A stimulating selection of extracts from important works and short stories by major authors of the 19th and 20th centuries – Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, R. L. Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and George Orwell – which aims to improve students’ linguistic competence and introduce them to concepts of literary analysis through a wide range of activities. Each chapter also includes a chronology of the author’s life and a synoptic table to help students to contextualise what they read.