Seized by the urge to travel, revered German writer Gustav von Aschenbach books a stay in a hotel on Venice’s Lido. There, in the oppressive summer heat, he becomes intoxicated by the beauty of a young Polish boy who is on holiday with his family. As Aschenbach’s struggle between discipline and passion intensifies, Venice itself falls into the grip of disease. Despite the danger and decay around him, Aschenbach is unable to leave.

Death in Venice is part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics bound in cloth with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is translated by Shaun Whiteside and features an introduction by Oxford University academic Karolina Watroba.

There were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.

The Ramseys have always spent their holidays at their summer house on Skye – holidays filled with noise, joy and the stuff of family life that might go on forever. But as time passes, bringing with it war and death, the summer home stands empty until one day the family return to make the long-postponed visit to the lighthouse.

To the Lighthouse was published in 1927 and was more commercially successful than any of Woolf’s previous novels. Woolf herself thought it ‘easily the best of my books’. The book printed three times in its first year and went on to become one of Woolf’s best-loved works.

The text of this edition of To the Lighthouse is based on the original Hogarth Press edition, published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf on 5 May 1927. The dust jacket features the original cover created by Virginia Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell, for the Hogarth Press. Beneath the cover ‘bright blue’ boards printed in gilt take inspiration from the finish of the first trade edition.

‘My mind was warped into a new shape by her prose and it will never be the same again’ Greta Gerwig

‘I reread this book every once in a while, and every time I do I find it more capacious and startling. It’s so revolutionary and so exquisitely wrought that it keeps evolving on its own somehow, as if it’s alive’ Alison Bechdel