Daddy's Gone A-Hunting, a 1958 novel by Penelope Mortimer, is about the expectations of women, about a house-bound mother reluctantly (desperately) at home all day, in contrast to her daughter who has escaped, to university and then, we can assume, to a job.'The book came out at a time,' writes Valerie Grove in the Preface, 'when the impact of the new wave of feminism, which would change everything under the banner of women's liberation, had not yet arrive...

Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda. When he wins the pools he buys a remote Sussex house and calmly abducts Miranda, believing she will grow to love him in time. Alone and desperate, Miranda must struggle to overcome her own prejudices and contempt if she is understand her captor, and so gain her freedom.

"A superb novel...Evil has seldom been so sinister." --TimeHailed as the first modern psychological thriller, The Collector is the internationally bestselling novel that catapulted John Fowles into the front rank of contemporary novelists. This tale of obsessive love--the story of a lonely clerk who collects butterflies and of the beautiful young art student who is his ultimate quarry--remains unparalleled in its power to startle and mesmerize.

EPISODE 1 IN A MAJOR BBC DRAMA STARRING TIMOTHY SPALL, DAVID WALLIAMS AND JENNIFER SAUNDERSClarence has to get his pig eating again or lose the fat-pig prize to his arch nemesis.Lord Clarence Emsworth’s pride and joy, the prize-winning pig Empress of Blandings refuses to eat when Cyril the pig-man is jailed by Clarence’s conniving rival Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe.With the prize’s weigh-in only two-weeks away, Clarence and his gambling, spe...

Take a trip to Larkin country in the much-loved series, inspiration for the ITV drama THE LARKINS starring Bradley Walsh'There!' Pop said. 'There's the house. There's Gore Court for you. What about that, eh? How's that strike you? Better than St Paul's, ain't it, better than St Paul's?'And so Pop Larkin - junk-dealer, family man and Dragon's Blood connoisseur - manages to sell the nearby c...

A new novel from the Booker Prize winning Pat Barker, author of the Regeneration Trilogy, that unforgettably portrays London during the Blitz (her first portrayal of World War II) and reconfirms her place in the very top rank of British novelists.London, the Blitz, Autumn 1940. As the bombs fall on the blacked-out city, ambulance driver Elinor Brooke races from bomb sites to hospitals trying to save the lives of injured survivors, working alongside former ...

When Liverpool solicitor and detective Harry Devlin takes on a client who has been taping his wife's telephone conversations with her lover, he gets more than he bargained for. The first mystery is the identity of Becky's boyfriend, whose voice Harry finds oddly familiar. Then, as a case of adultery slides frighteningly into conspiracy to murder, a trespasser makes a shocking discovery: three dead bodies in a converted church. Who are they? Who has killed them, and why? Trapped in a maze w...

The old ivy-covered house of Flambards has seen many changes since Christina first arrived as a young girl. With the First World War coming to an end, Christina feels the time has come to leave the past behind and make a new future for herself. But she finds her loyalties divided between tradition and progression, and between the two men who stand for such opposing values. She knows there is a terrible decision to be made . . . A welcome reissue of this much-loved family saga.

The First World War is looming and for young sweethearts, Christina and Will, their adventures are just beginning as they head to London - their heads full of dreams. But the reality is altogether more difficult. Will has just one ambition - to design and pilot flying machines. As he strives to fulfil his dream, Christina is left to make a new life for herself around the airfield. She soon makes friends and begins to enjoy her newly-found independence but nothing will ever overcome her ter...

In the West of Ireland in 1939 a young novelist rents a lonely cottage to write his new book in peace.Almost at once, and without great resistance, he is seduced by the wife of the local squire. Harriet's husband is an older man - hot-tempered, impoverished, gone to seed - who once fought famously against the Black and Tans. Soon this eternal triangle becomes a local scandal, and the atmosphere of threat and violence, intensified by the approaching war in Europe, leads to a horrifi...

Three classic short stories by the novelist and short-story writer Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973). 'So Much Depends', 'The Easter Egg Party' and 'The Needlecase.' Country house fiction.

Join the little girl in the candy-striped dress as Milly-Molly-Mandy rides a horse, minds a baby and goes to the seaside – whatever she and her friends are up to, you're sure to have fun when they're around!The much-loved stories of Milly-Molly-Mandy and her everyday adventures in the countryside have charmed generations of children since their first publication in 1928. Perfect for reading aloud, the six stories in Joyce Lankester Brisley's Milly-Molly-Mandy's...