England has given birth to many of the world’s greatest novelists including Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, George Orwell and J.R.R. Tolkein. This week, we invite you to cosy up with 5 British masterpieces including Jane Austin’s ‘Persuasion’, Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ and Robinson Crusoe!
1. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
After surviving a terrible shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe discovers he is the only human on an island far from any shipping routes or rescue. At first, he is devastated, but slowly, with patience and imagination, he transforms his dismal island into a tropical paradise.
2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Victor Frankenstein, dedicated to the study of natural philosophy, gives life to a creature with monstrous human features. However, the experiment does not go as Frankenstein had imagined and, refusing his own creation, the doctor leaves him free and lonely wandering around the world.
3. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Dorian Gray who, enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his depravity.
4. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
In this vivid portrait of one day in a woman’s life, Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of a party she is to give that evening. As she readies her house she is flooded with memories and reexamines the choices she has made over the course of her life.
5. Persuasion by Jane Austen
Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne’s family on the brink of financial ruin and his own
sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?
