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Once again Alice enters into an imaginary world full of nonsense, color and paradox. This time she enters through a mirror and, as one might expect, everything becomes back to front. She is on a quest to become a Queen in a fantastical game of chess meeting both help and hindrance in a cast of unforgettable characters such as Humpty Dumpty and the White Knight.

Wild rabies runs rampant through the woods. The foxes are gaining ground, boldly making their way into the village. In Dichtersruhe, an insular yet charming haven stifled by the Swiss mountains, these omens go unnoticed by all but the new parish priest. The residents have other things on their mind: literature. Everyone’s a writer - the nights are alive with reworked manuscripts. So when the devil turns up in a black car claiming to be a hot-shot publisher, unsatisfied authorial desires are unleashed and the village’s former harmony is shattered.

"The Water-Babies" remains relevant today as it resonates with universal themes and moral insights that extend beyond the Victorian context. The narrative's enduring appeal lies not only in its engaging storyline, but also in the profound messages that it conveys about human nature and societal values.

Far from its popular image, the story of Frankenstein as told by Mary Shelley is not a tale that finds horror in a hideous "monster", or a "crazed" scientist. The darkness in the narrative is found in the profound loneliness of both Creator and Created, as they seek one another in a tragic cycle of unfulfilled longing and revenge.

This powerful novel, first published in 1818, still surprises and shocks us with the fundamental questions about the moral boundaries of human discovery, and helps us to question what it means to be human.

The shadow of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes would inevitably fall across much of the crime fiction that followed that most famous of detectives. However, in 1910, G.K Chesterton's unassuming, devout, and unprepossessing Father Brown made his first appearance and proved no less of a fascinating figure who would stands firmly on his own two ecclesiastical feet. Head Stories presents the first in a series of the complete Father Brown, read by Simon Hester with original music.

An author who kills off his hero in so dramatic a fashion relatively early in that hero’s literary career (and then of course returns him to life in an equally dramatic manner) has, perhaps, little else to offer us in the final stories of his famous character. Yet in this final series of short stories Conan Doyle does not cease from developing his famous detective, giving us a fascinating selection of tales.

Today we take for granted the exploration of the fascinating submarine depths of the oceans, so ubiquitous are its many representations on our screens. It is therefore surprising to realise that in his thrilling 1869 novel Jules Verne was anticipating much which was then not even imagined by science. The enigmatic Captain Nemo takes his awe-inspiring Nautilus around the Oceans of the world exploring the deep with its wonders and horrors.

"This is a history and not a glorification of Mr. Polly, and I tell of things as they were with him.” So writes H.G Wells toward the end of his story of Mr. Polly, and indeed, the narrator’s voice throughout the book leaves us altogether ambivalent about his protagonist. The diminutive Everyman of the story is neither fully hero nor villain.

John Bunyan's classic allegory of the Christian journey of pilgrimage has never lost its power to teach the important truths of faith. A Pilgrim's Progress speaks to us as plainly as it has to generations before about the simple yet profound truths of the Christian faith. Narrated by Simon Hester with original music.

One would think that after the momentous events of 1969 H.G Wells’ science fiction adventure The First Men in the Moon would have lost any fascination for the modern listener. Yet, of course, Wells is never concerned merely with the mechanics of science fiction. It is surely the human reaction to these events that grips us and causes us to return again and again to this story.

Jerome. K. Jerome allows us to laugh, with and at, both himself and ourselves, in his writing. As we peruse his “Idle Thoughts” on subjects ranging from babies to ambition, from dogs to poverty, we find that the dust of over a hundred years have not dimmed the mirror in which we look. Jerome, as in his other comic works, presents a seeming stream of consciousness that can shift in a moment from the ridiculous to the sublime, from self-deprecation to intense longing.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel which shocks us still. The sensibilities of its original Victorian readership may have blanched at the exoticism and barely disguised eroticism which drip from Wilde’s prose, but for us today who barely look twice at such things, we find something much more horrific at the heart of the book.

It is all to easy to be familiar with Oscar Wilde the aesthete, the limpid sophisticate ever ready with a witty epigram designed to both shock and stimulate. However, here in this set of short stories Wilde, at least partly, lays aside his barbs and is careful to not let cynicism cloud the parable like innocence of these tales. There is an undeniable purity in these tales, which Wilde’s simple, lyrical style beautifully enhances. Narrated by Simon Hester with original music.

After first introducing Sherlock Holmes in "A Study in Scarlet", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle then began his series of shorter Holmes' adventures as chronicled by the famous detective's friend and companion Dr. John Watson. Here, we have many classics of the Holmes series. The gothic horror of "The Speckled Band", the bizarre and clever deception of "The Red Headed League", the unique and frightening experience of the "Engineer's Thumb", and the lofty client from "A Scandal in Bohemia", a case that finds Holmes up against "The Woman".

Here are 12 specially selected tales by one of the masters of this miniature art, Saki (H.H Munro). They range from the comic deception of "The Schartz Metterklume Method" to "The Cobweb", a subtle meditation on life, change and death. Also included is Munro's short essay "Birds on the Western Front", a poignant description of some of Nature's response to the devastation of war, written in the very place where Munro would tragically lose his life to a sniper's bullet in 1916.

The ghosts of war leave no footprints. When legendary Ottoman seaman Dragut Rais attacked the Maltese islands in 1551, his army left Gozo a smoking ruin emptied of its entire population. Among the 5,000 carried into slavery is Augustine Montesa, father of Domenicus and Katrina. Wounded and broken, Domenicus vows to find his father, even if it means abandoning Angelica, his betrothed.

John Buchan himself stated that he set out to write a book in the style of the ubiquitous American “Dime Novel”. What he actually succeeded in creating was a relatively unique and new genre for British literature, the Spy Novel. Those thrilling elements of the fleeing innocent man hunted through the wilds by sinister and undefined dark forces have been explored countless times in books and on screen ever since.

Initially when one thinks of the possibility of becoming invisible the potential results are both intriguing and faintly comical. For H.G Wells however the subject is developed into a narrative that takes the concept of invisibility to its disturbing conclusion. For the author it is always the impact of science upon the Human heart and mind which is of interest and here results in a classic of science fiction.

Once again, Alice enters into an imaginary world full of nonsense, color, and paradox. This time, she enters through a mirror and, as one might expect, everything becomes back to front. She is on a quest to become a queen in a fantastical game of chess meeting both help and hindrance in a cast of unforgettable characters such as Humpty Dumpty and the White Knight.

On the edge of the unknown, Oak Wilder is beckoned to defend his homeland from the darkness lurking at his doorstep. However, Oak is not keen on leaving his rich farmland in the western Sussex of England to chase folklore. With the help of the Steward, he finds his courage to embark on the adventure and discover the truth that lay beyond the hills.