Presents the moral stories of Rabelais that expose human follies with their mischievous and often obscene humour, while intertwining the realistic with carnivalesque fantasy.

The first in the fantastically successful Harry Potter series

Half-brothers Michel and Bruno have a mother in common but little else. This is the story of two brothers, but the subject of the novel is in its dismantling of society and its assumptions, a dissection of modern lives and loves.

Born to drunken parents in the slums of Paris, Nana lives in squalor until she is discovered at the Theatre des Varietes. She soon rises from the streets to set the city alight as the most famous high-class prostitute of her day. Nana's hedonistic appetite for luxury and decadent pleasures knows no bounds - until, eventually, it consumes her.

Le petit Nicolas by Goscinny & Sempe

Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ending with Germany turning its attention to Russia, this book falls into two parts. It depicts a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion; and follows the inhabitants of a rural community under occupation who find themselves thrown together in unexpected ways.

Mathieu Delarue, a philosophy teacher, has so far managed to contain sex and personal freedom in separate compartments. But now he is in trouble, trying to raise 4,000 francs to procure a safe abortion for his mistress, Marcelle. Beyond all this, filtering an uneasy light on his predicament, rises the threat of the coming of the Second World War.

Michel had been a blindfold scholar until, newly married, he contracted tuberculosis. His will to recover brings self-discovery and the growing desire to rebel against his background of culture, decency and morality. But the freedom from constraints that Michel finds on his restless travels is won at great cost.

'Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful.' This line was adopted by Jean Anouilh, to characterize the first production of Waiting For Godot at the Theatre de Babylone, in 1953. Anybody acquinted with Beckett's masterly black comedy would not question the recognition of this twentieth-century literature classic.

When Meaulnes first arrives at the local school in Sologne, everyone is captivated by his good looks, daring and charisma. But when Meaulnes disappears for several days, and returns with tales of a strange party at a mysterious house and a beautiful girl hidden within it, he has been changed forever.

An English translation of the French original.

Set against the backdrop of the 1848 Revolution, this is the story of young lawyer Frederic Moreau's infatuation with the demurely exotic Madame Arnoux. This ironic depiction of uneventful lives in a troubled period of European history is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.

Containing various essays, this work discusses subjects as diverse as war-horses and cannibals, poetry and politics, sex and religion, love and friendship, ecstasy and experience.

One of Moliere's most frequently performed and best-loved plays, Tartuffe is here skilfully translated into English by Martin Sorrell.

Set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a dingy haberdasher's shop in the passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, this novel tells how the heroine and her lover, Laurent, kill her husband, Camille, but are subsequently haunted by visions of the dead man and prevented from enjoying the fruits of their crime.

The French classical tragedy written in 1677.

This translation of the novel La Princesse de Cleves , originally written in 1678, tells of life at Court in 17th-century France.

The Chevalier des Grieux is still a young man, but already life and bitter experience have worn him to a shell. The kindness of a stranger persuades him to reveal his troubles, the story of his helpless and ill-starred love for Manon.