Collecting Chiltern Classics: Illustrated List

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Collecting Chiltern Classics

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About Chiltern Classics

Chiltern Publishing issued their first books in 2018, and are strongly achieving their mission to create beautiful editions of the classics. The famous 1800s “peacock edition” of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a clear inspiration for their delightful designs, both in size and style.

The books are on the smallish side (think pocket book) – reflecting the size and format of the original books when they were printed in Jane Austen’s time. They all feature wonderfully detailed and textured covers, sparkling gilt edges, smooth creamy pages, and they are robustly made with strong stitched bindings. They feel surprisingly weighty in your hards (due to the quality materials) and are a real joy to read. I highly recommend them.

Chiltern typically release the books in a batch of around 8 new volumes at a time (with the line-up typically including at least one children’s book and one speculative fiction amongst a mix of classic literature titles). Several of the volumes are also available as notebooks bound in a matching covers, or in bundled ‘gift packs‘ which include the book along with the notebook. 

Video Review

Complete List of Chiltern Classics

Jump to release year: 202420232022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 

2023/2024 releases

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Anticipated release, Nov 21, 2023/Jan 2, 2024. 9781914602214.

Huckleberry Finn escapex from his alcoholic and abusive father takes an adventurous journey down the Mississippi River together with the runaway slave Jim. 

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Blackwells


Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Anticipated release, Nov 21, 2023/Jan 2, 2024. 9781914602245.

A revealing exploration of Victorian society, set in Northern England in Coketown, a polluted place with smoke-filled factories and soulless workers who have been downtrodden by the cruel and heartless Thomas Gradgrind and Josiah Bounderby.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Blackwells


Call of the Wild by Jack London

Anticipated release, Nov 21, 2023/Jan 2, 2024. 9781914602252.

An adventure novel set in the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s that follows the story of a domesticated dog named Buck, who is stolen from his home in California and sold as a sled dog in the Yukon Territory where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Blackwells


The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Anticipated release, Nov 21, 2023/Jan 2, 2024. 9781914602269.

A young governess is sent to Bly, a large country estate, to care for two children. She has strict instructions from their guardian never to write to him, never to ask about the history of the house, and never to abandon the children. But it isn’t long before the Governess starts to see apparitions around the grounds.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Blackwells


The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Anticipated release, Nov 21, 2023/Jan 2, 2024. 9781914602276.

A scientist builds a time machine and travels to future. He finds that humanity has devolved into two races: the childlike Eloi and the monstrous Morlocks. His machine disappears, so he explores but realizes that the future world is nothing like what he had envisaged or hoped for.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Blackwells


The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Anticipated release, Nov 21, 2023/Jan 2, 2024. 9781914602238.

In Puritanical Boston in the mid-17th century, Hester Prynne is publicly shamed and ostracized for having a child out of wedlock. Forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothing to signify her status as an adulterer, she struggles to survive in a society that is unforgiving of her sins, but is eventually able to redeem herself through her strong will and determination. 

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Blackwells


The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Anticipated release, Nov 21, 2023/Jan 2, 2024. 9781914602221.

The Phantom, a disfigured musical genius who haunts the Paris Opera House, is mesmerized by the talents and beauty of the young soprano Christine. He lures her as his protégé and falls fiercely in love with her.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Blackwells


Sons And Lovers by D. H. Lawrence

Anticipated release, Nov 21, 2023/Jan 2, 2024. 9781914602160.

Traces the sufferings of Paul Morel, a sensitive young artist whose love for his mother, Gertrude, overshadows his romances with two women: Miriam, his repressed, religious girlfriend, and Clara, an experienced, independent married woman.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Blackwells


2023 releases

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602207.

Young orphan Oliver Twist has a lonely and sad life in the workhouse. He becomes an apprentice for an undertaker but runs away to London where he meets Jack, the Artful Dodger.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602146.

The most famous of all of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet tells the story of the ghost of the King of Denmark who tells his son Hamlet, to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet’s uncle.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


The Iliad by Homer

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602108.

The story of the The Iliad (taken from the Alexander Pope Translation) follows the great Greek warrior Achilles, as well as his rage and the destruction it causes.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602115.

Cranford is filled with widows, wives of absent business or military men, and spinsters.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602122.

A delightful fable about the prophet Al Mustafa, who has lived in city of Orphalese for over 12 years and when finally leaving for his home country, people gather to bid him farewell, and ask for his guidance on important aspects of life.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602139.

Aurelius shares his thoughts about the importance of logic over emotion and helps you to start training your mind to think rationally. By following Stoic teachings, you can live with purpose and die with dignity.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602177.

A brilliantly beautiful but flawed gem is seized by a British officer in India. The officer brings it back to England as a family heirloom with a supposed curse placed upon it. The officer leaves the stone to his niece, Rachel Verinder, for her to inherit when she turns 18.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602153.

The story of an English seaman, Charles Marlow, who is hired by a Belgian company to captain a steamer up river through the African interior.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602184.

