth century...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. An orphan destined for a life of misery and poverty, Pip...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. The Origin of Species is still considered one of the most important and groundbreaking works of science ever written. Darwin’s eminently readable exploration of the evolutionary process challenged most of the strong beliefs of the Western world. ‘How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! How short his...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. A prophet waits to board a ship after 12 years away from his homeland. His journey is interrupted by a group of people who ask him to impart his wisdom before...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Tender is the Night 'Well, you never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people’s lives.' American Dick Diver and his wife Nicole are the epitome of 1920s elegance and sophistication, entertaining friends and pursuing a glamorous lifestyle at their French Riviera villa. When Rosemary Hoyt, a...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘There are things in that wallpaper that nobody knows about but me, or ever will’ Hailed as one of the most distinctive and compelling literary voices of her era, Charlotte Perkins Gilman is praised today for her ground-breaking, feminist writing. Collected here, both The Yellow Wallpaper and Herland...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true, and we could live in them? An endearing tale of hardship, love, and sisterhood during the American Civil War, Little Women tells the story of the March family. Newly impoverished, Meg, Jo,...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Orlando had become a woman – there is no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true and we could live in them? A heart-warming tale of love, sisterhood and hardship during the New England Civil War, Little Women tells the story of the lovable March family. Meg,...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night. Arguably the greatest love story ever told, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet continues to touch modern audiences with its passionate depiction of the tragic romance between two young lovers. With a bitter...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics… Despite dating from the 4th century BC, The Art of Rhetoric continues to be regarded by many as the single most important work on the art of persuasion. As democracy began emerging in 5th-century Athens, public speaking and debate became an increasingly important tool to garner influence in...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Big Brother is Watching You. Winston Smith rewrites history. It’s his job. Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, he helps the Party, and the omnipresent Big Brother, control the people of Oceania....

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow. Living in Ancient Greece in the 5th Century BC, Aesop was said to be a slave and storyteller. His much-loved, enduring fables are revered the world over and remain popular as moral tales for children. With infamous...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires. One of Shakespeare's darkest and most violent tragedies, Macbeth's struggle between his own ambition and his loyalty to the King is dramatically compelling. As those he kills return to haunt him, Macbeth is plagued by...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. We are in Transylvania; and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Earnest and naive solicitor Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to organise the estate of the infamous Count Dracula at his crumbling castle in the...

Three francs will feed you till tomorrow, and you cannot think further than that… As a young man struggling to find his voice as a writer, George Orwell left the comfort of home to live in the impoverished working districts of Paris and London. He would document both the chaos and boredom of destitution, the eccentric cast of characters he...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Oliver Twist 'Please, sir, I want some more.' An orphan boy of seemingly no consequence goes on an adventure that will change his life forever. Fleeing a cruel workhouse, Oliver finds himself taken under the wing of the Artful Dodger and caught up with a group of pickpockets...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. "I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man – the mystery, the power, the freedom." Griffin, a stranger, arrives at the local inn of an English village, entirely shrouded in bandages. Forbidding and unfriendly, he confines himself to his...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Winston Smith rewrites history. It’s his job. Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, he helps the Party, and the omnipresent Big Brother, control the people of Oceania. Winston knows what a good...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘There are things in that wallpaper that nobody knows about but me, or ever will’ Hailed as one of the most distinctive and compelling literary voices of her era, Charlotte Perkins Gilman is praised today for her ground-breaking, feminist writing. Collected here, both The Yellow Wallpaper and Herland...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Meditations is centred around the idea that "our life is what our thoughts make it." The extraordinary writings of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180), the only Roman emperor to have also been a stoic philosopher, have for centuries been praised for their wisdom, insight, and guidance by leaders and...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. If there is one man to whom I do feel myself inferior, it is a coalminer. In the mid-1930s, George Orwell was given an assignment from his publisher – to write a book about unemployment and social conditions in the economically depressed north of England. Revolutionary for its...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. Wuthering Heights poses the question: Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? Set on the bleak moors of Yorkshire, Lockwood is forced to seek shelter at Wuthering Heights, the home of his new landlord, Heathcliff. The intense and wildly...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. The Woman in White is a novel where "the woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared." One of the earliest works of detective fiction, The Woman...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?’ When solicitor Jonathan Harker arrives in Transylvania to organise the estate of a mysterious client, his growing uneasiness quickly turns into terror. Count Dracula has something...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. In 1936, George Orwell volunteered as a soldier in the Spanish Civil War. In Homage to Catalonia, first published just before the outbreak of World War II, Orwell documents the chaos and bloodshed of that moment in history and the voices of those who fought against rising fascism....

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. No man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-AD 65) is one of the most famous Roman philosophers. Instrumental in guiding the Roman Empire under Emperor Nero, Seneca influenced him from a young age with...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Mrs Dalloway follows Clarissa Dalloway, a woman of high society—vivacious, hospitable, and sociable on the surface, yet beneath, troubled and dissatisfied with her life in post-war Britain. This disillusionment is an emotion that bubbles under the surface of all of Woolf’s characters in Mrs Dalloway. The story is...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me’ Six friends traverse the uneven road of life together in Virginia Woolf’s most unconventional classic. Bernard, Jinny, Louis, Neville, Rhoda and Susan first meet as children by the sea, and their...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘The rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open…’ Victor Frankenstein’s monster is stitched together...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you, – and full as much heart!’ Meek, measured, but determined, Jane Eyre is a child born into unfortunate circumstances. Orphaned, mistreated...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there’ Jay Gatsby’s Long Island mansion throngs with the bright young things of the Roaring Twenties. But...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Three francs will feed you till tomorrow, and you cannot think further than that… As a young man struggling to find his voice as a writer, George Orwell left the comfort of home to live in the impoverished working districts of Paris and London. He would document both...

