<pre>Three years have passed since the events narrated in Little Women, and the four March sisters are approaching adulthood, with all its accompanying challenges and expectations. Meg is preparing for her wedding, Beth continues to struggle with her health, Jo is more than ever devoting herself to literature and Amy is about to go on a tour of Europe with her aunt. Their experiences, hopes and ambitions are set in counterpoint to each other, until the whole family is brought together by tragedy and misfortune.
 
 Following on the immediate commercial success of Little Women, Good Wives completes the story of the March sisters and their friend Laurie, and is, together with its prequel, Louisa May Alcott’s crowning achievement and one of the most popular young-adult tales ever written.</pre>

Good Wives

<pre>Once again the eminent detective is presented with a series of seemingly impenetrable cases: an anonymous but illustrious client employs him to rescue the daughter of a famous personage from the clutches of a roguish aristocrat and suspected murderer; a retired art-supply dealer asks him to investigate the suspicious disappearance of his wife with a neighbour and a stash of money; a veteran of the Boer War appeals to him to track down a missing friend; a man has become convinced that his wife has been sucking their baby son’s blood. Will the most famous of sleuths be persuaded to offer his services and set off in pursuit of the criminals?

The final collection of Holmes adventures, containing twelve brilliant, unpredictable stories, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes is a fitting conclusion to its protagonist’s long career and a powerful send-off for Conan Doyle’s greatest creation.</pre>

Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

<pre>The boy who wouldn't grow up, Peter Pan has the power of flight and lives on a magical island. But he is fascinated by Mary Darling's bedtime stories for her children and makes covert night-time visits to their Bloomsbury home. One evening he loses his shadow, and after Mary's daughter Wendy helps him reattach it, he invites her to fly away with him on an extraordinary adventure.In addition to the famous 1911 novel Peter and Wendy, which tells the familiar adventures of Peter Pan in Neverland and popularized the characters of Tinkerbell and Captain Hook, this volume contains the celebrated stage version on which Peter and Wendy is based, as well as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, in which Peter Pan is a seven-day-old infant who consorts with birds and fairies and travels down the Serpentine in a thrush's nest.</pre>

The Complete Peter Pan

<pre>On his return to London after serving in the Second Anglo-Afghan War as an assistant surgeon, Doctor Watson is looking for a place to live. He is introduced to a certain Mr Holmes, an eccentric, pipe-smoking gentleman who shows an interest in chemistry and is currently engaged in a test to detect human haemoglobin.
 
 What begins as a simple house-sharing enquiry soon turns into a fully fledged “study in scarlet”, a case of blood, murder and betrayal that will transport the reader from the streets of London to the early settlements of Salt Lake City in Utah…</pre>

A Study in Scarlet

<pre>When Sherlock Holmes receives a bungled tip-off from one of the agents of his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, the great detective hopes to avoid a murderous crime and bring the would-be assassin to justice. But on being informed soon afterwards that one John Douglas of Birlstone Manor has been found with his head blown apart by a shotgun, he realizes that he is too late. And so begins an enthralling tale of revenge, vigilantism and secret societies, one that transports the reader from the English countryside to the violent world of the American frontier of the 1860s.
 
 The fourth and final novel in the Sherlock Holmes canon, originally published in the Strand magazine between September 1914 and May 1915, The Valley of Fear is a riveting whodunit that showcases all of the classic elements that have ensured the enduring popularity of the stories featuring Conan Doyle's most famous creation.</pre>

Valley of Fear

<pre>One of the best-loved adventure stories ever written, Treas ure Island's timeless tale of pirates, lost treasure maps, mutiny and derring-do has appealed to generations of readers ever since Robert Louis Stevenson penned it in 1881 with the claim: If this don't fetch the kids, why, they have gone rotten since my day.