The first of Christie’s novels to feature Hercule Poirot, set in a large, isolated country manor with a half-dozen secretive suspects.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

Released Jul 11, 2023. 9781914602191.

Hercule Poirot is summoned to France after receiving a distressing letter with a urgent cry for help. Upon his arrival in Merlinville-sur-Mer, the investigator finds the man who penned the letter, the South American millionaire Monsieur Renauld, stabbed to death and his body flung into a freshly dug open grave on the golf course adjoining the property.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells


2022 releases

Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott

Released Aug 22, 2022. 9781914602009.

Three years on from Little Women, the March girls and their friend Laurie are young adults with their futures ahead of them. Although they all face painful trials along the way – from Meg’s sad lesson in housekeeping to Laurie’s disappointment in love and a tragedy which touches them all – each of the girls finally finds happiness, if not always in the way they expect.

*Important note, American readers, this is ‘part two’ of the story you know as Little Women, because it was released as an omnibus edition in the US, and in two volumes in the UK – the first part is available separately as Little Women (released Nov 2019).

→ Buy from Amazon | Awesome Books | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


Peter Pan by James Matthew Barrie

Released Aug 22, 2022. 9781914602078

The classic children’s tale about the boy who never grew up and his adventures with Wendy and her brothers in Neverland.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


Silas Marner by George Eliot

Released Aug 22, 2022. 9781914602023.

An outwardly simple tale of a linen weaver, the novel is notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated treatment of a variety of issues ranging from religion to industrialisation to community.

→ Buy from Amazon | Awesome Books | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


Far From the Madding Crown by Thomas Hardy

Released Aug 22, 2022. 9781914602016

Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area, but must deal with the attention of three suitors, a sheep farmer, a reckless sergeant and a well-to-do, mature bachelor.

→ Buy from Amazon | Awesome Books | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


Animal Farm by George Orwell

Released Aug 22, 2022. 9781914602061.

A satirical allegorical novella that tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy.

→ Buy from Amazon | Awesome Books | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Released Aug 22, 2022. 9781914602030.

Shakespeare’s tragic play about two young Italian star-crossed lovers.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Released Aug 22, 2022. 9781914602054

Newland Archer is a lawyer who is happily engaged to May, enjoying life in Gilded Age New York. However, his life turns upside down when he meets and falls in love with May’s scandalous cousin, Ellen.

→ Buy from Amazon | Awesome Books | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


The Romantic Poets by various authors

Released Aug 22, 2022. 9781914602047

A collection of poetry from the Romantic Era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century and rebelled against the rules of earlier poets, instead turning to nature and emotion as their inspiration. Includes poems from Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Byron, Shelley and Keats.

→ Buy from Amazon | Awesome BooksB&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (re-release – original edition Sep 2018).

Released March 2022. 9781914602085. 

The classic children’s tale about the boy who never grew up and his adventures with Wendy and her brothers in Neverland.

*Note, this is a re-release with a different cover design to the original Chiltern Classic release of this title in 2018.

→ Buy from Amazon | Awesome Books | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


2021 releases

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Released September 2021. Reprinted December 2023. 9781912714988.

A dystopian social science fiction novel that centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of society.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Released July 2021. 9781912714933.

The story of young Helen Graham’s disastrous marriage to the dashing drunkard Arthur Huntingdon (said to be modeled on the author’s brother Branwell) and her flight from him to the seclusion of Wildfell Hall.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Released July 2021. 9781912714940.

Grumpy young Mary Lennox is sent to live in Yorkshire with her uncle at Misselthwaite Manor, where she finds an abandoned garden.


☞ For more beautiful editions of this title, check out my collector’s guide to The Secret Garden


→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Wolfe

Released July 2021. 9781912714926.

Examines one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-class Londoner married to a member of Parliament.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Released July 2021. 9781912714964.

The French Revolution comes to life in this famous novel about the best of times and the worst of times.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

Released July 2021. 9781912714957.

Sarah’s drunk husband auctions her and her daughter off to be the wife of Richard Newson, a passing sailor.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Released July 2021. 9781912714971.

Set in Ireland at the turn of the century, this novel describes Stephen Dedalus’s journey from bright young student to a promising clergyman to an artist.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Released July 2021. 9781912714919.

A collection of Shakespeare’s popular poetry.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay


2020 releases

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Released August 2020. 9781912714742.

Dorian Gray is the subject of a full-length portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist impressed and infatuated by Dorian’s beauty. Understanding that his beauty will fade, Dorian sells his soul, to ensure that the picture, rather than he, will age and fade.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

Released August 2020. 9781912714681.

James Mortimer asks Sherlock Holmes for advice after his friend Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead in the park surrounding his manor, in the moors of Devon. The death was attributed to a heart attack, but according to Mortimer, Sir Charles’s face retained an expression of horror, and not far from the corpse the footprints of a gigantic hound were clearly visible. 

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Released August 2020. 9781912714735.

Alice falls through a rabbit hole into Wonderland and has many delightful adventures there.


