The Ant and the Grasshopper and Other Stories by Aesop

The stories in this book are more than a thousand years old. Some are serious. Most are funny. All make you think.

The Brave Little Tailor and Other Stories by the Brothers Grimm

You can read five fairy tales in this book. The stories take us to palaces and a tall tower. They take us into the dark forest. They lead us into fairyland.

The Emperor's New Clothes and Other Stories by Hans Christian Andersen

An emperor loves clothes. A tin soldier falls in love. A duckling thinks he is ugly. An emperor gets a new toy. A soldier finds a magic tinderbox. A prince wants to marry. Read these six favourite fairy tales to find out what happens to them all.

Folk Tales from Around the World

Folk tales are old stories. They started as part of family life. No one knows who first made them up. Usually older people told them to younger people. The five stories in this book come from different parts of the world.

Giants, Dragons and Other Magical Creatures

What is a creature? Is it a person? Is it an animal? No, it's something different; something strange. In this book you will meet creatures big and small. Some of them are friendly to people. Some are not friendly at all!

Heroes and Heroines

Heroes and heroines are people who do something brave or good. They do not run away from danger. They help people. In this book, we meet two heroes and three heroines.

The Lion and the Mouse and Other Stories by Aesop

The stories in this book are more than two thousand years old. Some are serious. Most are funny. All make you think.

The Monkey King

A magic stone cracks open like an egg. Monkey jumps out! In this book, you will read about Monkey's adventures.

Peter Pan

Peter Pan is an exciting adventure story, with pirates, Red Indians, and a hungry crocodile. It is also a fairy story, with magic in it. The strange boy Peter can fly. He can talk to the fairy Tinker Bell.
Do you want to know more about Peter's adventures? Read on and find out.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice is sitting by the river when suddenly a white rabbit runs past her. Then the rabbit takes a watch out of its coat pocket, and says it is late! She runs after the rabbit, and follows it into a large rabbit hole. This is how Alice's adventures in Wonderland begin.

The Call of the Wild and Other Stories

In the North it is so cold in winter that everything is covered with ice and snow. If you want to travel, you must use a sledge pulled by dogs. If you walk around in the cold, you must take great care to keep warm and dry. Why do people want to go to the North? They want to find gold there and become rich. These short stories are about some of the people and animals who lived and worked in the North, and how they fought to stay alive.

The Golden Goose and Other Stories

Three brothers go to cut wood. The two older brothers come home with nothing, but the youngest one is given a bird with golden feathers. Two sisters, one kind, the other horrible, get water from a spring. The kind girl becomes rich. Her sister lives alone and never speaks again. Find out what happened in these and other fairy tales.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre does not have an easy life. Her mother and father die when she is just a small child. She goes to live with her aunt and three cousins, but they treat her cruelly. She is sent away to a boarding school at Lowood. She does well and grows up to become a teacher there. Then she moves to Thornfield Hall and falls in love with the mysterious Mr Rochester ...

Little Women

The four March girls work hard while their father is away at war. Life is hard, but the girls still have time for fun. The girls all learn something, and grow up a little, while their father is away. When he finally comes home, his 'little women' have a few surprises for him.

The Secret Garden

After the death of her parents, Mary is brought back from India to live with her uncle in England. She is sickly and spoilt, and her uncle's big, old house is strange and mysterious. Mary is told of a secret garden that has been locked up for ten years, and she is determined to see it. What does she find there?

Tales from the Arabian Nights

A cruel king marries beautiful young women, but always has their heads cut off in the morning. However, his new wife, Sheherezade, is clever. Every night, she starts to tell him a wonderful story. She tells him about a robbers' cave, full of treasure; she tells him the story of Sinbad the sailor, of a genie in a bottle, of Aladdin and his magic lamp, and many more.

The Wizard of Oz

Dorothy and her little dog, Toto, are carried by a cyclone from her aunt and uncle's house in Kansas. When they come down, they find themselves in the land of Oz. There Dorothy begins an exciting journey with her new friends. They want to go and see the wonderful Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City. Only he can give them what they want.