But more than just a children's classic, the novel is considered to be one of the greatest feats of storytelling in the English language, with characters such as the unforgettable Long John Silver becoming part of the cultural consciousness. Treasure Island is a coming-of-age story that will captivate both adults and children for as long as stories are told.</pre>

Treasure Island

<pre>The four March sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy - live in financial hardship in New England with their mother, while their father has been drafted to fight in the Civil War. The girls embark on a series of adventures and endure a number of unexpected misfortunes - experiences that allow their personalities to emerge: Meg sensible and outgoing, Jo literary and boyish, Beth musical and shy, and Amy artistic and selfish - but the bonds holding together the March family remain unbroken.Initially written as a novel for girls, Little Women is now regarded as an all-time American classic for all readers, inspiring generations of women writers and giving rise to many adaptations.

ABOUT THE SERIES: Alma Classics Junior series of illustrated classics includes some of the greatest books ever written for younger readers and new translations of unjustly neglected international works. Our aim is to give our list an international feel and offer young readers to opportunity to connect with other cultures and literatures - this applies not only to the titles we chose but also to the illustrators we commission - so that we can bring a bit of novelty into the canon of British children's literature. All children's classics contain extra material for young readers, including a profile of the author, a section on the book, a list of characters, a glossary and a test-yourself quiz.</pre>

Little Women

<pre>The adventures of Mowgli, the young man raised by wolves in the jungles of Central India, and his friends Baloo the bear, Bagheera the panther and Kaa the python, as they face the arch villain Shere Khan the tiger, have become so popular that they have achieved an almost mythical status throughout the world. They were collected by Kipling in The Jungle Book and its sequel, The Second Jungle Book, which also contain other stories set in India which prominently feature animals, such as the well-known `Rikki-Tikki-Tavi', which describes the struggles of a mongoose against venomous cobras.

Here presented with brand-new illustrations by Ian Beck, these hugely popular tales, inspired by ancient fables and Kipling's own experiences in India, form a vivid account of the relationship between humans and nature, and will continue to inspire readers young and old.</pre>

The Jungle Books

<pre>From his Baker Street apartment, Sherlock Holmes wields his powers of deduction in pursuit of justice and truth, venturing out into foggy Victorian London accompanied by his faithful sidekick Dr Watson. This classic collection of Holmes tales includes many of the detective's most-loved exploits: Holmes is confronted by a venomous snake in 'The Adventure of the Speckled Band', mystified by a missing thumb in 'The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb' and beguiled by a beautiful opera singer in 'A Scandal in Bohemia', never once losing his famous cool.First appearing separately in the Strand Magazine, these stories were published together in 1892 in a volume that rapidly became one of the most popular Sherlock Holmes collections. Showcasing Arthur Conan Doyle's inimitable genius for mystery and storytelling, these tales are proof that the famous detective remains one of the greatest crime fighters ever created.</pre>

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

<pre>A mysterious murder near Esher, a gruesome delivery of two human ears packed in coarse salt, the disappearance of secret submarine plans, the sudden descent into madness of two brothers – these are only some of the apparently unsolvable cases contained in this volume, which the great sleuth, assisted by his trusted friend Doctor Watson, is challenged to clear up with the aid of his sagacity and unrivalled analytical skills.

Published a quarter of a century after the first book of Holmes adventures, and including the famous titular story His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes, this collection shows the detective’s powers of deduction at their most dazzling, proving that Conan Doyle’s ability to entertain and surprise remains undiminished.</pre>

His Last Bow

<pre>Having crash-landed in the Sahara desert, a pilot comes across a young boy who introduces himself as the Little Prince and tells him the story of how he grew up on a tiny asteroid before travelling across the galaxies and coming to Earth. His encounters and discoveries, seen through childlike, innocent eyes, give rise to candid reflections on life and human nature.First published in 1943 and featuring the author's own watercolour illustrations, The Little Prince has since become a classic philosophical fable for young and old, as well as a global publishing phenomenon, selling tens of millions of copies worldwide and being translated into dozens of languages.</pre>

