Historical Classics

Would you - could you? - uphold the law at the cost of those you love? Falcio val Mond, First Cantor of the Greatcoats, is on the brink of fulfilling his dead King's dream: Aline is about to take the throne and restore the rule of law once and for all. But for the Greatcoats, nothing is ever that simple.

One of the great classics of world literature and the inspiration for the most beloved stage musical of all time, Les Misérables is legendary author Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. This extraordinary English version by renowned translator Julie Rose captures all the majesty and brilliance of Hugo’s work. Here is the timeless story of the quintessential hunted man—Jean Valjean—and the injustices, violence, and social inequalities that torment him.

The great virtue of this volume is that it reveals a lighter, comic side of Sade. He was a man obsessed, like many great writers, and his obsessions are still present here: his hatred of all things pretentious, his loathing of a corrupt judicial system, his damning of hypocrisy and false piety. One of the great anarchists of all time, he was nevertheless far from mad (as many pretended) and these works of fiction shed another light on this most feverish of minds.

Pride and Prejudice has delighted generations of readers with its unforgettable cast of characters, carefully choreographed plot, and a hugely entertaining view of the world and its absurdities. With the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood, the lives of Mr and Mrs Bennet and their five daughters are turned inside out and upside down.

Jack Whyte has written a lyrical epic, retelling the myths behind the boy who would become the Man Who Would Be King - Arthur Pendragon. He has shown us, as Diana Gabaldon said, "the bone beneath the flesh of legend". In his last book in this series, we witnessed the young king pull the sword from the stone and begin his journey to greatness. Now we reach the tale itself - how the most shining court in history was made.

This first novel in The Deptford Trilogy introduces Ramsay, a man who returns from World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross but who is destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As we hear Ramsey tell his story, we begin to realize that, from childhood, he has influenced those around him in a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious way.

Beginning with The Skystone, the first in his riveting Camulod Chronicles, Jack Whyte has embarked on an ambitious and remarkable re-telling of the Arthurian cycle, giving us a fresh and compelling take on a story that has been beloved for centuries. The Eagle brings us at last to the heart of the tale, the creation of fabled Camelot and the love story that enshrined its glory. Whyte takes us into the minds and lives of Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, three astonishing but fallible people who were bound together by honor, loyalty, and love.

The Good Soldier Švejk, written shortly after the First World War, is one of the great antiwar satires - and one of the funniest books of the 20th (or any) century. In creating his eponymous hero, Jaroslav Hašek produced an unforgettable character who charms and infuriates and bamboozles his way through the conflagration that tore through the heart of Europe, upending empires and changing social history. It is the closing period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The assassination at Sarajevo has just occurred and armies are on the march.

For the first time as an Orbit special edition, Brent Weeks's blockbuster novella Perfect Shadow tells the origin story of the Night Angel trilogy's most enigmatic character: Durzo Blint. Gaelan Starfire is a farmer, happy to be a husband and a father; a careful, quiet, simple man. He's also an immortal, peerless in the arts of war. Over the centuries, he's worn many faces to hide his gift, but he is a man ill-fit for obscurity, and all too often he's become a hero, his very names passing into legend.

Margaret George's novel brings into focus the larger-than-life King Henry VIII, monarch of prodigious appetites for wine, women, and song.

Young nobleman d’Artagnan has arrived in Paris intent on joining the guardians of King Louis XIII. He befriends the regiment’s most formidable musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and together they unite in their commitment to uphold justice. Soon, a royal indiscretion thrusts them into an audacious escapade of courtly intrigue, thwarted romance, and daring rescue. But it’s the Machiavellian schemes of a powerful enemy and the wicked seductions of an ingenious female spy that will be their greatest challenges.

Redburn charts the coming-of-age of Wellingborough Redburn, a young innocent who embarks on a crossing to Liverpool together with a roguish crew. Once in Liverpool, Redburn encounters the squalid conditions of the city and meets Harry Bolton, a bereft and damaged soul, who takes him on a tour of London that includes a scene of rococo decadence unlike anything else in Melvilles fiction.

Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky.

Sharply observant and wickedly funny, E.F. Benson's six Mapp and Lucia novels satirize the upper-middle-class social climbers in 1920s and '30s rural England. Games of bridge and cups of tea fuel hilarious gossip and vindictive plots a-plenty. It is a masterfully sustained spotlight on the minutiae of village life - a clever and ultimately heartwarming series that seems tailor-made for audio. This second volume contains the second three books.

Her Majesty's ship Sutherland is a humdrum ship of the line. But in command is none other than the heroic Captain Hornblower and, with his crew from the Lydia, he looks set to take on commando raids, hurricanes at sea, and Napoleons's gun batteries.

Jamie MacFarlane has returned a hero from the Great War but with a stubborn chest wound. The government has sent him to their new thermal springs hospital in California "where it was hoped that the brilliant sunshine, the fruits, and the clean air, the eternal summer of a beneficent land" would heal him. But nothing has worked, and with his parents now deceased and no one to care for him, it seems the next step is a camp rife with tuberculosis. Realizing this, Jamie begins his great adventure on foot toward the ocean.

Plutarch’s Lives remains one of the world’s most profoundly influential literary works. Written at the beginning of the second century, it forms a brilliant social history of the ancient world. His “parallel lives” were originally presented in a series of books that gave an account of one Greek and one Roman life, followed by a comparison of the two. Volume 1 compares Theseus and Romulus, Alcibiades and Coriolanus, and Aristides and Marcus Cato, among others.

Accusé à tort de complot contre le roi, Edmond Dantès est enfermé dans la terrible prison du château d'If. Il s'y lie d'amitié avec un étrange prisonnier, l'abbé Faria. Avec son aide, Dantès parviendra-t-il à s'échapper et à se venger de ceux qui l'ont fait condamner ? Franck Desmedt met toute son énergie et son inventivité au service du chef-d’oeuvre d’Alexandre Dumas et sa galerie de personnages hauts en couleur.

One of Jane Austen's most popular novels. Arrogant, self-willed, and egotistical, Emma is her most unusual heroine.

This monumental work made the Arthurian cycle available for the first time in English. Arthur is conceived and taken away in secret, returning as a young man to claim the throne by pulling the sword Excalibur from the stone. In retelling the story of Arthur's rule of Britain, Malory intertwines the romances of Guinevere and Launcelot, Tristram and Isolde, and Launcelot and Elaine. Sir Galahad's appearance at Camelot begins the quest for the Holy Grail.