The room was on the fourth floor, and the door was locked - with the key on the inside. The windows were closed and fastened - on the inside. The chimney was too narrow for a cat to get through. So how did the murderer escape? And whose were the two angry voices heard by the neighbours as they ran up the stairs? Nobody in Paris could find any answers to this mystery. Except Auguste Dupin, who could see further and think more clearly than other people. The answers to the mystery were all there, but only a clever man could see them.

Tom Walsh had a lot to learn about life. He liked travelling, and he was in no hurry. He liked meeting people, anyone and everyone. He liked the two American girls on the train. They were nice and very friendly. They knew a lot of places. Tom thought they were fun. Tom certainly had a lot to

It is 1880, in the Opera House in Paris. Everybody is talking about the Phantom of the Opera, the ghost that lives somewhere under the Opera House. The Phantom is a man in black clothes. He is a body without a head, he is a head without a body. He has a yellow face, he has no nose, he has black holes for eyes. Everybody is afraid of the Phantom - the singers, the dancers, the directors, the stage workers... But who has actually seen him?

The President is dead! A man is running in the night. He is afraid and needs to rest. But there are people behind him - people with lights, and dogs, and guns. A man is standing in front of a desk. His boss is very angry, and the man is tired and needs to sleep. But first he must find the other man, and bring him back - dead or alive. Two men: the hunter and the hunted. Which will win and which will lose? Long live the President!

Marilla Cuthbert and her brother Matthew want to adopt an orphan, to help on the farm at Green Gables. They ask for a boy, but they get Anne, who has red hair and freckles, and who talks and talks and talks. They didn't want a girl, but how can they send a child back, like an unwanted parcel? So Anne stays, and begins a new life in the sleepy, quiet village of Avonlea in Canada. But it is not so quiet after Anne comes to live there......

This is the story of Karen Silkwood. It begins with her death. Why does her story begin where it should end? Certain people wanted her death to be an ending. Why? What were they afraid of? Karen Silkwood had something to tell us, and she believed that it was important. Why didn't she live to tell us? Will we ever know what really happened? The questions go on and on, but there are no answers. This is a true story. It happened in Oklahoma, USA, where Karen Silkwood lived and worked . . . and died.

In the mountains of Transylvania there stands a castle. It is the home of Count Dracula - a dark, lonely place, and at night the wolves howl around the walls. In the year 1875 Jonathan Harker comes from England to do business with the Count. But Jonathan does not feel comfortable at Castle Dracula. Strange things happen at night, and very soon, he begins to feel afraid. And he is right to be afraid, because Count Dracula is one of the Un-Dead - a vampire that drinks the blood of living people...

It is hay-making time on the Wookey farm. Two brothers are building the haystack, but thinking about other things – about young women, and love. There are angry words, and then a fight between the brothers. But the work goes on, visitors come and go, and the long hot summer day slowly turns to evening.

Sometimes the Dashwood girls do not seem like sisters. Elinor is all calmness and reason, and can be relied upon for practical, common sense opinions. Marianne, on the other hand, is all sensibility, full of passionate and romantic feeling. She has no time for dull common sense - or for middle-aged men of thirty-five, long past the age of marriage. True love can only be felt by the young, of course. And if your heart is broken at the age of seventeen, how can you ever expect to recover from the passionate misery that fills your life, waking and sleeping?

The moment I first met you, I noticed your pride, your sense of superiority, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others. You are the last man in the world whom I could ever be persuaded to marry,' said Elizabeth Bennet. And so Elizabeth rejects the proud Mr Darcy. Can nothing overcome her prejudice against him? And what of the other Bennet girls - their fortunes, and misfortunes, in the business of getting husbands? This famous novel by Jane Austen is full of wise and humorous observation of the people and manners of her times.

Luke is a good-looking young man, but he's not very clever with words. Gemma is clever with words, but what does she want? Lucy and Becky are good friends, but what about Sam? He makes wonderful cakes, but does he make mistakes too? Nina and Dragan are in love, so deeply in love, but they live in the wrong place, at the wrong time... All love stories have moments of happiness, pain, misunderstanding, laughter, and sometimes great sadness. But love will nearly always find a way...

Curtis Colt didn't kill that liquor store woman, and that's a fact. It's not right that he should have to ride the lightning - that's what prisoners call dying in the electric chair. Curtis doesn't belong in it, and I can prove it.' But can Curtis's girlfriend prove it? Murder has undoubtedly been done, and if Curtis doesn't ride the lightning for it, then who will? These seven short stories, by well-known writers such as Dashiel Hammett, Patricia Highsmith, and Nancy Pickard, will keep you on the edge of your seat.

I turned on the light, but there was nobody there. Then I saw something in the corner that made my blood turn cold. Scudder was lying on his back. There was a long knife through his heart, pinning him to the floor.' Soon Richard Hannay is running for his life across the hills of Scotland. The police are chasing him for a murder he did not do, and another, more dangerous enemy is chasing him as well - the mysterious 'Black Stone'. Who are these people? And why do they want Hannay dead?

Oh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of eighteen! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are young and inexperienced and travelling alone across Europe... or if you are a child from the wrong social class... or a singer without work and the rent to be paid. Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep beneath the appearances of life to show us the causes of human happiness and despair.