The Little Prince

<pre>Deeply bored by the lack of mental stimulus and the dull routine of existence, Sherlock Holmes is about to resort to his daily dose of cocaine when an elegantly dressed young woman called Mary Morstan enters his room and presents her case to him and Watson. Following the mysterious disappearance of her father ten years ago, and after answering, four years later, a newspaper advert enquiring for her, she has begun to receive each year, on the same date, a precious pearl in the post from an unknown benefactor. Now, with the last pearl, she has also received a message, telling her she is “a wronged woman” and asking for a meeting that very night outside the Lyceum Theatre. Will the great detective accompany her and help her unravel the mystery?
 
 First published in 1880, The Sign of the Four – the second Sherlock Holmes novel after A Study in Scarlet, published three years earlier – will sweep the readers away into a story of murders, betrayals, double-crossings and stolen treasures, and is an enduring testament to the storytelling genius of Arthur Conan Doyle.</pre>

The Sign of the Four or The Problem of the Sholtos

<pre>Originally conceived by its author as an entertaining story for Alice Liddell, the daughter of an Oxford dean, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the fantastic tale of the young Alice's encounters with the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts, has captured the imaginations of young and old throughout the world since it was first published in 1865. In addition to the vivid and unforgettable characters, it is the book's experimental style, linguistic inventiveness and myriad of jokes and puzzles that account for the timeless fascination it inspires.

Published to coincide with Alice in Wonderland's 150th anniversary, this volume includes John Tenniel's iconic drawings, the sequel Through the Looking Glass and a facsimile of Alice's Adventure's Under Ground, the early manuscript version of the novel illustrated by Lewis Carroll himself.</pre>

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures Under Ground

<pre>London’s criminal underworld has risen once again, and a dangerous individual with an air gun is prowling the streets. The capital is in greater need of its protector Sherlock Holmes than ever.

Three years have passed since Holmes and the evil mastermind Professor Moriarty fell, locked in combat, into the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, and when Doctor Watson collides with an odd-looking old book collector in the street, little does he know that the world’s greatest detective is about to return…

Third volume in the Alma Classics Sherlock Holmes stories, this edition contains extra material for young readers, including a profile of the author, a section on the book, a list of characters, a glossary and a test-yourself quiz.</pre>

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

<pre>“I know every move of your game… It has been a duel between you and me, Mr Holmes… If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.”

With Sherlock Holmes’s reputation as the scourge of the criminal underworld preceding him, the ingenious detective, with the aid of Dr Watson, is confronted in these stories by some of his most fiendishly difficult cases yet. 

The collection culminates in ‘The Final Problem’, in which the evil Professor Moriarty is plotting the detective’s downfall. Soon Holmes and Watson are led across Europe in a deadly pursuit of their devilish quarry, until the final showdown in Switzerland, at the precipitous Reichenbach Falls…</pre>

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

<pre>When the corpse of Sir Charles Baskerville is found on the grounds of his Dartmoor estate next to a mysterious animal footprint, thoughts turn to a fabled family curse: that of a hellhound set out to avenge a crime committed by one of Sir Charles's ancestors. As the only surviving heir of the Baskervilles is terrified for his safety, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are called in to investigate.

The most famous novel in Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes cycle, The Hound of the Baskervilles is a masterpiece of terror, suspense and mystery which has enthralled readers young and old since it was first published in 1902.</pre>

Hound of the Baskervilles

<pre>Regarded as one of the most influential horror stories of all time and the inspiration for countless literary spin-offs, the tale of the young Englishman Jonathan Harker's journey into the very heart of Count Dracula's evil realm remains a compelling read to this day.

A thriller of hypnotic power, a dark exploration of human passion, mythology and the paranormal, and a plain old-fashioned masterpiece of storytelling, the nightmarish saga of Dracula is one of the enduring classics of supernatural fiction.</pre>

Alma Junior Classics