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Dubbed the greatest horror story in English by Stephen King, The Great God Pan is an eerie and otherworldly mystery about a diabolical operation and its terrifying repercussions. After rescuing a young woman from the streets of London, Dr. Raymond uses her as a test subject for brain surgery aimed at "lifting the veil" of reality, to see the supernatural and the "great god Pan". The operation is a disaster and leaves the subject lobotomized. Years later, London becomes afflicted with a strange series of male suicides connected to a beautiful but sinister woman.

In The Aspern Papers, a cold and ruthless literary biographer travels to Venice on the trail of personal letters belonging to the deceased American poet Jeffrey Aspern. His journey takes him to a dilapidated, rambling house belonging to an elderly woman named Juliana Bordereau and her lonely niece, Miss Tina. Just how far will he go to get what he wants? Will morality confront his personal ambition and literary curiosity?

Born into slavery in the first century AD, Epictetus was a leading Greek philosopher of the Stoic school. He spent most of his life in Rome before the Emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from the city in AD 93; his exile then took him to Nicopolis in Greece. His teachings were recorded by his pupil Arrian, who published both the Encheiridion and Discourses.

Upon arriving home in Normandy, Frederick catches his first glimpse of Marie Arnoux, a mysterious and beautiful woman who leaves a lasting impression on him. Eventually they make each other's acquaintance and Marie becomes a symbol of unattainable perfection for Frederick, whose unrequited infatuation leaves him bouncing from one passion to another, falling in and out of love, money and society.

Often compared to Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest tells the poignant story of a passionate and spontaneous young woman who becomes trapped in a dull and restrictive upper-class existence. Married at the tender age of 17 to Geert von Innstetten, an ambitious nobleman and civil servant nearly 20 years her senior, unworldly Effi is whisked away to the quiet town of Kessin, on the Baltic coast of Prussia, where she is left to raise a daughter alone while her husband travels for work.

One of the greatest love stories ever written, Jane Eyre is the tale of a young woman entangled with the powerful Mr. Rochester. What lurks in the attic at Thornfield, the ancestral home of the surly Mr. Rochester? Will the governess Jane Eyre discover his secret, and having discovered it, live to regret that knowledge? Battling inside Jane are passion and prudence; she struggles to survive the turmoil they cause.

One of Nietzsche’s earliest works, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a remarkable source of inspiration. It is here that the philosopher expresses his frustration with the contemporary world and urges man to embrace Dionysian energy once more. He refutes European culture since the time of Socrates, arguing that it is one-sidedly Apollonian and prevents man from living in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life.

One of the best-known Irish playwrights, John Millington Synge premiered The Playboy of the Western World in 1907. It immediately provoked controversy, eventually resulting in the infamous "Playboy" riots. It has been recorded and adapted many times, but this timeless recording stars the Irish actors who made it a classic, including Siobhan McKenna and Cyril Cusack.

Gerald Crich, son of a wealthy colliery owner, captures the heart of Gudrun, while Ursula becomes enamored with Rupert Birkin, a school inspector - their complex relationship likely modelled on that between Lawrence, his wife Frieda, and John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield. Things are far from harmonious, and the discord and conflict leads to many heated and elaborate philosophical discussions about modern society and the nature of love, while tragedy looms large.

Oscar Wilde's collection of fairy stories are among the greatest and most poignant classics for children and adults alike. Humour, pathos, delightful little characters abound in the stories of The Happy Prince and the Swallow who agrees to keep him company despite approaching winter; The Selfish Giant, who doesn't want children playing in his garden, and The Remarkable Rocket.

Lost in the blacked-out streets of Paris during the First World War, Marcel stumbles into a brothel and accidentally witnesses a shocking scene involving the Baron de Charlus. Later, at a reception given by the Prince de Guermates, his meditations on the passage of time lead to his determination to embark on his life's work at last.

Arabian Sands is Wilfred Thesiger’s stunning account of five years spent crossing the Arabian Peninsula by foot and on camels, with nomadic Bedouin tribesmen as guides. Travelling between 1945 and 1950, the British explorer treks through Yemen, the Empty Quarter, Oman, and parts of the then Trucial States, crossing and re-crossing around 250,000 miles of this most inhospitable terrain. He was the first European ever to set eyes on the dunes and wadis of these deserts.

Voltaire's razor-sharp satire on philosophical optimism, Candide, is coupled here with another of the author's most celebrated works, Zadig. Both challenge the moral and philosophical orthodoxies of the day with humor and sly wit, while parodying the clichéd formulas of so many contemporary novels.

A milestone in the history of the novel, Samuel Richardson’s epistolary and elaborate Clarissa follows the life of a chaste young woman desperate to protect her virtue. When beautiful Clarissa Harlowe is forced to marry the rich but repulsive Mr. Solmes, she refuses, much to her family’s chagrin. She escapes their persecution with the help of Mr. Lovelace, a dashing and seductive rake, but soon finds herself in a far worse dilemma. Terrifying and enlightening, Clarissa weaves a tapestry of narrative experimentation into a gripping morality tale of good versus evil.

Published in 1820 and written by the Protestant curate Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer is considered one of the greatest works of Gothic literature. Consisting of a series of stories within stories, the narrative features the scholar John Melmoth, condemned to wander the earth in search of a victim to take his place and free him from his eternal torment.

By the time Shakespeare came to write Macbeth - almost certainly in 1605/1606 - he had already completed three of the great tragedies with which modern audiences are so familiar: Hamlet (1601), Othello (1603), and King Lear (1605). Each of those plays gives us an eponymous hero who is in some significant way flawed, but for whom we also inevitably feel deep sympathy, whatever his errors or crimes. But in MacBeth, Shakespeare has chosen for his tragic hero a man guilty of the most terrible crime imaginable to a Jacobean audience, that of regicide - the murder of a king.

Dazzlingly rich, lyrical and elegiac, Thomas Wolfe’s vibrant autobiographical first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, follows the story of Eugene Gant, the ninth and last child born to alcoholic Oliver and go-getting Eliza in the fictional town of Altemont, based on Wolfe’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. The novel recounts Eugene’s early life, up to his departure from home at the age of 19.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘novel in verse’ is an epic poem that voices with enchanting beauty and literary courage the perspective of Victorian women. Aurora Leigh forges her own path to become a poet, successfully proving her worth, defying the ideals of her era, and rescuing her spirit from the suppression of a routine domestic life. Infusing the work with her own experience and passion, Browning produced a true masterpiece.

Oscar Wilde's first play confronts the hypocrisy of public "morality" compared with genuine, private kindness. The reasons for its continued popularity are not difficult to identify: the play's witty dialogue contains many of Wilde's most quoted aphorisms, its stylish setting provides opportunities for elegant presentation, and its cast of memorable characters play out a story which is genuinely moving. This new audio production brings together a full cast worthy of Wilde's creative genius.

This is a story from the Grimm's Fairy Tales collection.