Bøger i Cambridge Library Collection - Fiction and Poetry serien

The Secret Agent (1907) is a compelling tale of espionage and terrorism set in Edwardian London. Ironically subtitled 'A Simple Tale', it paints a terrifying portrait of revolutionaries and anarchists whose personal lives are as barren and futile as their public acts of violence. It concludes with the unwitting accomplice of a would-be terrorist blowing himself to bits with his own bomb, the terrorist's subsequent murder by his own wife, and the wife's own suicide. This new edition is based on a painstaking comparison of the original manuscript of the work with its first, truncated appearance in the American magazine Ridgeway's: A Militant Weekly for God and Country, and with all subsequent book-form publications overseen by Conrad himself. The result is a new text, purged of the printers' errors and editorial interventions that have been reproduced in all previous printings. There is also a critical introduction, an essay on the text, a textual apparatus, and helpful explanatory notes.

This 1915 spy story by John Buchan (1875-1940) is archetypal of the genre in which a British hero thwarts foreign enemies. Although the book is an exciting, if occasionally implausible, adventure story, it may be marred for a modern readership by the racism and anti-Semitism it expresses.

This world-famous classic with its cast of much-loved characters transformed children's literature and brought lasting fame to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-98), writing as Lewis Carroll. First published in 1865, with illustrations by Punch cartoonist Sir John Tenniel, the book remains unsurpassed in its universal appeal.

Charles Dickens (1812-70) was an established novelist when he wrote the most famous Christmas story in English literature in only six weeks. This reissue of the first edition allows readers to enjoy the story as Dickens had intended, and as its first readers experienced it during Christmas 1843.

Originally published as a magazine serial and then printed in novel form in 1853, Cranford is a playful tour of a peculiar country town. From the stately, stern Miss Jenkyns to the timid Miss Betsy Barker and her flannel-wearing cow, the inhabitants are all acquainted, and all poised to overhear scandal.

After first appearing as a serial in brilliant yellow covers, Vanity Fair, 'a novel without a hero', was published in full in 1848. A panoramic and biting satire, it was the first of William Makepeace Thackeray's works to bear his own name. This edition includes his original illustrations and preface.

'Next to the Bible, In Memoriam is my comfort.' Queen Victoria's reliance, after the death of Prince Albert, on Tennyson's 1850 elegy for his friend Arthur Henry Hallam - who died in Vienna in 1833 of a cerebral haemorrhage - epitomises its place at the heart of Victorian public and private life.

While serving as actor Henry Irving's business manager at the Lyceum Theatre in London, Bram Stoker (1847-1912) also pursued his literary interests. In this Gothic horror novel of 1897, which brought him international fame, he presents the chilling vampire Count Dracula, modelled in part on Irving's powerful personality.

First published in book form in 1883, this classic adventure tale is the best-known work of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94). Telling the story of Jim Hawkins' search for the buried treasure of Captain Flint, it had an enormous impact on popular perceptions of pirates, and continues to delight readers of all ages.

This one-volume collection contains five editions of poems and verse dramas from the final years in the life of the radical and visionary Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). These are Prometheus Unbound (1820), Hellas (1822); The Cenci (second edition, 1821), Rosalind and Helen (1819), and Posthumous Poems (1824).

Although Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) is best known for his horror stories and a preoccupation with the macabre, this charming 1852 collection of stories and poems offers a broader selection of his work, ranging from the whimsical beginnings of his detective fiction to his mesmerising love poetry.

Few collections of verse have been associated with such drama as these poems, published by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82) in 1870. Following attacks on their explicit content, Rossetti broke down and attempted suicide. Behind the sensation, however, lies Rossetti's subtle intelligence attempting to find modes of expression for the central importance of the libido.

Only a month after its original publication in 1915, this novel was banned. Its sensual and explicit themes, by now characteristic of D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), were considered particularly offensive in wartime by many reviewers, and the saga of the Brangwen family would not reappear in Britain until 1926.

Originally rejected for publication on the grounds of indecency, Sons and Lovers finally appeared in 1913. It is the first major portrayal of a mining community from an insider's perspective. Incorporating many elements of Lawrence's own difficult youth, it explores the difficult relationships of its protagonist, Paul Morel.

Best known for The Jungle Book and the poem 'If-', Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) became the first British recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Widely regarded as his masterpiece, and described by him as 'a labour of great love', this picaresque, nostalgic novel was first published in 1901.

Thomas Hardy's last novel charts the life of Jude Fawley from his parochial childhood to his death in the collegiate city of Christminster, the centre of his intellectual dreams and their failure. Initially published as a much-abridged serial, the text first appeared in its full and present form in 1895.

Although her previous work tends toward tragedy and a focus on fallen women, George Eliot (1819-80) reached a turning point in her career with Silas Marner (1861). This uplifting novel charts the life of the cataleptic outcast Silas as he finds meaning and tranquillity in raising an adopted daughter.

First published in 1851, this is a poem in two parts. The first explores the hope glimmering in Florence during the early years of the Risorgimento. The second acknowledges the difficulties on the long road to independence. Together, they form one of the finest works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61).

Originally published in 1911, Peter and Wendy is J. M. Barrie's novel adaptation of his wildly successful play. This illustrated version charts the adventures of the three unsuspecting Darling children and Peter Pan on the fantastical island of Neverland, home of lost boys, fairies and detachable shadows.

These two classics of English literature - one an impassioned tale of doomed love, the other a quietly intense portrait of the governess in Victorian society - were published together with poetry and commentary in this revised 1851 edition prepared by the authors' sister and fellow novelist, Charlotte Bronte.