A Christmas Carol

A mean, lonely old man has an unpleasant surprise when he reaches the front door of his home on the night before Christmas. As he looks at the door knocker, it turns into the face of a friend who has been dead for many years! This is just the beginning of a long night in which Ebenezer Scrooge talks to his dead friend, and meets three other ghosts.

The Golden Touch and Other Stories

Here you will read about a king who could make gold just by touching things; a young prince who killed a monster, but lost his father; a poor young woman who got into trouble by eating half an apple; a boy who loved flying so much that he flew too close to the sun; and much more. These are stories which can teach us about life.

Gulliver's Travels — A Voyage to Lilliput

Gulliver's ship is lost in a storm, and he has to swim to save his life. After many hours, he reaches land. He lies down and falls asleep. When he wakes up, he can't get up. He is tied to the ground. His hair is tied down too, so he can't move his head. He feels something walking along his body. There, standing on his chest, is a man. He is no more than six inches tall!

The Jungle Book

Mowgli, the man cub, is raised by Mother Wolf and soon becomes her favourite. He learns about the Law of the Jungle from Baloo, the old brown bear, and Bagheera, the black panther. But Mowgli is in danger. Shere Khan, the bad-tempered old tiger, hates him and wants to kill him.

A Midsummer Night's Dream and Other Stories from Shakespeare's Plays

One midsummer night, two lovers run away to the woods where they find two other lovers - and fairies and elves! Read how Viola dresses as a man to become the servant of a prince, and then falls in love with him. You can also read the famous story of the young lovers, Romeo and Juliet, who cannot live in peace, because their families hate each other.

The Mill on the Floss

Maggie Tulliver is tall and beautiful, and she is clever. While Maggie's brother Tom works hard so that he can take over the flour mill which their father manages, Maggie's mind is on other matters.
Maggie loves the son of her father's greatest enemy. But the man who is expected to marry her cousin Lucy falls in love with Maggie.
Read this romantic and tragic story and discover Maggie's fate.

Oliver Twist

Poor Oliver! He has no family, and no friends. Nobody cares for him. The only people he knows are thieves, and they want him to be a thief, too. Now the police have caught him for stealing. Oliver has done nothing wrong, but the judge does not believe him. He wants to send Oliver to prison. One kind old man thinks Oliver might be a good boy, and tries to help him. Find out how Oliver gets away from the thieves, and how, at last, he discovers the truth about his past.

The Prince and the Pauper

One day two young boys meet. They look exactly the same, but there is one big difference: Tom is a poor beggar and Edward is a prince, the son of the King of England. The boys swap clothes, and Edward, now dressed in beggar's rags, is mistaken for Tom and thrown from the palace by his own guards. Suddenly Prince Edward has to live as a pauper in the streets of London, while Tom rules the country, enjoying being a prince. What will happen when the king dies, and the real prince must take his place?

The Stone Junk and Other Stories

Most of the stories in this collection are about people, magic and gold. They also tell us what happens when people are too proud, too cruel, or too greedy.

The Talking Tree and Other Stories

Two boys, walking through a forest, suddenly hear a voice coming from a tree. The Talking Tree tells them to bring it food and drink. Scared, the boys do as they are told. Then they notice some marks on the ground, close to the tree. Is the tree really magic, or is someone trying to trick them? There are plenty of surprises in this unusual collection of short stories.

Through the Looking Glass

A little girl called Alice suddenly finds herself in the dreamlike Looking-Glass world, where she seems to be a pawn in a chess game. If, as the Red Queen tells her, she can get as far as the eighth square, then she too can become a Queen.
Find out how Alice gets into this strange world, and what happens when she arrives at the eighth square.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huck is only fourteen when he escapes from his bad-tempered and no-good father. Soon he reaches Jackson's Island, and finds himself sharing the island with Jim, a runaway slave. Together they put all their things on a raft and set off on what becomes a great adventure down the Mississippi River.
Will Huck be caught by his father? Will Jim ever be a slave again? Read on to enjoy the exciting and amusing story of Huck Finn and his friends.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Running away from home; hiding in a dark graveyard at midnight; camping out as pirates on an island in the Mississippi; going to their own funeral; looking for treasure; and getting lost in a deep, dark cave, are all part of the exciting and amusing story of Tom Sawyer and his friends.

