The Great GatsbyFrancis Scott FitzgeraldIn 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Gr...
The Call of the WildJack LondonThe Call of the Wild is a novel by American writer Jack London. The plot concerns a previously domesticated and even somewhat pampered dog named Buck, whose primordial instincts return after a series of events finds him serving as a sled dog in th...
Pride and PrejudiceJane AustenPride And Prejudice, the story of Mrs. Bennet's attempts to marry off her five daughters is one of the best-loved and most enduring classics in English literature. Excitement fizzes through the Bennet household at Longbourn in Hertfordshire when y...
Romeo and JulietWilliam ShakespeareRomeo and Juliet is a tragic play written early in the career of William Shakespeare about two teenage "star-cross'd lovers" whose untimely deaths ultimately unite their feuding households. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his ...
Alice's Adventures in WonderlandLewis CarrollAlice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is a novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy world popul...
Les MisérablesVictor HugoLes Misérables (1862) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo, and among the best-known novels of the 19th century. It follows the lives and interactions of several French characters over a twenty year period in the early 19th century that starts ...
Treasure IslandRobert Louis StevensonWhile going through the possessions of a deceased guest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her son find a treasure map that leads them to a pirate's fortune.
The Art of WarSun TzuThe Art of War is a Chinese military treatise that was written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it has long been praised as the definitive work on military strategies...
The Adventures of Sherlock HolmesArthur Conan DoyleThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his famous detective and illustrated by Sidney Paget.
These are the first of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, originally published as singl...
The Kama SutraVatsyayanaThe Kama Sutra, is an ancient Indian text widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior in Sanskrit literature written by the Indian scholar Vatsyayana. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sex. Kāma means sen...
DraculaBram StokerDracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, featuring as its primary antagonist the vampire Count Dracula.
Dracula has been attributed to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion l...
The Little Lady of the Big HouseJack LondonA triangle romance provides the basis for a questioning of the meaning of masculinity, as well as an examination of agribusiness in California.
Jack London said of this novel: "It is all sex from start to finish -- in which no sexual adventure is...
The Wonderful Wizard of OzLyman Frank BaumDorothy is a young girl who lives on a Kansas farm with her Uncle Henry, Aunt Em, and little dog Toto. One day the farmhouse, with Dorothy inside, is caught up in a tornado and deposited in a field in the country of the Munchkins. The falling hous...
Around the World in Eighty DaysJules VerneShocking his stodgy colleagues at the exclusive Reform Club, enigmatic Englishman Phileas Fogg wagers his fortune, undertaking an extraordinary and daring enterprise: to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days. With his French valet Passepartout i...
A Journey into the Center of the EarthJules VerneJourney to the Center of the Earth is a classic 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne (published in the original French as Voyage au centre de la Terre). The story involves a professor who leads his nephew and hired guide down a volcano in Ice...
Grimm's Fairy TalesJacob Ludwig Karl GrimmChildren's and Household Tales (German: Kinder- und Hausmärchen) is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales (Ge...
The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonFrancis Scott FitzgeraldThis story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scar...
Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy)J.M. BarriePeter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up and Peter and Wendy are the stage play and novel (respectively) which tell the story of Peter Pan, a mischievous little boy who can fly, and his adventures on the island of Neverland with Wendy Darling an...
Anna KareninaLev Nikolayevich TolstoyAnna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast ...
The Sea WolfJack LondonChronicles the voyages of a ship run by the ruthless Wolf Larsen, among the greatest of London's characters, and spokesman for an extreme individualism London intended to critique.