The Powerful Punch of Poetry
In poetic form, ideas and feelings pack a powerful punch. Discover the great bards starting with Keats, Graves, Coleridge and more...

The Icelandic Sagas
Not just good stories, the Icelandic Sagas are important historical documents. Hallgimur Helgason discusses their significance.

Double Takes: Children's Classics
In a re-reading of The Secret Garden, A Little Princess and Pinocchio, Kate Kellaway takes a look at the magical world of children's classics.

Freud in Penguin Modern Classics
To celebrate the publication of Freud in Penguin Modern Classics, Lisa Appignanesi looks at why Freud is still a vivid presence in the 21st century.

Autobiographies by Charles Darwin
Sharon Messenger discusses the memoirs of one of the greatest figures of nineteenth-century science.

Women Who Did by Angelique Richardson
Angelique Richardson explores the New Woman, and the controversy that she provoked.

Modernizing Shakespeare by David Crystal
To modernize or not to modernize? David Crystal, author of Shakespeare's Words, addresses this controversial question.
Click here to view extracts from Shakespeare's Words.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jeykll and Mr Hyde
Robert Mighall seeks out Mr. Hyde.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Laurie R. King looks at the life and influences of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Anna Karenina
Lisa Appignanesi on 'the greatness of Tolstoy's art' and on what makes Anna Karenina a masterpiece.

Chaucer
Helen Cooper takes us through the Chaucerian calendar. Plus: Q&A session on The Canterbury Tales with actor, playwright producer and director Martin Starkie.

de Nerval
Hieronymo's Mad Againe: Richard Sieburth on Translating Nerval.

Emile Zola
Elaine Showalter discusses Zola and the department store: 'the site of a new feminine religion'.

Emma Bovary
The Real Emma Bovary: Geoffrey Wall deconstructs the nineteenth-century tragic heroine.

Frances Burney
Claire Harman on the extraordinary life of Fanny Burney

William Hazlitt
Tom Paulin on Hazlitt, 'one of the sturdiest, most plain-spoken critics and artists'.

Henry James
Philip Horne on masks and masquerades in the work of Henry James.

Edward Lear
Jackie Wullschlager looks at the lives of Lear, the Owl and the Pussycat and what became of them.

George Orwell
A selection of Orwell Titles.

Mary Prince
Fred D'Aguair looks at the moral world invoked by the slave narrative of Mary Prince.

Remembrance Day
Take some time to reflect on the wages of war with classics by poets, journalists and novelists.

Christina Rossetti
Jan Marsh discusses the works and relationships of the Pre-Raphaelite.

George Bernard Shaw
Joley Wood on the paradoxes of George Bernard Shaw.

Travel Writing
Emily Perkins takes you on a journey through the best travel literature.

Valentine's Reads
Explore the vagaries of the human heart in our roundup of classic love stories.

Wilde Thing
Robert Mighall on the wit, morality and enduring appeal of the works of Oscar Wilde.