David Copperfield

Young David Copperfield's life starts to go wrong when his mother marries the cruel Mr Murdstone. David is sent to school, where the headmaster hits him whenever he can. Poor David is only happy when he is visiting the strange boat-house home of his nurse, Peggotty. When he runs away from school to find his Aunt Betsy Trotwood, however, things begin to get better.

Fog and Other Stories

Polly is walking through the fog. She cannot see where she is going. She believes she can hear footsteps behind her, but when she stops there is silence. Is someone following her? Perhaps it is the tall man who was watching her earlier on the train ... Then she hears a deep cough, and a strange tapping sound. Is Polly in danger? In this, and other short stories, Bill Lowe presents us with some strange mysteries, and some surprising endings.

Great Expectations

Pip is a poor orphan who dreams of becoming a gentleman so that he can win the heart of Estella, a beautiful but proud girl. Estella lives with a strange, rich old lady called Miss Havisham. Years later, it seems that Pip's dreams have come true. An unknown person is going to give him a fortune, so that he can be a gentleman. But who is this mysterious person? Is it Miss Havisham, or someone else from his past? When he finds out, Pip's troubles are only just beginning ...

The Merchant of Venice and Other Stories from Shakespeare's Plays

Shylock, the moneylender, hates Antonio and wants to hurt him. He has an idea. He lends money to Antonio. If Antonio cannot pay back the money, he must give Shylock a pound of his flesh. From cold, dark Scotland to the blue sky of the Mediterranean, from the Danish court to the court of Britain long ago, these five well-known stories are filled with murder, madness and magic.

Robinson Crusoe

When Robinson Crusoe's ship is wrecked, he swims to a desert island. At first he is afraid that he might be eaten by wild animals. He knows that some people in that part of the world are cannibals, and they might eat him too! Soon, he realizes that he is all alone. He brings as much as he can from the wrecked ship, and over his long years on the island, he learns how to make himself safe and comfortable.

Silas Marner

The people of Raveloe are very curious when a lonely weaver, Silas Marner, comes to live in their village. He works hard to earn gold, but this seems to be all he cares about.
Then, one winter, everything changes. Silas's gold is stolen, and Squire Cass's younger son disappears. Then a stranger dies in the snow and a golden-haired girl appears in Silas's cottage.
What will happen to the girl, Silas and the people of Raveloe?

Far From the Madding Crowd

Not all men are blind to the faults of the beautiful Bathsheba Everdene. 'She's vain,' thinks a sheep farmer, Gabriel Oak, soon after meeting her. Although he loves her, and asks her to marry him, his direct, honest manner often causes trouble between them.

The Good Earth

When Wang Lung goes to collect his new wife, a slave from the great House of Hwang, the gatekeeper laughs at him. However, it will not be long before even the gatekeeper treats Wang Lung with respect. One day, Wang Lung himself will be master of the House of Hwang.

Mansfield Park

Fanny Price finds life difficult when she first arrives at Mansfield Park. Only Edmund, her youngest cousin, is kind and friendly. How will Fanny and the people around her order their lives? Will they find love and happiness?

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

A man lies in darkness, locked in a cell and sentenced to die. He reaches out to find ... nothing but emptiness, and the fear of what will happen to him. Another man goes to visit a childhood friend at the gloomy old House of Usher. His friend, Roderick, is very ill and slowly going mad. In these and six other classic tales, terrible things happen to people as they face their own fears and the evil deeds of others.

The Old Wives' Tale

Constance and Sophia are the two beautiful daughters of a draper. When she grows up, Constance marries the manager of her father's shop and works in the family business. Sophia, on the other hand, elopes to Paris with the dangerous Gerald Scales.

The Stalled Ox and Other Stories

What would you do if a large ox got into your garden? A lady who dies and comes back as an animal; a man whose holiday is disturbed by witches; another man who finds a werewolf in his woods ... These are all part of Saki's strange and hilarious stories, set against the background of British upper-class life.