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In this ancient picaresque adventure, Lucius, an insatiably curious young man, finds himself transformed into a donkey after his fascination with black magic and witchcraft goes awry. While trapped in his new body, he becomes the property of thieves, farmers, cooks, soldiers and priests, and observes the hypocrisy and ineptitude of Imperial Roman society.

Gogol's great comic masterpiece paints an hilariously satirical picture of provincial life in 19th century Russia. Its publication in 1847 not only provided inspiration for succeeding generations of Russian writers, but fanned the already flickering flames of social discontent which were eventually to flare up and consume Russia in the revolution of 1917.

The Way We Live Now is a complex and compulsive tale that traces the career of Augustus Melmotte, a strange and mysterious financier who bursts into London society like a guided missile. In setting up a dubious scheme based on speculative money and stock market gambles, Melmotte manages to lure in several members of the English aristocracy, for whom money is the summum bonum. The world is at his feet - until the corruption catches up with him.

Shamela is a bawdy, spirited, and hilarious response to Samuel Richardson's hugely popular 1740 novel, Pamela. In this pointed satire, Shamela (which transpires to be the real name of Richardson's Pamela) reveals the ulterior motives behind the events that took place in Pamela. Shamela is unlike the virtuous young lady portrayed in Richardson's novel and she takes command of her master, Squire Booby. Our heroine has planned it all out from the start and she is determined to entrap her master into marriage.

Michael Henchard, drunk at a country fair, sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas. The following day, in despair and remorse, he forswears alcohol and sets out to redeem himself. In time, he becomes a respected merchant and eventually the mayor of the town. But Fate is not to be so easily appeased, and Henchard finds his past actions resonate through and destroy his plans for the future.

Tobias Smollett, in his creation of the Scot Roderick Random, exposes the sheer incompetence and injustice of the Royal Navy, as well as the snobbery and hypocrisy prevalent in English middle-class society at the time. Set in the mid-18th century, this picaresque novel follows the life and adventures of Roderick, the eponymous hero who has been shunned by his gentleman father's family on the basis of the lowliness of his mother's family.

Petronius’ Satyricon is a rampant and vivacious Roman adventure dating back to the first century, during the reign of Nero. It follows the exploits of Encolpius, an impoverished ex-gladiator, and his boy-lover Giton. The action is fleet and the narrative sweeping: over the course of their journey we meet a host of lewd and comical rogues, including beggars, prostitutes, poets, sodomites, and pedants, and witness many strange and curious events, including a remarkably vulgar multi-course feast, hosted by the pompous nouveau riche Trimalchio

Rescued from a poverty-stricken mountain life, Charity Royall lives as ward to Lawyer Royall in the small New England town of North Dormer. However, Charity is bored by her job at the local library and feels thwarted by the order that governs her society–until a young man named Lucius Harney plucks her from the drabness of North Dormer life.

In her landmark Pilgrimage , Dorothy Richardson pioneered the English 'stream of consciousness'. Echoing the style of Marcel Proust, and predating the work of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, she created an intimate narrative on an epic scale. Across 13 novels – which she considered to be 'chapters' – she details the thoughts and experiences of Miriam Henderson, exploring her journey towards creative independence and revealing feminine consciousness in unprecedented depth. In Volume 2 (containing The Tunnel and Interim ), Miriam – alone in London – works by day and walks by night.

At a party in the Hollywood Hills, Stephen Monk finds his wife in the arms of another man. Betrayed and furious, he packs his belongings and returns to the home in which he was born. There he begins to retrace the steps that have brought him to this crisis. He is reminded of his own betrayals and weaknesses. The memory of his lost love, Elizabeth Rydal, haunts him. Can he forgive his wife, and, most importantly, himself? Isherwood's poignant novel, set against the backdrop of war and exile, is encapsulated here by Adam Sims, with Lucy Scott as the voice of Elizabeth.

The First World War is over. Eric Vernon is on the cusp of adulthood. Tall, bony and awkward, he finds himself torn between a desire to emulate his heroic father, who led a life of quiet sacrifice, and resentment toward his father’s roguish friend Edward Blake, who survived the war only to throw himself into gay life in Berlin.

Published in 1896, A Child of the Jago is a gritty and realistic portrayal of life in the slums of London’s East End during the late 19th century. The novel is set in an area known as the Old Jago (based on a real-life slum called the Old Nichol) and vividly describes the poverty, crime and squalor that characterised the impoverished neighbourhood.

Heyst’s aim to live a solitary existence is cut short when he meets an enchanting English violinist named Lena and brings her back to his island, rescuing her from her predatory patron Schomberg. Together they create a haven and Lena reawakens Heyst’s passion for life, but the world soon breaks in on them as Schomberg exacts his revenge.

Banned by the Nazis, the haunting novel At the Edge of the Night (Am Rande der Nacht), by the German writer Friedo Lampe, is a work of magic realism. This poignant book, beautifully translated by Simon Beattie, was, in Lampe’s own words, ‘born into a regime where it could not breathe’; he hoped that one day it might rise again. It evokes the sensations and impressions of a sultry September evening on the waterfront of Bremen, with its charm and tenderness, squalor and lust.

A new pupil, Augustin Meaulnes, arrives at a rural school, and his bravado and charisma make an immediate impact on all those around him, including the 15-year-old François Seurel. The newcomer suddenly disappears for several days, during which time he stumbles across a mysterious manor house, which is home to a beautiful girl, Yvonne de Galais. After returning, ‘Le Grand Meaulnes’ embarks on a search to find again the lost manor and the happiness he found there.

A blistering rebuke of religious hypocrisy, Elmer Gantry is the story of a charismatic and manipulative social climber who rises to power within his church, despite his insincerity. Though he preaches against immorality and temptation, Reverend Dr Elmer Gantry can’t seem to give up his own vices, and he leaves a trail of broken people behind him in his pursuit of pleasure and power, betraying anybody and doing anything to get ahead.

Elizabeth von Arnim, who is best known for her later novel The Enchanted April, married a Prussian aristocrat and, with their five children, lived in Nassenheide, Pomerania. Elizabeth and Her German Garden is a semi-autobiographical novel about the joy that the protagonist finds in the delights of her Pomeranian garden, which provides relief from the stifling environment of her household. The novel was originally published anonymously because von Arnim feared that her husband, whom she satirised in the book, would disapprove.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989, Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education is a semi-autobiographical novel that tells the story of Billi, a girl growing up in Europe between the two World Wars. Upon the death of her German baron father, Billi moves from the family château to live with her vibrant and erratic English mother on the French Riviera. From there she is sent for schooling in England, where she lives an itinerant life, boarding among a bohemian crowd, attending galleries and public lectures, and reading some of the greatest books of the era.

An unsettling tale of plague, drift and terror, The Shadow-Line documents a young seaman’s coming of age after he is recruited to captain a ship for the first time. Bad luck and disease haunt the inexperienced hero and his crew, and the evil legacy of the previous captain overshadows them with a feeling of supernatural menace.

Blending fact and fiction, this trilogy by a very young Tolstoy centres on the inner life of Nikolai as he navigates the universal challenge of growing up. In relating his thoughts and feelings, his self-awareness and embarrassing mistakes, the work is timeless: regardless of era, location and environment, we are given an unvarnished portrait of one boy—both self-important and self-deprecating—as he tries to find his place in the world. The sense of nostalgia, with its strange blend of sadness and solace, is tangible as the years pass and the child becomes a young man.