Who wrote in a book like this?

For those of you who have tired of partying, had it with all that shopping, and read every end-of-year list in sight, we thought we'd give you something to pep you up. Over the next week we'll be putting up a teaser a day - a pictorial competition of a sort. Some are literary, some arty, some musical and, well, at least some of them are fiendishly difficult. Or so we thought, but quite possibly the Christmas season is getting to us too.

So to start off, here's a snapshot of a page of a literary classic. Can you tell us which it is? And remember, resorting to Google doesn't count. We'll post all the answers in the new year.