William Collins The Wind in The Willows Грэм Кеннет

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics • ‘The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.’ • One of the earliest works of ‘detective’ fiction with a narrative woven together from multiple characters, Wilkie Collins partly based his infamous novel on a real-life eighteenth century case of abduction and wrongful imprisonment. In 1859, the story caused a sensation with its readers, hooking their attention with the ghostly first scene where the mysterious ‘Woman in White’ Anne Catherick comes across Walter Hartright. Chilling, suspenseful and tense in mood, the novel remains as emotive for its readers today as when it was first published

In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries • In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci's small oil painting, the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as saviour of the world is 'the rarest thing on the planet by the greatest human being who ever lived'. Its dazzling price also makes it the world's most expensive painting • For two centuries art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo's assistants in the first half of the sixteenth century

‘It came with the wind through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild, and menacing.’ • When the body of Sir Charles Baskerville is found on the misty and desolate Devon moors, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson decide to investigate. The locals blame his death on the family curse, a legendary phantom hound which has supposedly haunted the Baskervilles for generations. Holmes’ detective skills are put to the test as he battles to discover the truth behind the fearsome legend and to solve one of the most macabre mysteries of his career • Originally serialised in the Strand Magazine between 1901 and 1902, Conan Doyle’s tale is the third novel to feature the famous duo, and remains one of the most popular

“For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive.” • When a strange, meteor-like object lands in the heart of England, the inhabitants of Earth find themselves victims of a terrible attack. A ruthless race of Martians, armed with heat rays and poisonous smoke, is intent on destroying everything that stands in its way. As the unnamed hero struggles to find his way across decimated wastelands, the fate of the planet hangs in the balance • H. G. Wells was a pioneer of modern science fiction. First serialised in the UK in 1897, The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest stories to depict conflict with an extraterrestrial race, and has influenced countless adaptations and sequels

Less a mystery unsolved than a secret well kept • The mystery has haunted generations since the Second World War: Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family? And why? • Now, thanks to radical new technology and the obsession of a retired FBI agent, this book offers an answer. Rosemary Sullivan unfolds the story in a gripping, moving narrative • Over thirty million people have read The Diary of a Young Girl, the journal teenaged Anne Frank kept while living in an attic with her family and four other people in Amsterdam during World War II, until the Nazis arrested them and sent them to a concentration camp. But despite the many works – journalism, books, plays and novels – devoted to Anne’s story, none has ever conclusively explained how these eight people managed to live in hiding undetected for over two years – and who or what finally brought the Nazis to their door

Это был самый необыкновенный год. В книге "Создание поэзии. Кольридж, Вордсворты и их Год чудес", наполненной поэзией и описанием природы, биографией и приключениями, Адам Николсон идет по стопам Кольриджа, Вордсворта и его сестры Дороти в те месяцы конца 1790-х годов, которые они провели вместе в Куанток-Хиллз • Из него вышли "Древний мореход", "Кубла Хан", лирические баллады и "Аббатство Тинтерн"; непревзойденные гимны Кольриджа дружбе и отцовству; революционные стихи Вордсворта и гимны единству души и космоса, любви и взаимопониманию. Это поэзия, которая стремилась переделать мир • Книга на английском языке • It was the most extraordinary year. In a book brimming with poetry and nature writing, biography and adventure, Adam Nicolson walks in the footsteps of Coleridge, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy during the months in the late 1790s they spent together in the Quantock Hills

Who was the real Jane Austen? Overturning the traditional portrait of the author as conventional and genteel, bestseller Paula Byrne’s landmark biography reveals the real woman behind the books • In this paperback of the landmark biography, bestselling biographer Paula Byrne uses objects that conjure up a key moment in Austen’s life and work – a silhouette, a vellum notebook, a topaz cross, a writing box, a royalty cheque, a bathing machine, and many more – to unlock the biography of this most beloved author. The woman who emerges is far tougher, more socially and politically aware, and altogether more modern than the conventional picture of ‘dear aunt Jane’ allows. Byrne’s lively book explores the many forces that shaped Austen’s life, her long struggle to become a published author, and brings Miss Austen dazzlingly into the twenty-first century

Over the course of a year, leading historian and nature writer David Gange kayaked the weather-ravaged coasts of Atlantic Britain and Ireland from north to south: every cove, sound, inlet, island • The idea was to travel slowly and close to the water: in touch with both the natural world and the histories of communities on Atlantic coastlines. The story of his journey is one of staggering adventure, range and beauty. For too long, Gange argues, the significance of coasts has been underestimated, and the potential of small boats as tools to make sense of these histories rarely explored. This book seeks to put that imbalance right • Paddling alone in sun and storms, among dozens of whales and countless seabirds, Gange and his kayak travelled through a Shetland summer, Scottish winter and Irish spring before reaching Wales and Cornwall

When our ancestors came down from the trees, they brought the trees with them and remade the world • How did the descendants of small arboreal primates manage to stand on our own two feet, become top predators and take over the world? • In The Wood Age, Roland Ennos shows that the key to humanity’s success has been our relationship with wood. He takes us on a sweeping ten-million-year journey from great apes who built their nests among the trees to early humans who depended on wood for fire, shelter, tools and weapons; from the structural design of wheels and woodwinds, to the invention of paper and the printing press • Drawing together recent research and reinterpreting existing evidence from fields as far-ranging as primatology, anthropology, archaeology, history, architecture, engineering and carpentry, Ennos charts for the first time how our ability to exploit wood’s unique properties has shaped our bodies and minds, societies and lives

In 1976 James Crowden left his career in the British army and travelled to Ladakh in the Northern Himalaya, one of the most remote parts of the world. The Frozen River is his extraordinary account of the time he spent there, living alongside the Zangskari people, before the arrival of roads and mass tourism • James immerses himself in the Zangskari way of life, where meditation and week-long mountain festivals go hand in hand, and silence and solitude are the hallmarks of existence. When butter traders invite James on their journey down the frozen river Leh, he soon realises that this way of living, unchanged for centuries, comes with a very human cost • In lyrical prose, James captures a crucial moment in time for this Himalayan community. A moment in which their Buddhist practices and traditions are in flux, and the economic pull of a world beyond their valley is increasingly difficult to ignore

The sinking of the White Ship in 1120 is one of the greatest disasters England has ever suffered. In one catastrophic night, the king’s heir and the flower of Anglo-Norman society were drowned and the future of the crown was thrown violently off course • In a riveting narrative, Charles Spencer follows the story from the Norman Conquest through to the decades that would become known as the Anarchy: a civil war of untold violence that saw families turn in on each other with English and Norman barons, rebellious Welsh princes and the Scottish king all playing a part in a desperate game of thrones. All because of the loss of one vessel – the White Ship – the medieval Titanic

The third and final updated edition of David Attenborough’s classic Life trilogy. Life on Earth covered evolution, Living Planet , ecology, and now The Trials of Life tackles ethology, the study of how animals behave • ‘This is, quite simply, the best thing I’ve ever done.’ Sir David Attenborough on the TV series, The Trials of Life, upon which this book is based • This is the third and last of Sir David’s great natural history books based on his TV series and competes his survey of the animal world that began with Life on Earth and continues with Living Planet • In Life on Earth, Sir David showed how each group of animals evolved. In Living Planet he looked at the way they have adapted to the whole range of habitats in which they live. Now, in Trials of Life, he completes the story by revealing how animals behave – and why