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  Lady Audley's Secret - An...

  James Harvey

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  A golden-haired angel. A grieving husband. A mansion full of dark secrets. 
  When the youthful and penniless governess Lucy Graham captures the heart of the wealthy Sir Michael Audley, she seems to be the very picture of innocence and devotion. Blessed with enchanting beauty and a sunshiny disposition, Lady Audley quickly becomes the beloved darling of Essex county. But behind her delicate, fairy-like façade lies a cold, calculating mind and a past completely shrouded in mystery. 
  Meanwhile, half a world away, a desperate young husband strikes gold in the Australian outback. George Talboys returns to England with a fortune, desperate to reunite with the beloved wife he abandoned years prior to seek a better life. Instead, his arrival is met with a devastating newspaper notice and a freshly dug grave in Ventnor. 
  As George's loyal friend, the apathetic but sharp-minded barrister Robert Audley, is reluctantly drawn into the grieving man's tragic affairs, an eerie convergence of events begins to unfold. What ties a wealthy baronet's new bride to a dead woman's empty past? And what is hidden in the secret drawer of my lady's jewel-box? 
  In this classic tale of sensation and suspense, James Harvey crafts a masterclass in psychological tension. Lady Audley's Secret peels back the opulent velvet curtains of Victorian high society to reveal a chilling labyrinth of bigamy, betrayal, and buried sins. Will the truth come to light, or will the darkness of Audley Court consume them all?

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  The Castle

  Franz Kafka

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  The haunting classic about hope, fear and absurdity - Franz Kafka's The Castle is an expressionistic masterpiece. 
   
  An imposing castle looms over a village and no one seems to be allowed inside...not even K., the Land Surveyor whose livelihood depends on getting inside. Though never completed due to Kafka's untimely death, The Castle paints a striking image of absurdity and the nature of existence itself.

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  The Flying Inn - A Novel

  G. K. Chesterton

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  'Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.'
  
  First published in 1914 and packed with humour and political critique, The Flying Inn is a glowing celebration of freedom, and remains one of G.K. Chesterton's most spirited works in his corpus.
  
  A satirical adventure novel, The Flying Inn is set in a quirky, dystopian England in which a new puritanical government has outlawed alcohol and other traditional English customs. Enter Humphrey Pump and his spirited friend Captain Patrick Dalroy, who take it upon themselves to supply what the government refuses. Taking to the countryside with a cart and barrel of rum, Pump and Dalroy create a 'flying inn' which travels with them. As they dodge the authorities, take advantage of legal loopholes and rally the common people, the story becomes a rocking rebellion against bureaucracy, celebrating merriment, individual liberty and the enduring soul of England. Witty and packed with political critique, The Flying Inn is Chesterton at his finest.
  Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 – 1936) was an English novelist, philosopher, journalist and critic. A Christian apologist, he is famed for creating the fictional priest-detective Father Brown. His writing was also renowned for his sense of humour: known as 'the prince of paradox', Chesterton often turned common sayings upside down. Admired by several of his literary contemporaries, Chesterton's work is still widely read today.

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  Emma

  JANE AUSTEN

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  Albeit that she is not yet 21, Emma Woodhouse foresees a future as a spinster dabbling in matchmaking. Charming and infuriating, she almost ruins the marriage prospects of Harriet Smith, her protégée, after misguidedly attempting to match Harriet with the local rector, who is in fact in search of a wealthy wife. Reprimanded by her friend, George Knightly, and misled by Frank Crawford, whom she saw as a potential suitor, Emma learns some valuable lessons in humility and about love and marriage.

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  The Lesson - From their pens to...

  Jerome K. Jerome

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  Jerome Klapka Jerome was born on the 2nd May 1859 at Belsize House in Caldmore, Walsall, England. 
  His family were reduced to poverty whilst he was a toddler owning to failed investments in the local mining industry. 
  After several moves in declining circumstances Jerome became a pupil at St Marylebone Grammar School.  His aim then was to go into politics, or even become a man of letters, but with the death of his father, when he was thirteen, and his mother two years later, now meant that he had to support himself and leave all thoughts of education behind. 
  He spent four years working for the London and North Western Railway, initially collecting coal that fell along the railway lines.  Thereafter, using the name Harold Crichton, he tried his hand at acting but the repertory company he joined was stretched in its resources and, at times, relied on the actors to purchase their own props and costumes.  After three years he tried journalism, teaching and work as a solicitor’s clerk.  All came to nothing.  Finally, in 1885, he had some success with ‘On the Stage―and Off’, a comic memoir collection of his stage experiences and his early attempts at acting.  
  Shortly thereafter he married and his honeymoon on the Thames became the inspiration for ‘Three Men in a Boat’.  This of course was a wild success, both critically and commercially, but also his creative high point.  
  Although he was now able to write full time, he was never able to attain all the heights of that classic humorous novel.  He remained a prolific writer of novels, plays and short stories and its from those classic works that these stories have been mined. 
  Jerome K Jerome died in Northampton General Hospital on the 14th June 1927 two weeks after suffering a paralytic stroke and a cerebral haemorrhage on a motoring tour.  He was 68.

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  A Country Doctor

  Franz Kafka

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  Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was a German-language writer from Prague whose works became some of the most influential in modern literature. Born on July 3, 1883, in Prague—then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire—Kafka grew up in a middle-class Jewish family. His father, Hermann Kafka, was a successful but domineering businessman, and their strained relationship deeply affected Kafka's emotional life and later writing.    Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague and earned a doctorate in 1906. After completing his studies, he worked for an insurance company, a job he found exhausting but stable. Much of his writing was done late at night, often in isolation. Despite his talent, Kafka published only a small number of works during his lifetime and remained relatively unknown to the broader public.    His fiction is characterized by surreal situations, oppressive bureaucracies, and feelings of alienation, guilt, and anxiety—elements that later gave rise to the term "Kafkaesque." Among his most famous works are The Metamorphosis (1915), in which a man wakes up transformed into a giant insect; The Trial, a novel about a man arrested and prosecuted by a mysterious authority; and The Castle, which depicts a protagonist struggling to access an unreachable system of power. These works explore themes of powerlessness, identity, and the absurdity of modern life.    Kafka suffered from poor health for much of his adult life and was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1917. As the disease worsened, he spent time in sanatoriums across Europe. He died on June 3, 1924, at the age of 40 in Kierling, near Vienna.    Before his death, Kafka asked his close friend and literary executor, Max Brod, to destroy his unpublished manuscripts. Brod famously ignored this request and instead edited and published many of Kafka's works after his death, including The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika. Thanks to Brod's decision, Kafka's writings reached a global audience and became central to twentieth-century literature.    Today, Franz Kafka is regarded as one of the most important writers of modernism. His exploration of alienation, authority, and existential uncertainty continues to influence literature, philosophy, and culture worldwide.

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