War and Peace is a vast epic centred on Napoleon's war with Russia. While it expresses Tolstoy's view that history is an inexorable process which man cannot influence, he peoples his great novel with a cast of over five hundred characters.

Shirley is a woman of independent means; her friend Caroline is not. Both struggle with what a woman's role is and can be. Their male counterparts - Louis, the powerless tutor, and Robert, his cloth-manufacturing brother - also stand at odds to society's expectations.

A story of espionage and counter-espionage, and anarchists and embassies.

Set in Wessex countryside, this is a story of a young farmer Gabriel Oak and his love for and pursuit of the elusive Bathsheba Everdene, whose wayward nature leads her to both tragedy and true love.

Bram Stoker's chilling masterpiece, Dracula, is a truly iconic and unsettling tale of vampirism.

Describes the journey made as a wager by the Victorian gentleman Phileas Fogg, who succeeds - but only just - in circling the globe within eighty days. Fogg's obsession with his timetable is complemented by versatility of his French manservant, Passepartout, whose talent for getting into scrapes brings colour to the race against time.

Mary Lennox was horrid, selfish and spoilt, and was sent to stay with her uncle in Yorkshire. She hated it. But when she finds the entrance to a secret garden a change overcomes her. With a local boy and her cousin the three children work magic in themselves and those around them.

Flaubert's meticulous approach to the craft of fiction, his portrayal of contemporary reality, his representation of an unforgettable cast of characters make Madame Bovary one of the major landmarks of modern fiction.