Books in Immortal Classics series

Jude the Obscure, the last completed of Thomas Hardy's novels, began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895. The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, who lives in a village in southern England, who yearns to be a scholar at "Christminster", a city modelled on Oxford. As a youth, Jude teaches himself Classical Greek and Latin in his spare time, while working first in his great-aunt's bakery, with the hope of entering university. But before he can try to do this the naïve Jude is seduced by Arabella Donn, a rather coarse and superficial local girl who traps him into marriage by pretending to be pregnant. The marriage is a failure, and they separate by mutual agreement, and Arabella later emigrates to Australia, where she enters into a bigamous marriage. After Arabella leaves him, Jude moves to Christminster and supports himself as a mason while studying alone, hoping to be able to enter the university later. There, he meets and falls in love with his free-spirited cousin, Sue Bridehead. Called "Jude the Obscene" by at least one reviewer, the novel received a harsh reception from some critics. So hard did Thomas Hardy - who had put much of himself into the novel - take the criticism that he never wrote another novel. Jude the Obscure has been adapted for the screen twice and also made the framework of a musical.

Often being mentioned as one of the funniest books ever written in English, in Jerome K. Jerome's classic comedy novel, Three Men in a Boat, three friends decide they are suffering from "overwork" and need a holiday. They decide to take a boating holiday up the River Thames and encounter numerous humorous incidents. Three Men in a Boat is one of those rare classics that seems to come, as it were, out of nowhere, and to defy the odds. On publication, the reviews ranged from the vitriolic to the merely hostile. The use of slang was condemned as "vulgar" and the book as a whole abused as a shameless appeal to 'Arrys and 'Arriets – sneering critical terms for working-class Londoners. The magazine Punch dubbed Jerome K. Jerome 'Arry K. 'Arry. But the public did not care and Jerome sold more than 200.000 copies of the first edition – an almost unfathomable number for a book. His publisher told a friend: "I pay Jerome so much in royalties, I cannot imagine what becomes of all the copies of that book I issue. I often think the public must eat them." Such was its success that the number of boats on the Thames increased by 50% the two years after its publication. It has never been out of print since.

Nicholas Nickleby is Charles Dickens' third published novel. Like many of Dickens' works, the novel has a contemporary setting. Much of the action takes place in London, with several chapters taking place in Dickens' birthplace of Portsmouth, as well as settings in Yorkshire and Devon. The tone of the work is that of ironic social satire, with Dickens taking aim at what he perceives to be social injustices. Many memorable characters are introduced, including Nicholas' malevolent Uncle Ralph, and the villainous Wackford Squeers, who operates an abusive all-boys boarding school at which Nicholas temporarily serves as a tutor. Hoping to provide support for his mother and sister after the death of his father Nicholas turns to his uncle Ralph for assistance. Ralph wants nothing to do with his late brother's family and feigns to help Nicholas by securing a position as assistant master at the Dotheboys Hall school in Yorkshire run by unscrupulous Squeers. The novel has been highly praised by critics and Peter Ackroyd, in his biography Dickens, says that Nicholas Nickleby is "perhaps the funniest novel in the English language." It has been adapted for stage - and for film or TV at least seven times.

Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by English author George Eliot, first published in eight volumes during 1871–2. The novel is set in the fictitious Midlands town of Middlemarch during 1829–32, and it comprises several distinct (though intersecting) stories and a large cast of elaborately depicted characters. Significant themes include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Although containing comical elements, Middlemarch is a work of realism that refers to many historical events: the 1832 Reform Act, the beginnings of the railways, the death of King George III, and the succession of his brother, the Duke of Clarence (the future King William IV). In addition, the work incorporates contemporary medical science and examines the deeply reactionary mind-set found within a settled community facing the prospect of unwelcome change. Middlemarch it is now widely regarded as her best work and one of the greatest novels in English.

Little Dorrit is a novel by Charles Dickens, that was originally published as a serial between 1855 and 1857. It satirizes the shortcomings of both government and society, including the institution of debtors' prisons, where debtors were imprisoned, unable to work, until they repaid their debts. The prison in this case is the Marshalsea, where Dickens's own father had been imprisoned. Dickens is also critical of the lack of a social safety net, the treatment and safety of industrial workers, as well the bureaucracy of the British Treasury, in the form of his fictional "Circumlocution Office". In addition he satirises the stratification of society that results from the British class system. Like much of Dickens' later fiction, this novel has seen many reversals of critical fortune. It has been shown to be a critique of HM Treasury and the blunders that led to the loss of life of 360 British soldiers at the Battle of Balaclava. Imprisonment – both literal and figurative – is a major theme of the novel, with Clennam and the Meagles quarantined in Marseilles, Rigaud jailed for murder, Mrs. Clennam confined to her house, the Dorrits imprisoned in the Marshalsea, and most of the characters trapped within the rigidly defined English social class structure of the time. Tchaikovsky, a voracious reader and theatre-goer when he was not composing, was entranced by the book. Little Dorrit has been adapted for the screen five times, latest as a much-acclaimed star-packed TV-series, which aired on the BBC in 2008.

