HarperCollins Publishers

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'There is no greater sorrow then to recall our times of joy in wretchedness.' Considered one of the greatest medieval poems written in the common vernacular of the time, Dante's Inferno begins on Good Friday in the year 1300. As he wanders through a dark forest, Dante loses his way and stumbles across the ghost of the poet Virgil. Virgil promises to lead him back to the top of the mountain, but to do so, they must pass through Hell, encountering all manner of shocking horrors, sins and evil torments along the way, evoking questions about God's justice, human behaviour and Christianity.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Greedily she engorged without restraint, And knew not eating death', Milton's Paradise Lost is a poem of epic proportions that tells of Satan's attempts to mislead Eve into disobeying God in the Garden of Eden, by eating from the tree of knowledge. His interpretation of the biblical story of Genesis is vivid and intense in its language, justifying the actions of God to men. In his sequel poem, Paradise Regained, Milton shows Satan trying to seduce Jesus in a similar way to Eve, but ultimately failing as Jesus remains steadfast.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'The movements of his mind seemed to tend to the thought that some power was working against him.' When Henchard, an out-of-work hay-trusser gets drunk and sells his wife at a country fair, his life will never be the same. Eighteen years later, his wife and daughter return to Casterbridge to find that Henchard has become Mayor. Although he's spent most of his life attempting to repent for his actions, he remains a rash and impetuous man. Hardy portrays Henchard as a tragic hero, searching for love and acceptance from the community around him, posing the overarching question of whether we shape our own fate, or whether life deals us an inevitable hand.

