1. The Book of the New Sun: Volume 1: Shadow and Claw - Gene Wolfe

Contains the first two volumes of Gene Wolfe's 'The Book of the New Sun' - 'The Shadow of the Torturer' and 'The Claw of the Conciliator', which won the World Fantasy and Nebula awards respectively.

Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit', Gene Wolfe's 'The Book of the New Sun' is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory. Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est.

2. Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany

Collects together some of the short, but influential, stories of Lord Dunsany - 'A Dreamer's Tales', 'The Gods of Pegana', 'Time and the Gods', 'The Book of Wonder', 'The Sword of Welleran' and 'The Last Book of Wonder'.

3. The Worm Ouroboros - E. R. Eddison

When J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was published, reviewers saw that there was only one book with which it could legitimately be compared: E.R. Eddison's classic fantasy adventure 'The Worm Ouroboros'. Set on a distant planet of spectacular beauty and peopled by Lords and Kings, mighty warriors and raven-haired temptresses, Eddison's extravagant story, of a great war for total domination, is an unforgettable work of splendour.

4. Tales of the Dying Earth - Jack Vance

The Dying Earth saga inspired writers like Michael Moorcock and Gene Wolfe, who freely acknowledges his debt to Vance in his own 'Book of the New Sun'. Here, in one volume, is Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning author Jack Vance's classic Dying Earth saga comprising 'The Dying Earth', 'The Eyes of the Overworld', 'Cugel's Saga' and 'Rhialto the Marvellous'. Travel to a far distant future, when the sun bleeds red in a dark sky, where magic and science is one, and the Earth has but a few short decades to live...

5. Little, Big - John Crowley

Edgewood is many houses, all put inside each other, or across each other. It's filled with and surrounded by mystery and enchantment: the further in you go, the bigger it gets. Smoky Barnable, who has fallen in love with Daily Alice Drinkwater, comes to Edgewood, her family home, where he finds himself drawn into a world of magical strangeness. Crowley's work has a special alchemy - mixing the world we know with an imagined world which seems more true and real. Winner of the World Fantasy Award, Little, Big is eloquent, sensual, funny and unforgettable, a truly Fantasy Masterwork.

6. The Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny

Amber is the one real world, casting infinite reflections of itself - Shadow worlds, that can be manipulated by those of royal Amberite blood. But the royal family is torn apart by jealousies and suspicion; the disappearance of the Patriach Oberon has intensified the internal conflict by leaving the throne apparently up for grabs. In a hospital on the Shadow Earth, a young man is recovering from a freak car accident; amnesia has robbed him of all his memory, even the fact that he is Corwin, Crown Prince of Amber, rightful heir to the throne -- and he is in deadly peril...

The five books, 'Nine Princes in Amber', 'The Guns of Avalon', 'Sign of the Unicorn', 'The Hand of Oberon' and 'The Courts of Chaos', together make up 'The Chronicles of Amber', Roger Zelazny's finest work of fantasy and an undisputed classic of the genre.

7. Viriconium - M. John Harrison

In 'Viriconium', the young men whistle to one another all night long as they go about their deadly games. If you wake suddenly, you might hear footsteps running, or an urgent sigh. After a minute or two, the whistles move away in the direction of the Tinmarket or the Margarethestrasse. The next day, some lordling is discovered in the gutter with his throat cut. Who can tell fantasy from reality, magic from illusion, hero from villain, man from monster . . . in Viriconium?

Published here for the first time in one volume, and in the author's preferred order, are all the 'Viriconium' stories, originally published in four books: 'The Pastel City', 'A Storm of Wings', 'In Viriconium' and 'Viriconium Nights'.

8. The Conan Chronicles: Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle - Robert E. Howard

Conan the Cimmerian: he rose from boy-thief and mercenary to become king of Aquilonia. Neither supernatural fiends nor demonic sorcery could oppose the barbarian warrior as he wielded his mighty sword and dispatched his enemies to a bloody doom on the battlefields of the legendary Hyborian Age.

Collected together for the first time anywhere in the world, in chronological order, are all Robert E. Howard's definitive stories of Conan, exactly as he wrote them, as fresh, atmospheric and vibrant today as when they were first published in the pulp magazines such as 'Weird Tales' more than sixty years ago.

9. The Land of Laughs - Jonathan Carroll

For schoolteacher Thomas Abbey there was no writer to equal Marshall France, a legendary author of children's books who hid himself away in the small town of Galen and died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four. Tom and his girlfriend Saxony, wanting to write France's biography, arrive in Galen, where they discover the writer's fiercely protective daughter Anna is waiting for them. Before long, they realise that this idyllic little town and its inhabitants - both human and animal - are not quite what they seem: France's magic has spread beyond the printed page...

10. The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea - L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt

The Mathematics of Magic was probably the greatest discovery of the ages - at least Professor Harold Shea thought so. With the proper equations, he could instantly transport himself back in time to all the wondrous lands of ancient legend. But slips in time were a hazard, and Shea's magic did not always work - at least, not quite as he expected...

This omnibus volume of all of the Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea contains 'The Incomplete Enchanter', 'The Wall of Serpents' and 'Castle of Iron'.