David Thorn

From the author of The Jungle Book and Kim, Just So Stories is the perfect combination of education and fun to get kids to love reading. It is considered not only a quintessential children's book, but one of Kipling's best works. How did the elephant get its trunk? How did the leopard get its spots? And how was the alphabet made? Rudyard Kipling's classic collection of fables answers the great questions of animal and humankind in a fun, eloquent...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'I snapped the switch, but there was nobody there. Then I saw something in the far corner which made me drop my cigar and fall into a cold sweat.' When Richard Hannay is warned of an assassination plot that has the potential to take Britain into a war, and then a few days later discovers the murdered body of the American that warned him in his flat, he becomes a prime...

The elements which make up The Moonstone--a purloined Indian jewel which carries with it a mysterious curse, a stolid British police sergeant, a drama of theft and murder in a spacious country home--have been repeated, in slightly varying guises, throughout much of the detective fiction to which Wilkie Collins' popular 1868 novel gave birth.

Oliver Goldsmith's 18th century novel "The Vicar of Wakefield" was so popular in Victorian times that it is mentioned in many classics of that era including George Eliot's "Middlemarch," Jane Austen's "Emma," Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" and Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", amongst others. It is the story of Dr. Charles Primrose, the titular Vicar, his wife Deborah and their six children who live an idyllic life in a country parish. The Vicar...

The Aspern Papers is a novella by American writer Henry James, originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1888, with its first book publication later in the same year. One of James's best-known and most acclaimed longer tales, The Aspern Papers is based on the letters Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to Mary Shelley's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, who saved them until she died. Set in Venice, The Aspern Papers demonstrates James's ability to generate...

Nathaniel Hawthorne presents a multilayered story consisting of six Greek myths that are told from a unique perspective and appeals to all readers, specifically children. His writing style transcends age to deliver a family-friendly narrative. A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys is a compilation of classic stories inspired by Greek mythology. Hawthorne's interpretation is filtered through the fictional character, Eustace Bright, a college student...

A family patriarch is murdered on the eve of signing a new will Sir Richard's family has spent years waiting for him to die, but despite his weak heart, the old man simply refuses to cooperate. In the meantime, he makes their lives miserable by changing his will every few months, depending on which of his strange brood he favors that moment. Now he calls them together to announce his most diabolical revision yet: complete disinheritance of all the...

A 12-year-old boy called Marco Loristan, is sent on a secret mission by his father, a Samavian patriot, to deliver an important message across Europe. The young man is joined by his neighborhood friend, The Rat, to embark on a history making journey. In Samavian legend, there was a kind and beloved prince called Ivor who held the people's favor. Despite their adoration, he had no desire to take the throne and suddenly disappeared never to be heard...

Listen to a personal account of a prominent figure during one of the most pivotal times in England's history: the Tudor period. This extraordinary “eye-witness” account of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's rise and fall from power was written between 1554 and 1558 by his gentleman-usher, George Cavendish, who was privy to so much of the Cardinal's ambitious endeavors. However, Cavendish prudently waited a long time before chronicling his observations for...

Richard the Fearless, the great grandfather of William the Conqueror, became Duke of Normandy at just 8 years old, after the assassination of his father. The Little Duke tells the heroic tales of his trials at home in Normandy and at the court in France where he was a prisoner.