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Adapted from the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.... Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of them all. He sits in his room, and smokes his pipe. He listens, and watches, and thinks. He listens to the steps coming up the stairs; he watches the door opening – and he knows what question the stranger will ask.

In these three of his best stories, Holmes has three visitors to the famous flat in Baker Street – visitors who bring their troubles to the only man in the world who can help them.

Ellen Shore’s family is an ordinary American family, and Ellen is six years old when her brother Al is born. Her parents are very pleased to have a son, but Ellen is not pleased, because now baby Al comes first. And when they are adults, Al still comes first. He begins a rock band and makes records. Soon he is rich and famous - very rich, but he gives nothing to his sister Ellen. She has a difficult life, with three young kids and very little money. And she learns to hate her rich, famous, unkind brother.

Adapted from the classic story by Oscar Wilde.... There has been a ghost in the house for 300 years, and Lord Canterville’s family have had enough of it. So Lord Canterville sells his grand old house to an American family. Mr. Hiram B. Otis is happy to buy the house and the ghost - because of course Americans don’t believe in ghosts. The Canterville ghost has great plans to frighten the life out of the Otis family. But Americans don’t frighten easily....

The Marquis lay there, like stone, with a knife pushed into his heart. On his chest lay a piece of paper, with the words: Drive him fast to the grave. This is from JACQUES. ’The French Revolution brings terror and death to many people. But even in these troubled times people can still love and be kind. They can be generous and true-hearted . . . and brave. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Charles Dickens original by Ralph Mowat.

"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? This famous novel by Jane Austen is full of wise and humorous observation of the people and manners of her times.

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 35, 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 17, how can you ever expect to recover from the passionate misery that fills your life, waking and sleeping?

London in the 1830s was no place to be if you were a hungry 10-year-old boy, an orphan without friends or family, with no home to go to, and only a penny in your pocket to buy a piece of bread.But Oliver Twist finds some friends – Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and Charley Bates. They give him food and shelter, and play games with him, but it is not until some days later that Oliver finds out what kind of friends they are and what kind of ’games’ they play. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Charles Dickens original by Richard Rogers.

In a gloomy, neglected house Miss Havisham sits, as she has sat year after year, in a wedding dress and veil that were once white, and are now faded and yellow with age. Her face is like a death’s head; her dark eyes burn with bitterness and hate. By her side sits a proud and beautiful girl, and in front of her, trembling with fear in his thick country boots, stands young Pip.

Suddenly, there was a high voice screaming in the darkness: "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" It was Long John Silver’s parrot, Captain Flint! I turned to run . . .’But young Jim Hawkins does not escape from the pirates this time. Will he and his friends find the treasure before the pirates do? Will they escape from the island, and sail back to England with a ship full of gold?

’Please, Mr Murdstone! Don’t beat me! I’ve tried to learn my lessons, really I have, sir!’ sobs David. Although he is only eight years old, Mr Murdstone does beat him, and David is so frightened that he bites his cruel stepfather’s hand. For that, he is kept locked in his room for five days and nights, and nobody is allowed to speak to him. As David grows up, he learns that life is full of trouble and misery and cruelty. But he also finds laughter and kindness, trust and friendship . . . and love.

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.

The human mind is a dark, bottomless pit, and sometimes it works in strange and frightening ways. That sound in the night...is it a door banging in the wind, or a murdered man knocking inside his coffin? The face in the mirror...is it yours, or the face of someone standing behind you, who is never there when you turn round?

What does the name "Agatha Christie" mean? To many people, it means a book about a murder mystery - a "whodunnit". "I'm reading an Agatha Christie," people say. "I'm not sure who the murderer is. I think it's…." But they are usually wrong, because it is not easy to guess the murderer's name before the end of the book. But who was Agatha Christie? What was she like? Was her life quiet and unexciting, or was it full of interest and adventure?Was there a mystery in her life, too?

Tom Sawyer does not like school. He does not like work, and he never wants to get out of bed in the morning. But he likes swimming and fishing, and having adventures with his friends. And he has a lot of adventures. One night, he and his friend Huck Finn go to the graveyard to look for ghosts.They don’t see any ghosts that night. They see something worse than a ghost – much, much worse.

Dartmoor. A wild, wet place in the south-west of England. A place where it is easy to get lost, and to fall into the soft green earth which can pull the strongest man down to his death. A man is running for his life. Behind him comes an enormous dog - a dog from his worst dreams, a dog from hell. Between him and a terrible death stands only one person - the greatest detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes.

Christmas is humbug, Scrooge says - just a time when you find yourself a year older and not a penny richer. The only thing that matters to Scrooge is business, and making money. But on Christmas Eve three spirits come to visit him. They take him travelling on the wings of the night to see the shadows of Christmas past, present, and future - and Scrooge learns a lesson that he will never forget.

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.

When the children dug a hole in the gravel-pit, they were very surprised at what they found. "It" was a Psammead, a sand-fairy, thousands of years old. It was a strange little thing - fat and furry, and with eyes on long stalks. It was often very cross and unfriendly, but it could give wishes - one wish a day. "How wonderful!" the children said. But wishes are difficult things. They can get you into trouble. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English.

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 18! 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.

"Give me the money," says the robber to the Los Angeles security guard. The guard looks at the gun and hands over the money. The robber has long blond hair and rides a motorcycle - and a girl with long blond hair arrives at Kenny’s motel - on a motorcycle. Is she the robber?