Jane Eyre's suspense-laden, melodramatic plot - featuring child cruelty and attempted bigamy, as well as the celebrated madwoman - explains much of its appeal... Jane Eyre is a book into which generations of readers have escaped

Anyone who has read Anna Karenina will be aware of its extraordinary power as an epic psychological tale of a woman who gives up her husband and son for the sake of an affair with a handsome army officer. It has humour but, as with all of Tolstoy's works, it is completely without sentimentality

'Legionaries and their commanders, frigid empress and frivolous lady-in-waiting, and, above all, the ambitious, domineering, but also self-tormenting and restlessly questioning Constantine - all come vividly to life and persuade the reader that he is their contemporary.'

Few novels have charted the end of boyhood and the coming of adult wisdom as subtly and humanely as Maxwell in this profound, atmospheric work which is as moving as it is shrewd and often funny

A narrative of sheer emotion... Olivia achieves the purity of classic tragedy

Extraordinary...as accomplished and perfect as possible in its feeling, its decorum and tact, its secret lyricism...in its quality at the same time of modesty and candour

A wonderful dark comic first novel