Charlotte Bronte

Although the Brontës have long fascinated readers of fiction and biography, their poetry was all too little known until this pioneering selection by Stevie Davies, the novelist and critic. Meer

With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster and her complex feelings, first for school's English doctor and then for dictatorial professor. Meer

Contains five novelettes that include a cast ranging from the ageing rake Northangerland and his Byronic son-in-law Zamorna, King of Angria, to Mary Percy, Zamorna's lovesick wife, and Charles Townshend, the cynical, gossipy narrator. Meer

Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage. Meer