Fear of Satan becomes murder in the name of God. Newly orphaned, the God-fearing and heart-broken Lois is sent across the Atlantic to live with her uncle's family in Salem, but on her arrival she finds herself the object of cruel hostility, potent jealousy and mad desire.

Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857) is a pioneering biography of one great Victorian woman novelist by another. This edition is based on the Third Edition of 1857, revised by Gaskell and collated with the manuscript and the previous two editions, as well as with Charlotte Bronte's letters, offering fuller information about the process of composition than any previous edition.

Classic / British English (Available February 2008) Life changes completely for Margaret Hale and her parents when they move to a smoky northern city. There, Margaret meets Mr Thornton, a wealthy cotton mill owner, and dislikes him immediately. But the mill owner falls passionately in love with her. Then his workers strike. Against a background of industrial drama and personal tragedy, is there ..

Set in 1790 in Monkshaven, where press-gangs wreak havoc by seizing young men for service in the Napoleonic wars. One of their victims is Charley Kinraid, who captured the heart of Sylvia Robson. But Sylvia's cousin, Philip Hepburn, hopes to marry her himself and, in order to win her, withholds crucial information with devastating consequences.

Includes Cranford which depicts the lives and preoccupations of the inhabitants of a small village - their petty snobberies and appetite for gossip, and their loyal support for each other in times of need; and, Cousin Phillis , which depicts a fleeting love affair in a rural community at a time when old values are being supplanted by the new.

Wives and Daughters in half the time

Includes Mary Barton read by Maggie Ollerenshaw and North and South read by Jenny Agutter.

Lodging with an Independent Minister on the outskirts of London, Paul Manning is initially dismayed to discover that the uncle he must visit in the country is also a churchman. Yet far from the oppressively religious household he envisages, Manning is delighted to meet his genial relations, and not least his cousin Phyllis.

A romantic story with descriptions of working people and their lives, as the author encountered them in northern mills. Despite this grim setting, the book has the power to involve the reader in the lives of Elizabeth Gaskell's characters.