10 Classic Gothic Novels Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The following list is not supposed to represent the ten most definitive Gothic novels ever published – it’s a list to inspire debate and discussion as much as it is a list of recommendations of classic Gothic works of fiction. Nevertheless, we reckon the reader of Gothic fiction could do worse than seek out these ten important Gothic novels. We’ve included some of our favourite interesting trivia about each novel as we go.

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Eight of the Best Books about the English Language

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The best non-fiction books are often the most accessible, at least if you’re a keen amateur or enthusiast rather than a specialist. From language trivia books to overviews and histories of the English language, there are many informative and engaging books about words and language out there, so where to begin?

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10 Rivals of Sherlock Holmes Everyone Should Read

The best fictional detectives who were contemporaries of Sherlock Holmes

If you’re a fan of Conan Doyle‘s Sherlock Holmes stories, or the BBC TV series Sherlock, you may well be looking for other great detectives from the golden era of the detective short story to discover and enjoy. Here’s our list of ten of the greatest fictional detectives who solved mysteries and brought criminals to justice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the same time as Conan Doyle’s sleuth was lodging at 221B Baker Street. We are indebted to David Stuart Davies’ excellent introduction to Shadows of Sherlock Holmes (Wordsworth Classics) for some of the following information about these authors and detectives, many of whose names have long since fallen into obscurity. We’ve also added a few suggestions of our own. Davies’ collection is a great compendium of these forgotten gems, including some of the best stories featuring the detectives listed below – perfect reading for the fan of detective fiction.

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10 Classic Shakespeare Plays Everyone Should Read

The best of the Bard’s plays, with some interesting facts about them

Every Shakespeare play is a classic, of course. But William Shakespeare left behind nearly forty plays, including his collaborations with John Fletcher and others, and it would be disingenuous to claim that they all have equal ‘classic’ status among the Bard’s work. What we’ve compiled here, then, is less a definitive list of ‘best Shakespeare plays’ and more a small selection of some of his most talked-about, reread, performed, and adapted plays. We’ve included some facts about them as we go. We’ve not attempted to place them in any preferential order: that would be a step too far. But what, if you had to choose, would be the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays?

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10 Classic Works of Medieval Literature Everyone Should Read

Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle

Say ‘medieval literature’ and a few names will spring to mind: Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante, the anonymous author of Beowulf. But where does one start exploring the wonderful and colourful world of medieval writing? Here are our ten recommendations, which give a sense of the rich panoply of medieval literature.

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