After a family disaster, the protagonist Lucy Snowe decides to travel from England to the fictional French-speaking city of Villette to teach at a girls' school, where she is drawn into adventure and romance. Villette was Charlotte Brontë's fourth novel. In 1842 Charlotte Brontë, at the age of 26, travelled to Brussels, Belgium, with her sister Emily. There they enrolled in a boarding school run by M. and Mme. Constantin Héger. In return for board and tuition, Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music. The sisters' time at the pensionnat was cut short when their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, died in October 1842. Charlotte returned, alone, to Brussels in January 1843 to take up a teaching post at the pensionnat. Her second stay in Brussels was not a happy one. She became lonely and homesick, and fell in love with M. Héger, a married man. She finally returned to her family's rectory in Haworth, England, in January 1844. Villette is based on Charlotte’s own experiences and can be read as partly autobiographic. George Eliot wrote that: "Villette is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power."

The Pickwick Papers is Charles Dickens first novel, written as a serial and published in book form in 1837. The novel's main character, Samuel Pickwick, Esquire, is a kind and wealthy old gentleman, and the founder and perpetual president of the Pickwick Club. To extend his researches into the quaint and curious phenomena of life, he suggests that he and three other "Pickwickians" (Mr Nathaniel Winkle, Mr Augustus Snodgrass, and Mr Tracy Tupman) should make journeys to places remote from London and report on their findings to the other members of the club. Their travels throughout the English countryside by coach provide the chief theme of the novel. A distinctive and valuable feature of the work is the generally accurate description of the old coaching inns of England. Its main literary value and appeal is formed by its numerous memorable and often comical characters. Each character in The Pickwick Papers, as in many other Dickens novels, is drawn comically, often with exaggerated personality traits. Alfred Jingle, who joins the cast in chapter two, provides an aura of comic villainy. His devious tricks repeatedly land the Pickwickians in trouble. These include Jingle's nearly-successful attempted elopement with the spinster Rachael Wardle of Dingley Dell manor, misadventures with Dr Slammer, and others. Further humour is provided when the comic cockney Sam Weller makes his advent. The relationship between the idealistic and unworldly Pickwick and the astute cockney Weller has been likened to that between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) describes the love triangle of a young and very beautiful woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds. Stephen Smith is a socially inferior but ambitious young man who adores her and with whom she shares a country background. Henry Knight is the respectable, established, older man who represents London society. Although the two are friends, Knight is not aware of Smith's previous liaison with Elfride. Elfride finds herself caught in a battle between her heart, her mind and the expectations of those around her – her parents and society. When Elfride's father finds that his guest and candidate for his daughter's hand, architect's assistant Stephen Smith, is the son of a mason, he immediately orders him to leave. Knight, who is a relative of Elfride's stepmother, is later on the point of seeking to marry Elfride, but ultimately rejects her when he learns she had been previously courted. Elfride, out of desperation, marries a third man, Lord Luxellian. The conclusion finds both suitors travelling together to Elfride, both intent on claiming her hand, but both are about to get a huge surprise. A great Thomas Hardy novel.

Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. It follows the adventures of a nameless hidalgo who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his sanity and decides to set out to revive chivalry, undo wrongs, and bring justice to the world, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Together they experience many adventures including the very famous but failed attack on a windmill. This unabridged edition is based on John Ormsby highly acclaimed English translation of the work.

The Way We Live Now is a satirical novel by Anthony Trollope, published in London in 1875 after first appearing in serialised form. It is one of the last significant Victorian novels to have been published in monthly parts. It was Trollope's longest novel, and is particularly rich in sub-plot. It was inspired by the financial scandals of the early 1870s; Trollope had just returned to England from abroad, and was appalled by the greed and dishonesty those scandals exposed. This novel was his rebuke. It dramatises how that greed and dishonesty pervaded the commercial, political, moral, and intellectual life of that era. Augustus Melmotte is a financier with a mysterious past. He is rumoured to have Jewish origins, and is rumored to be connected to some failed businesses in Vienna. When he moves his business and his family to London, the city's upper crust begins buzzing with rumours about him — and a host of characters ultimately find their lives changed because of him.

When Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary she imagines she will pass into the life of luxury and passion that she reads about in sentimental novels and women's magazines. But Charles is a dull and awkward country doctor, and provincial life is very different from the romantic excitement for which she yearns. In her quest to realize her dreams she takes a lover, and begins a devastating spiral into deceit and despair. When it was first published, the novel was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors. The resulting trial, held in January 1857, made the story notorious. The novel is now considered Flaubert's masterpiece, as well as a seminal work of realism and one of the most influential novels ever written.

The Professor was the first novel by Charlotte Brontë. It was originally written before Jane Eyre and rejected by many publishing houses, but was eventually published posthumously in 1857. The book is the story of a young man, William Crimsworth, and is a first-person narrative from his perspective. It describes his maturation, his loves and his eventual career as a professor at an all-girls school. The story starts off with a letter William has sent to his friend Charles, detailing his refusal to his uncle's proposals to become a clergyman, as well as his first meeting with his rich brother Edward. Seeking work as a tradesman, William is offered the position of a clerk by Edward. However, Edward is jealous of William's education and intelligence and treats him terribly. By the actions of the sympathetic Mr. Hunsden, William is relieved of his position and gains a new job at an all-boys boarding school in Belgium. The novel is based upon Charlotte Brontë's experiences in Brussels, where she studied as a language student and was a teacher in 1842.