❦ For more beautiful editions of this title, check out the collector’s guide to Alice in Wonderland


→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Released August 2020. 9781912714698.

Ishmael, the narrator, stays in a whaler’s inn in Massachusetts, where he has to share a bed with a harpooner from the South Pacific named Queequeg, and the two decide to seek work on a whaling vessel together.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Released August 2020. 9781912714674.

The novel tells the story of Dracula’s attempt to move from Transylvania to England so that he may find new blood and spread the undead curse, and of the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and a woman led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Released August 2020. 9781912714728.

Charles Bovary struggles his way to a medical degree and marries the unpleasant woman his mother has chosen for him, Héloïse Dubuc. He sets out to build his practice, but is smitten by Emma, a beautiful, poetically dressed young woman who has received a “good education” in a convent. She has a powerful yearning for luxury and romance inspired by reading popular novels. 

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Released August 2020. 9781912714711.

The tragic story of young Tess, and the troubles she has in her relationships with two men. 

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Released August 2020. 9781912714704.

A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

2019 releases

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Released November 2019. 9781812714322.

Victor Frankenstein driven by the mad dream of creating his own creature, experiments with alchemy and science to build a monster stitched together from dead remains. Once the creature becomes a living breathing articulate entity, it turns on its maker and the novel darkens into tragedy. 

*Text follows the 1931 edition.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Released November 2019. 9781812714339.

A classic collection of Sherlock Holmes’ exploits, where from his Baker Street apartment, 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. 

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Released November 2019. Reprinted December 2021. Reprinted August 2022. 9781812714308.

A young prince visits various planets, including Earth, addressing themes of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Released November 2019. 9781912714315.

When Jim Hawkins sets sail searching for buried treasure and adventure, he finds himself caught up in a deadly mutiny where he must outwit the cunning pirate Long John Silver in order to stay alive.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Released November 2019. 9781812714285.

The diffident and much put-upon heroine Fanny Price has to struggle to cope with the results of adultery, re-examining her own feelings while enduring the cheerful amorality, old-fashioned indifference and priggish disapproval of those around her.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Released November 2019. 9781912714292.

Little Women; or, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868) follows the lives, loves and tribulations of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War. The story is based on the childhood experiences Alcott shared with her real-life sisters, Anna, May and Elizabeth.

*Note, American readers, this is ‘part one’ of your story, because it was released as an omnibus edition in the US, but in two volumes in the UK – the second part is available separately in a Chiltern edition as Good Wives (released Aug 2022).

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Emma by Jane Austen

Released November 2019. 9781812714261.

‘Handsome, clever, and rich’, Emma is also an ‘imaginist’, ‘on fire with speculation and foresight’. She sees the signs of romance all around her, but thinks she will never be married. 

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Released November 2019. 9781812714278.

Catherine Morland who leaves her sheltered, rural home to enter the busy, sophisticated world of Bath in the late 1790s.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

2018 releases

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Released September 2018. 9781912714032.

The arrival of two rich bachelors stirs Mrs Bennet to hope that wedding bells will soon be in the air. Jane forms an early attachment to Mr Bingley, but her spirited sister Elizabeth takes against the arrogant Mr Darcy. 

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Released September 2018. 9781912714049.

Elinor Dashwood’s cool reason and her sister Marianne’s more demonstrative nature are revealed when their father Henry dies and they are uprooted from the family home. For Elinor and Marianne, salvation lies in making a suitable match, but both must overcome adversity to achieve it.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Released September 2018. 9781912714025.

Seven years after she was persuaded to break off their engagement, Anne Elliot is unexpectedly reacquainted with Captain Frederick Wentworth. Anne is still in love with Wentworth, but mischance and misunderstanding stand in their way.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Released September 2018. 9781912714001.

The story of the orphaned Pip and his relationship with Joe, the kindly blacksmith, the mysterious Magwitch, the reclusive Miss Havisham and the beautiful but cold-hearted Estella.

*Note, this title was re-released with a new cover in August 2022.

→ OOP. Check availability at Amazon | Abes | eBay

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Released September 2018. 9781912714070.

The passionate dark tale of Catherine and Heathcliff, whose love and loss is as wild as the moors surrounding their childhood home, Wuthering Heights.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Released September 2018. 9781912714018.

Orphaned Jane Eyre endures a life of hardship until she is appointed governess at Thornfield Hall. She is drawn to its master, the remote, brooding Edward Rochester, but he harbours a dark secret that bars their path to happiness.

→ Buy from AmazonB&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

Released September 2018. Reprinted August 2022. 9781912714063.

Nick Carraway takes us into the superficially glittering world of the mansions which lined the Long Island shore in the 1920s, to encounter Nick’s cousin Daisy, her brash but wealthy husband Tom Buchanan, Jay Gatsby and to explore the mystery that surrounds him.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Released September 2018. 9781912714056.

An ancient Chinese military treatise devoted to warfare and military strategy and tactics.

→ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Blackwells | Abes | eBay

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