Books in Oxford Bookworms Library, Crime series

Who wants to live in a house, wear clean clothes, be good, and go to school every day? Not young Huckleberry Finn, that's for sure.So Huck runs away, and is soon floating down the great Mississippi River on a raft. With him is Jim, a black slave who is also running away. But life is not always easy for the two friends.And there's 300 dollars waiting for anyone who catches poor Jim...

It is 1880, in the Opera House in Paris. Everybody is talking about the Phantom of the Opera, the ghost that lives somewhere under the Opera House. The Phantom is a man in black clothes. He is a body without a head, he is a head without a body. He has a yellow face, he has no nose, he hasblack holes for eyes. Everybody is afraid of the Phantom - the singers, the dancers, the directors, the stage workers . . .But who has actually seen him?

'Soon I felt something alive moving along my leg and up my body to my face, and when I looked down, I saw a very small human being, only fifteen centimetres tall . . . I was so surprised that I gave a great shout.' But that is only the first of many surprises which Gulliver has on his travels. He visits a land of giants and a flying island, meets ghosts from the past and horses which talk . . .

In a gloomy, neglected house Miss Havisham sits, as she has sat year after year, in a wedding dress and veil that were once white, and are now faded and yellow with age. Her face is like a death's head; her dark eyes burn with bitterness and hate. By her side sits a proud and beautiful girl,and in front of her, trembling with fear in his thick country boots, stands young Pip.Miss Havisham stares at Pip coldly, and murmurs to the girl at her side: 'Break his heart, Estella. Break his heart!'

'The moment I first met you, I noticed your pride, your sense of superiority, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others. You are the last man in the world whom I could ever be persuaded to marry,' said Elizabeth Bennet.And so Elizabeth rejects the proud Mr Darcy. Can nothing overcome her prejudice against him? And what of the other Bennet girls - their fortunes, and misfortunes, in the business of getting husbands?This famous novel by Jane Austen is full of wise and humorous observation of the people and manners of her times.

'I turned on the light, but there was nobody there. Then I saw something in the corner that made my blood turn cold. Scudder was lying on his back. There was a long knife through his heart, pinning him to the floor.'Soon Richard Hannay is running for his life across the hills of Scotland. The police are chasing him for a murder he did not do, and another, more dangerous enemy is chasing him as well - the mysterious 'Black Stone'. Who are these people? And why do they want Hannay dead?

Christmas is humbug, Scrooge says - just a time when you find yourself a year older and not a penny richer. The only thing that matters to Scrooge is business, and making money.But on Christmas Eve three spirits come to visit him. They take him travelling on the wings of the night to see the shadows of Christmas past, present, and future - and Scrooge learns a lesson that he will never forget.

Richard Walton is in trouble again. He has lost his job, and he has borrowed money from his sister, Jennifer - again. And now he has disappeared. Jennifer is looking for him, and so are the police. They both have some questions that they want to ask him.(br /)How did he lose his job? Why didhe fly to Frankfurt? Who gave his girlfriend those very expensive gold ear-rings?(br /)Only Richard can answer these questions. But nobody can find Richard.

The room was on the fourth floor, and the door was locked - with the key on the inside. The windows were closed and fastened - on the inside. The chimney was too narrow for a cat to get through. So how did the murderer escape? And whose were the two angry voices heard by the neighbours as theyran up the stairs? Nobody in Paris could find any answers to this mystery.Except Auguste Dupin, who could see further and think more clearly than other people. The answers to the mystery were all there, but only a clever man could see them.

It is hay-making time on the Wookey farm. Two brothers are building the haystack, but thinking about other things - about young women, and love. There are angry words, and then a fight between the brothers. But the work goes on, visitors come and go, and the long hot summer day slowly turns toevening.Then the sun goes down, covering the world with a carpet of darkness. From the hedges around the hayfield comes the rich, sweet smell of wild flowers, and the hay will make a fine, soft bed . . .