Fiction

Macbeth becomes wound in spells, and finds that one murder leads to another.

Macbeth was a real Scottish king, succeeding Duncan I in 1040 after defeating him in battle. But Shakespeare’s thought-provoking tragedy, one of the greatest stories in all English literature, is almost entirely fiction.

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The Prince of Denmark is bound to avenge his father’s murder.

The Danish Prince came home to find his father mysteriously dead, and his uncle ready to marry his mother the Queen, and claim the crown.

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Is an old family legend being used as a cover for a very modern murder?

Local superstition about a family legend going back to the English Civil War (1642-1651) blames the death of Charles Baskerville on a giant, ghostly hound, but Sherlock Holmes doesn’t seem to be able to take it seriously.

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A giant gets angry when he finds children playing in his garden.

A giant has been staying with his friend the Cornish ogre; but after seven years he has run out of conversation, and come home.

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Alice experiences for herself the very definition of a pointless exercise.

Alice and an assortment of animals have got very wet. A mouse tries to dry them out by reciting a passage from a dry history book, but when this doesn’t work, the Dodo suggests a Caucus Race.

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The cup of happiness is dashed from Jane Eyre’s lips.

Mr Rochester has proposed to his astonished but delighted governess, Jane Eyre, and the happy couple are now in church, ready to exchange their marriage vows.

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