British Literature Editions

• 

  She

  First published in 1886–87, H. Rider Haggard’s imperial romance follows its English heroes from the quiet rooms of Cambridge to the uncharted interior of Africa…

• 

  The Hound of the Baskervilles

  The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901–02) is Arthur Conan Doyle’s most celebrated Sherlock Holmes adventure. At the end of the yew tree path of his…

• 

  The Girl Behind the Keys

  “As the door was thrust open, I heard, as in a dream, the voice of Neal Larrard—calm and cool as ever—dictating to me; mechanically, my…

• 

  Villette

  Charlotte Brontë’s contemporary George Eliot wrote of Villette, “There is something almost preternatural in its power.” The deceptive stillness and security of a girls’ school…

• 

  The Idea of Being Free

  Mary Hays (1759-1843) is often best remembered for her early revolutionary novels The Memoirs of Emma Courtney and The Victim of Prejudice. In this collection,…

• 

  Eikon Basilike

  Published just after the execution of King Charles I in 1649, Eikon Basilike is a defence of the king’s motivations and actions prior to and…

• 

  John Halifax, Gentleman

  This 1856 novel, one of the most beloved of the Victorian period, follows the life, from childhood to death, of an orphaned boy who grows…

• 

  Shakespeare’s Heroines

  First published in 1832, Shakespeare’s Heroines is a unique hybrid of Shakespeare criticism, women’s rights activism, and conduct literature. Jameson’s collection of readings of female…

• 

  The Governess

  Published in 1749, the story of Mrs. Teachum and the nine pupils who make up her “little female academy” is widely recognized as the first…

• 

  Mrs Warren’s Profession

  One of Bernard Shaw’s early plays of social protest, Mrs Warren’s Profession places the protagonist’s decision to become a prostitute in the context of the…

• 

  Adam Bede

  The seemingly peaceful country village of Hayslope is the setting for this ambitious first novel by one of the nineteenth century’s great novelists. With sympathy,…

• 

  Obi

  “Three-Fingered Jack,” the protagonist of this 1800 novel, is based on the escaped slave and Jamaican folk hero Jack Mansong, who was believed to have…

• 

  Moths

  First published in 1880, Moths addresses such Victorian taboos as adultery, domestic violence, and divorce in vivid and flamboyant prose. The beautiful young heroine, Vere…

• 

  Kim

  Kim tells the story of Kimball O’Hara, an orphaned Irish boy growing up in late nineteenth-century India, and his quest for identity as he strives…

• 

  Oliver Twist

  Charles Dickens’s famous second novel recounts the story of a boy born in the workhouse and raised in an infant farm as he tries to…

• 

  The Way We Live Now

  The Way We Live Now—regarded by many as Anthony Trollope’s greatest novel—encompasses in its broad scope much of the business, political, social, and literary life…

• 

  Memoirs of a Coxcomb

  Published in 1751, John Cleland’s second novel (after the notorious Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) is a witty and complex portrait of aristocratic British…

• 

  Romola

  The most exotic of George Eliot’s works, Romola recounts the story of the famous religious leader Savonarola in Florence at the time of Machiavelli and…

• 

  The Man of Feeling

  The Man of Feeling is unquestionably among the most important and influential works of eighteenth-century sentimental fiction. The novel follows Harley, the eponymous “man of…

• 

  Moll Flanders

  Born to a petty thief in London’s notorious Newgate prison and determined to make her way in a rapacious and materialistic society, Moll Flanders recounts…

• 

  Nature and Art

  Nature and Art commands a central place in the history of the English Jacobin novel. Published in 1796, the story explores the opposition between the…

• 

  Celestina

  Published here for the first time in a modern edition, Charlotte Smith’s third novel is both rivetingly plotted and unique for its time in its…

• 

  Illustrations of Political Economy

  Published in 1832, Illustrations of Political Economy established Harriet Martineau as both a successful and controversial author and a pioneer of nineteenth-century “social problem” writing.…

• 

  The Vagabond

  First published in 1799, George Walker’s The Vagabond was an immediate popular success. Offering a vitriolic critique of post-Bastille Jacobinism and sansculotte-style mob rule, its…