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A black teacher from British Guiana describes how he overcame the hostility and prejudices of his students in a London slum school.

Originally published in 1954, this is the story of Jim Dixon, a young university instructor in England who had risen by a scholarship from a lower-middle-class background, only to find the more comfortable perches still occupied by the well-born.

East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England's brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha's husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won't come to anything. And Agatha has more immediate...

"Regency era dancing master Alec Valcourt wants to bring new life to the sleepy little village of Beaworthy in remote Devonshire--and to one young woman's restless heart"--

When a killer who stalks crime writers murders her boyfriend, a prominent author, Professor Fiona Cameron is on the case, using her computer knowledge to hunt him down.

Generally considered the first English sensation novel, The Woman in White features the remarkable heroine Marian Halcombe and her sleuthing partner, drawing master Walter Hartright, pitted against the diabolical team of Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde. A gripping tale of murder, intrigue, madness, and mistaken identity, Collins's psychological thriller has never been out of print in the 140 years since its publication.

"Londoner Madeleine Grant is studying at the Sorbonne in Paris when she marries charismatic French journalist Giles Martin. As they raise their son, Olivier, they hold on to a tenuous promise for the future. Until the thunder of war sets off alarms in France. Staying behind to join the resistance, Giles sends Madeleine and Olivier to the relative safety of England, where Madeleine secures a job teaching French at a secondary school. Yet nowhere is...

Ah, it's an academic conference, with all the egos, the scandals, the terrifyingly petty squabbles on display. Well….perhaps not so petty. Professor Andrew Basnett has returned to his old university for a meeting of the Botanical Association, an event that should be entirely benign, except that he can't help being just a little curious about Carl Judd, an artist who was murdered here just two years ago. And, of course, about Stephen Sharland, who's...

Plans for peaceful seaside holidays rarely work out well in the world of classic British mysteries. Retired professor Andrew Basnett, for example, envisioning sandcastles and the blessings of a pale English sun on his pale English skin, is startled to meet his nephew, Peter, on the beach. He's more startled (and not entirely thrilled) when Peter gets him invited to dinner with a celebrity novelist. And he's extremely startled when the novelist's sister-in-law...

A portrait of the author of "Alice in Wonderland" analyzes contradictory aspects of his character, tapping recently discovered sources to set Carroll's life in the context of Victorian England, and assesses his financial difficulties and his relationship with the real Alice.