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 story-teller. His much-loved, enduring fables are revered the world over and remain popular as moral tales for children. With infamous vignettes, such as the race between the hare and the tortoise, the vain jackdaw, and the wolf in sheep's clothing, the themes of the fables remain as fresh today as when they were first told and give an insight into the Ancient Greek world.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being.' Set in medieval Paris, against the backdrop of the brooding Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Hugo's take on the classic story of Beauty and the Beast tells of the hunchbacked, grotesque bellringer, Quasimodo. Rejected by Parisian society because of his appearance, Quasimodo resides in Notre-Dame, harbouring a love for the only woman that pities him, a gypsy named Esmerelda. However, a sinister archdeacon also covets Esmerelda, and when his advances are spurned, he seeks to destroy her.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Clanless, lawless, homeless is he who is in love with civil war, that brutal ferocious thing.' The epic poem The Iliad begins nine years after the beginning of the Trojan War and describes the great warrior Achilles and the battles and events that take place as he quarrels with the King Agamemnon. Attributed to Homer, The Iliad, along with The Odyssey, is still revered today as the oldest and finest example of Western Literature.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'I do not cling to life sufficiently to fear death.' Adventurous and spirited in tone, The Three Musketeers is considered one of the greatest historical French novels. When Athos, Porthos and Aramis befriend a young and determined country boy d'Artagnan, together they confront the scheming King's Minister, Cardinal Richelieu and the female spy Milady who threaten to undermine the King. Swashbuckling, romantic and often humourous, Dumas' novel is a timeless tale of friendship and intrigue.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. «When the Green Dragon tore shrieking out of the mouth of its dark lair, which was the tunnel, all three children stood on the railing and waved their pocket-handkerchiefs without stopping to think whether they were clean handkerchiefs or the reverse». When their father is mysteriously sent away, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis have to leave London with their mother to live in a cottage in the countryside. Finding comfort in the nearby railway station and friendship in Perks the Porter and the Station Master, the children watch every day for the passing London train. Every day they wave at the same old Gentleman on the train, not knowing that he may hold the key to their father's whereabouts.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts!' Self-serving social climber and anti-heroine Becky Sharp will do anything to raise her status and attain wealth and standing with smart Society. Clever, lively and resourceful, orphan Becky is the total opposite of her naive and sentimental schoolmate Amelia Sedley, a pampered, yet good-natured girl from a wealthy family. As both women build lives for themselves in London, Thackeray decadently satirises the corruption and flaws of 19th-Century English Society.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbours.' An epic study of provincial life at a time when England was facing rapid industrialization and increasingly fluid social mobility, Eliot's depiction of the small community of Middlemarch weaves an intricate web of different characters disparate lives as they strive to adapt to the changing world around them. Eliot was one of the first of her female contemporaries to write a novel that dealt with real-life issues and complex yet ordinary human life.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity.' Following one soldier's journey from naive recruit to hardened survivor, The Red Badge of Courage is a vivid and powerfully psychological take on the American Civil War. Fighting for the Union army, Henry Fleming is thrown into a bloody war where the harsh realities and horrors of battle quickly become evident. Fearful, occasionally vain, but always viewing the war with honest eyes, Henry eventually comes to thrive as a soldier in combat, and it is with a new conscience and outlook that he matures into manhood.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. '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 with a narrative woven together from multiple characters, Wilkie Collins partly based his infamous novel on a real-life eighteenth century case of abduction and wrongful imprisonment. In 1859, the story caused a sensation with its readers, hooking their attention with the ghostly first scene where the mysterious 'Woman in White' Anne Catherick comes across Walter Hartright. Chilling, suspenseful and tense in mood, the novel remains as emotive for its readers today as when it was first published.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.' Including some of Oscar Wilde's most well-known and infamous plays, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, this collection of the infamous writer's works displays his brilliant, quick wit to its full glory. Wilde's pithy social comedies dissect the morals and idiosyncrasies of society in the 1890s and offer a view of the sexual politics of the time.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods.' 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. Forced to question the idea of the Creator, mid-nineteenth century readers were faced with Darwin's theories on the laws of natural selection and the randomness of evolution, causing massive controversy at the time. However, Darwin's theories remain instrumental in providing the backbone to modern biology today.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'The wolf thought to himself, «What a tender young creature! what a nice plump mouthful — she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to catch both.»' Collected by the German Grimm brothers, these folk tales have captured the imaginations of children and adults alike since they were first published in 1812. The best-known stories such as The Golden Goose, Hansel and Gretel, The Frog Prince, and Snow-White and Rose-Red remain as popular today as when first told, although there is an underlying darkness and violence to the original stories that has softened over time.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.' When Margaret Hale is uprooted from Hampshire and moves to the industrial town of Milton in the North of England, her whole world changes. As her sympathy for the town's mill workers grows, her sense of social injustice piques and she passionately fights their corner. However, just as she disputes the mill owner, John Thornton's treatment of his workers, she cannot deny her growing attraction to him. Highlighting the changing landscape of nineteenth-century Britain and championing the role of women in Victorian society, Gaskell brilliantly captures the lives of ordinary people through one of her strongest female characters in literature.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'One thing is certain, — that there is a mustering among the masses, the world over; and there is a dis irae coming on, sooner or later.' Viewed by many as fuelling the abolitionist movement of the 1850s and laying the groundwork for the Civil War, Harriet Beecher Stowe's sentimental and moral tale of slaves attempting to secure their freedom was one of the most popular books of the nineteenth century. Centred round the long-suffering Uncle Tom, a devout Christian slave who endures cruelty and abuse from his owners, Tom is often celebrated as the first black hero in American fiction who refuses to obey his white masters. With other strong protagonists such as Eliza, a courageous slave who flees to the North with her son when she learns that he is to be sold, Beecher Stowe highlighted the plight of southern slaves and the breaking up of black families. Not without its controversy, more recent criticism has suggested that the novel contributed negatively to the stereotyping of the black community.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.' A timeless and celebrated children's classic, Grahame's The Wind in the Willows has delighted for nearly 100 years. In the idyllic English countryside, Mole, Badger, Rat and Toad encounter adventure at every turn — whether it's gipsy caravans, Rat's love for the river, or Toads passion for motorcars, the loveable friends and their escapades continue to delight children and adults alike.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.' Isabel Archer is a beautiful, intelligent and independent young woman. Brought from America to England by her wealthy Aunt who seeks to further her education and find her niece a husband, Isabel is determined to shape her own future — one that does not necessarily entail becoming a wife. Isabel inherits a fortune when her rich uncle dies and feels even more inclined to turn down two eligible suitors on the basis that she is a woman of her own means. However, a trip to Italy heralds her downfall when she meets the charming Gilbert Osmond, a worthless, yet ambitious and scheming dilettante.

