Delphi Classics Ltd imprint: 84 books

The French mystery novelist Maurice Leblanc is remembered chiefly today as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief and detective Arsène Lupin, often described as a French counterpart to Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation Sherlock Holmes. Celebrated for fashioning complex plots and ingenious puzzles,...

The prolific author of vintage thrillers, Fergus Hume rose to fame following the publication of his first novel, ‘The Mystery of a Hansom Cab’. It became the best-selling mystery novel of the Victorian era and went on to inspire Arthur Conan Doyle to write ‘A Study in Scarlet’, featuring Sherlock...

France’s answer to Shakespeare, the seventeenth century playwright Molière wrote comedies, farces, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets and poetry. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed at the Comédie-Française more often than those of any other playwright...

The playwright J. M. Synge was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the co-founders of the Abbey Theatre. Today he is best known for his controversial play ‘The Playboy of the Western World’, which caused riots in Dublin during its opening run. Synge's writings are chiefly...

Famous today as the creator of the reserved and scholarly detective Fleming Stone, Carolyn Wells was a prolific American writer of popular mystery novels, celebrated for their intricate plots and engaging characters. The first novel in the series, ‘The Clue’ (1909), features on the Haycraft-Queen...

The Italian composer and violinist Antonio Vivaldi left a decisive mark on the form of the concerto, influencing the emerging style of late Baroque music. In spite of his widespread popularity today, Vivaldi was largely forgotten after death and his reputation was only re-established in the 1920’s....

The philosopher and psychologist, William James (brother to the famous novelist Henry James) was a leading thinker of the late nineteenth century and one of the most influential American philosophers, regarded by many as the father of American psychology. James established the philosophical school...

Famous for his unique style of thoughtful and literary Westerns, Max Brand (real name Frederick Faust) produced a prolific array of compelling characters and innovative plots in over 500 different books. Brand also featured the popular young medical intern Dr. James Kildare in a series of pulp fiction...

The Scottish author John Galt achieved instant fame with his 1821 novel ‘Annals of the Parish’, winning him the distinction of being the first novelist to deal with issues of the Industrial Revolution. A close friend of Lord Byron, Galt wrote novels that are memorable for their endearing depiction...

The poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio was a leading writer of the Italian Renaissance, now best remembered as the author of the famous compendium of tales ‘The Decameron’. Boccaccio helped lay the foundations for the humanism of the Renaissance, while raising vernacular literature to the status...

The seventeenth century Englishman Izaak Walton is the celebrated author of ‘The Compleat Angler’, a pastoral discourse on the joys and stratagems of fishing that has become one of the most frequently reprinted books of English literature. The unpretentious treatise, of which Walton declined to...

A historian of the first century BC, Dionysius of Halicarnassus taught rhetoric in Rome while studying the Latin language, collecting material for his magnum opus, ‘Roman Antiquities’. Dionysius states that his objects in writing history were to please lovers of noble deeds and to repay the benefits...

Renowned in the Roman world for his vast learning, Varro was an antiquarian, historian and agriculturist. Of Varro’s more than seventy works, his treatise ‘On Agriculture’ survives complete and a significant part of his magnum opus ‘On the Latin Language’, revealing his deep interest in...

A rhetorician of the late second century, Athenaeus wrote ‘The Deipnosophistae’ (‘Dinner-Table Philosophers’), a fifteen-book encyclopaedia of information on the ancient world, preserving otherwise lost treasures from many important writers. The text is structured as a dialogue in the vein...