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Presents the portrait of Stephen Dedalus' Dublin childhood and youth, his quest for identity through art and his gradual emancipation from the claims of family, religion and Ireland itself.

One of a series of top-quality fiction for schools, this is the story of a couple - one Protestant and one Catholic - in search of love and freedom in Belfast.

In these terrifying days in Belfast, no Protestant girl like Sadie could go out with a Catholic boy like Kevin without resentment or even murderous violence flaring up around them. They were made for each other, they knew that, but what would happen if they went on seeing each other?

This simple and tragic fable, telling what happens when the animals drive out Mr Jones and attempt to run their farm themselves, has since become a world famous classic of English prose.

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS. When the animals take over the farm, they think it is the start of a better life. Their dream is of a world where all animals are equal and all property is shared. Animal Farm is one of the classic stories of modern English fiction and is a powerful study of the use and abuse of political power.

'It is the history of a revolution that went wrong - and of the excellent excuses that were forthcoming at every step for the perversion of the original doctrine', wrote Orwell for the first edition of Animal Farm in 1945. Orwell wrote it at the end of 1943, but it almost remained unpublished. Its savage attack on Stalin, at that time Britain's ally, led to it being refused by publisher after publisher. Orwell's simple, tragic fable, telling what happens when the animals drive out Mr Jones and attempt to run the farm themselves, ha... read more

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." George Orwell's modern fable on the way power corrupts is as apt as ever in the twenty-first century.

'(The writer) in whose company the prison walls fell down' - Nelson Mandela. After a long silence Achebe published in 1987 what many see as his greatest work - an acrid, frightening look at oil-boom Nigeria, a world of robberies, road blocks and intimidation in which those who are meant to be protecting a country's citizens are in reality supervising the looting.

Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone in feeling discontent. Harbouring an unnatural desire for solitude, and a perverse distaste for the pleasures of compulsory promiscuity, Bernard has an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his d... read more

Charles Ryder, a lonely student at Oxford, is captivated by the outrageous and decadent Sebastian Flyte. Invited to Brideshead, Sebastian’s magnificent family home, Charles welcomes the attentions of its eccentric, aristocratic inhabitants, gradually becoming infatuated with them and the life of privilege they inhabit – in ... read more

Arson, murder, sex and hair-raising midnight adventures at a town called Tainuia Junction. It's Friday when the silver-tongued Wes Pennington and his sidekick Cyril Kidman come to town with a trick to play on the local bookmaker. But there's already other skullduggery afoot ...not to speak of the Te Whakinga Kid, a Zorro nut and the wildest comic ever to ride the ranges. First published 1964.

With a specially commissioned afterword, the "Collector's Library" series includes a brief biography of the author, and a further reading list. This edition contains an afterword by Ned Halley.

Catcher in the Rye is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth, but it's relevant to all ages. The story is told by Holden Caulfield, a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Throughout, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.

Lazy in style, full of slang and swear words, it's a novel whose interest and appea... read more

Hodder Literature: an exciting series of literature titles for Key Stage 3 for whole class use. Davie and his best friend Geordie are ordinary boys, growing up in a close-knit Catholic community in Tyneside. Then a new boy arrives. Stephen Rose has a disturbed past but he also possesses artistic talents and a strange power over people. Stephen makes astonishingly lifelike clay models and persuades Davie to help him make a clay monster who will obey his creators. The monster comes to life and seems torn between the 'good' Davie and ... read more

This is the novel Dickens regarded as his 'favourite child' and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experience from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters are Rosa Dartle, Dora, Steerforth, and the 'umble Uriah Heep, along with Mr Micawber, a portrait of Dickens's own father which evokes the mixture of love, nostalgia and guilt.

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‘I’m a God boy, Sister,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to worry about me, I’m a God boy.’

Jimmy Sullivan believed he was protected by God until his parents’ unhappy marriage finally broke down, with tragic consequences. Now a disturbed thirteen-year-old at a Catholic boarding school, Jimmy rages at God for failing him as he tells of his own violent and obsessive reaction to the turbulent events of two years before. Through his uncomprehending and often humorous voice of tough indifference, a very adult drama of marita... read more

For all the promise of his name, Jack Skeat cannot be a poet. His friend Rex Petley - eel-catcher, girl-chaser, motorbike rider - takes that prize. Is he also a murderer? And why, forty years later, does he drown out on the Gulf? Jack has to find out, and is drawn to examine their lives. Going West has long been regarded as one of the most autobiographical of Maurice Gee's novels.

Pip doesn't expect much from life...His sister makes it clear that her orphaned little brother is nothing but a burden on her. But suddenly things begin to change. Pip's narrow existence is blown apart when he finds an escaped criminal, is summoned to visit a mysterious old woman and meets the icy beauty Estella. Most astoundingly of all, an anonymous person gives him money to begin a new life in London. Are these events as random as they seem? Or does Pip's fate hang on a series of coincidences he could never have expected?

Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift's savage satire views mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with an uncompromising reflection of ourselves.