How can you forge your own path in times of war, uncertainty and hardship? Meg longs for marriage; Amy wants to be a painter; Beth is content to stay at home; while Jo wants adventure and a life without limits. Four decidedly different sisters, growing up during the American Civil War, each facing their own unique challenge. Little Women tells...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. Mansfield Park explores themes of marriage, class, and societal expectations. Jane Austen masterfully critiques the social norms of her time through the experiences of her protagonist, Fanny Price. 'I pay very little regard…to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. I wish as well as every body else to be perfectly happy; but like every body else it must be in my own way. When the Dashwood family are forced into more modest circumstances, sisters Marianne and Elinor also find themselves suddenly entangled in matters of the heart....

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. The animals at Manor Farm have had enough of Farmer Jones – he’s drunk, reckless and cares little for their welfare. When the boar, Old Major, shares his revolutionary plans, the animals are convinced they can...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘The real evils, indeed, of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself…’ Beautiful, rich, self-assured and witty, Emma Woodhouse delights in matchmaking those around her, with no apparent care for her own...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. The Confessions of Saint Augustine describes Saint Augustine’s conversion to Christianity and is the basis for his reputation as one of Christianity's most influential thinkers.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young… If it was only the other way! The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde's first and only published novel, recounts the story of handsome Dorian Gray who, upon having his...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Those who tell their own story, you know, must be listened to with caution. When young Charlotte Heywood arrives in the seaside resort of Sanditon, a town seeking to reinvent itself as a fashionable destination, she too attempts to begin anew. As she begins to settle into Sanditon...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. The Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe ‘True! Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them.’ This ultimate collection of the infamous author’s works includes “The...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.’ In the midst of revolution, when fundamental social upheaval was reshaping...

The Great Gatsby, the great American novel of love and betrayal in the Jazz Age, is now a major film. ‘I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there.’ Jay Gatsby’s opulent Long Island mansion throngs with...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Frankenstein ‘The rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open…’ Victor Frankenstein’s monster is stitched...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive. When a strange, meteor-like object lands in the heart of England, the inhabitants of Earth find themselves victims of a terrible attack. A ruthless...

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,...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Pygmalion is George Bernard Shaw’s classic play and satire of the British class system, first performed in 1913.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. A Midsummer Night's Dream immerses readers in a world of magic and mischief with the line: ‘My Oberon! what visions have I seen!Methought I was enamoured of an ass.’ When four young lovers flee from Athens and become lost in an enchanted wood, they stumble into a fairy...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Plato's Republic has influenced Western philosophers for centuries, with its main focus on what makes a well-balanced society and individual.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Welcome to Utopia. When Mr Barnstaple, an Earthling, is accidentally transported to Utopia with a group of others, he begins an adventure that will change how he views the world forever. Utopia has no government. Utopia has no religion. People are governed only by their own conscience and...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. Now we clung to a battered little boat, 'alone, alone – all, all alone; alone on a wide, wide sea.' The ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 was to be the first land-crossing of Antarctica. When disaster strikes, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s party has no choice but to make an...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. Considered one of Shakespeare’s most rich and enduring plays, the depiction of its hero Hamlet as he vows to avenge the murder of his father by his brother Claudius is both powerful and complex. As Hamlet tries to find...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.’ One hot summer’s day in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway sets out to buy...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him. Cats have long been considered creatures of mystery and magic. Worshipped as deities in some cultures, feared as harbingers of bad fortune in others, it's little...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘So he rose and lighted one lamp after another, till he had lighted the whole eighty and the palace seemed to dance with brilliancy.’ Beginning with the legend of King Shahryr, whose anger at his queen’s infidelity leads him to murder a new wife each day, Arabian Nights...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. One spring day in the idyllic English countryside, Mole, Rat, Toad and Badger embark on a series of escapades. From Ratty’s exploits on the river to Toad’s passion for motorcars and...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no mistaking that they were trying to haul me back . . . You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked – those pale chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes! An English scientist regales...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 'We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.' Huck Finn escapes from his alcoholic father by...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Elizabeth Bennet, full of vivacity and wit, lives a quiet country existence with her four sisters....

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…' A Tale of Two Cities is arguably the greatest story of mistaken identity ever told, interweaving a heart-breaking family tragedy with the bloody French Revolution. Dr Manette is released from imprisonment in the Bastille and is...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas is a powerful collection that blends Virginia Woolf's incredible visions and eloquence. “Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind….” Based on...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” In London, 1888, the razor-sharp detective skills of Sherlock Holmes are to be put to the test. Mary Morstan reports two seemingly unconnected and inexplicable events:...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and authoritative tap.’ Set against the foggy backdrop of London and the English countryside, each story in this quintessential collection unravels an...

The Art of War by Sun Tzu is a Chinese military treatise written in the 6th century BC. It remains revered today as the ultimate commentary on war and military strategy. Sun Tzu's philosophy focuses on the principle that one can outsmart a foe mentally by carefully considering strategy before resorting to physical battle. This timeless wisdom is still applied...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Every summer, the Ramsays visit their summer home on the beautiful Isle of Skye, surrounded by the excitement and chatter of family and friends, mirroring Virginia Woolf’s own joyful holidays of her youth. But as time passes, and in its wake the First World War, the transience of...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Our life is what our thoughts make it. The extraordinary writings of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180), the only Roman emperor to have also been a stoic philosopher, have for centuries been praised for their wisdom, insight, and guidance by leaders and great thinkers alike. Never intended for publication,...