Another deliciously seasonal and heart-warming tale from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Twelve Days of Christmas and Chocolate Wishes. In the pretty Lancashire village of Middlemoss, Lizzy is on the verge of leaving her cheating husband, Tom, when tragedy strikes. Luckily she has welcome distraction in the Christmas Pudding Circle, a group of friends swapping seasonal recipes — as well as a rivalry with local cookery writer Nick over who will win Best Mince Pie at the village show! Meanwhile, the whole village is gearing up for the annual Boxing Day Mystery Play. But who will play Adam to Lizzy's Eve? Could it be the handsome and charismatic soap actor Ritch, or could someone closer to home win her heart? Whatever happens, it promises to be a Christmas to remember! Previously published as Sweet Nothings, Trisha has extensively reworked the original novel with fabulous new extra material.

Meet teen Carrie Bradshaw before «Sex and the City» in the first of two novels based on the formative experiences of New York’s ultimate fashionista and star of «Sex and the City». The Carrie Diaries is the coming-of-age story of one of the most iconic characters of our generation. Before Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw was a small town girl who knew she wanted more. She's ready for real life to start, but first she must navigate her senior year of high school. Up until now, Carrie and her friends have been inseparable. Then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture, and a friend's betrayal makes her question everything. With an unforgettable cast of characters, The Carrie Diaries is the story of how a regular girl learns to think for herself, and evolves into a sharp, insightful writer. Readers will learn about her family background, how she found her writing voice, and the indelible impression her early friendships and relationships left on her. Through adventures both audacious and poignant, we'll see what brings Carrie to her beloved New York City, where her new life begins.

How does language work? How do we learn to speak? Why do languages change? Why do they have so many quirks? What does language reveal about the mind? Steven Pinker explores the mysteries of language in this original and hugely entertaining book. Pinker uses a deceptively simple phenomenon — regular and irregular verbs — to illuminate an astonishing array of topics: the history of languages, what we can learn from children's grammatical mistakes, the genetic and neurobiological underpinnings of language, and some of the major themes in Western philosophy. The key idea — that language comprises a mental dictionary of memorized words and a mental grammar of creative rules — extends beyond language, offering insight into the nature of thinking. For fans of «The Language Instinct» and «The Stuff of Thought» here is another cornucopia of ideas about language and mind.

Stefan Salvatore thought he could escape his violent origins by settling in the peaceful countryside of England, but when a heinous murderer named Jack the Ripper surfaces, Stefan fears darkness will always follow him. Drawn into the investigation, Stefan assumes that it's the work of a vampire, and the more he learns, the more he becomes convinced that the killer is someone close to him — and that he can never outrun his past.

Everyone knows Michael Jackson — the myth. This is the revealing true story of Michael Jackson — the man. To Frank Cascio, Michael Jackson was many things — second father, big brother, boss, mentor, and teacher, but most of all he was a friend. Though Cascio was just a few years old when he first met Jackson in 1984, at the peak of the pop star's career, Jackson was at the center of his life for the next twenty-five years, allowing Cascio to observe firsthand the greatest entertainer the world had ever seen. In that time, he became the ultimate Michael Jackson insider, yet remained publicly silent about his experiences. Until now. In «My Friend Michael», Cascio refutes the rumors, lies, and accusations that have accumulated over the years, providing a candid look at the Michael Jackson he knew for more than two decades. Offering an uplifting and definitive account of the legend, Cascio details how he grew up alongside Jackson, traveling the world with him on concert tours and eventually working for him. Through this lens, Cascio captures Jackson's most private and tumultuous moments, while also setting the record straight on the entertainer's notorious and misunderstood lifestyle — from his Peter Pan reality and his sexuality to the false allegations against him. As Cascio shows, there was a great deal more to Michael Jackson than the headlines about him have suggested. Cascio reveals his friend in all his complexity, bringing to light his passions and joys as well as his flaws and eccentricities. Including stories about Jackson that have never before been made public, Cascio creates a balanced, human look at the pop star, one that shows Jackson as the very real person he was — a lively friend with an endearingly juvenile sense of humor. What emerges is a clear-eyed yet deeply respectful portrait of Jackson — a man who was at times unremarkably average but also terribly scarred by his life in the spotlight. Packed with never-before-seen photos, anecdotes, and insights, «My Friend Michael» is a trove of Michael Jackson lore that both celebrates his life and redefines our understanding of the man behind the myth.