‘Didn’t I tell you they were only windmills? And only someone with windmills on the brain could have failed to see that!’

Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading romances of chivalry that he determines to become a knight errant and pursue bold adventures, accompanied by his squire, the cunning Sancho Panza. As they roam the world together, the aging Quixote’s fancy leads them wildly astray. At the same time the relationship between the two men grows in fascinating subtlety. Often considered to be the first modern novel, Don Quixote is a wonderful burlesque of the popular literature its disordered protagonist is obsessed with.

John Rutherford’s landmark translation does full justice to the energy and wit of Cervantes’s prose. His introduction discusses the traditional works parodied in Don Quixote, as well as issues surrounding literary translation.

Voted greatest book of all time by the Nobel Institute

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, commonly known as Fanny Hill, has been shrouded in mystery and controversy since John Cleland completed it in 1749.

The Bishop of London called the work 'an open insult upon Religion and good manners' and James Boswell referred to it as 'a most licentious and inflaming book'.

The story of a prostitute's rise to respectability, it has been recognized more recently as a unique combination of parody, sensual entertainment and a philosophical concept of sexuality borrowed from French libertine novels. Modern readers will appreciate it not only as an important contribution to revolutionary thought in the Age of Enlightenment, but also as a thoroughly entertaining and important work of erotic fiction, deserving of a place in the history of the English novel beside Richardson, Fielding and Smollett.

Rowson's tale of a young girl who elopes to the United States only to be abandoned by her fiance was once the bestselling novel in American literary history. This edition also includes Lucy Temple, the fascinating story of Charlotte's orphaned daughter.

James Fenimore Cooper's spirited romance has been praised for its authenticity as a portrait of life during America's western movement. At Lake Otsego, during the French and Indian Wars, great frontiersman Natty Bumppo forsakes his love to come to the aid of Thomas Hutter, a trapper under the attack of Iroquois Indians. Published in 1841, The Deerslayer is the first of the Leatherstocking Tales, which reveal the courageous and perseverant nature of the pioneer. Recognized for his descriptive power, Cooper created in Natty Bumppo a mythical character - one of the most significant in the history of American literature. The text of this book was approved by the Center for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association and published in hardcover by the State University of New York Press.