Classics to reread (before 1900)

The Confessions

An autobiographical account of Augustine's tempestuous early life until his conversation to practising the Catholic faith enthusiastically. It provides a vehicle for...

The Divine Comedy

A poem about life after death. The inferno (hell) is a conical funnel, purgatory a mountain with circular ledges for repentant sinners, and at the top is earthly...

Orlando furioso

One of the greatest epic poems of the Italian Renaissance, Orlando Furioso is an intricate tale of love and enchantment set at the time of the Holy Roman Emperor...

Don Quixote

The humble gentleman Don Quixote is obsessed with tales of chivalry and decides to roam the world seeking adventures. He rides Rosinante and travels with Sancho Panza...

Hamlet

Hold Hamlet, the king of Denmark, is dead. His widow Gertrude marries his brother, Claudius, who becomes king. Hamlet's son sees a ghost of his father who tells his...

Life Is a Dream

One of the best-known plays by Calderón de la Barca. Follows the story of Segismundo, son of the king and heir to the kingdom, who was marked by a terrible prophecy...

The Imaginary Invalid

A hypochondriac, victimized by pompous physicians, tests the loyalty of a loving daughter and discovers the contempt of his scheming and greedy second wife. This...

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked and this is the story of his efforts to cope with solitude and making a tolerable existence with infinite ingenuity. He describes the...

Pride and Prejudice

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five daughters and live in Hertfordshire in England. Due to the lack of a male heir, the family fortune is due to fall to a cousin. A rich...

Fairy Tales

Popular stories and folk tales collected by the brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, in the nineteenth century. These are short stories (generally 2 or 3 pages long),...

The Captain's Daughter

Set during the Pugachov rebellion against Catherine the Great, The Captain’s Daughter was Pushkin’s only completed novel and remains one of his most popular works....

Loss and Gain

This is a novel that paints a vivid picture of religion in Oxford at the time of the Oxford Movement. Charles Reding is the son of a clergyman and is an undergraduate...

Great Expectations

Philip Pirrip ('Pip') is a small village boy being brought up by the blacksmith Joe Gargery. He is told to go and visit the house of Miss Havisham, whose mind had...

David Copperfield

David Copperfield is born in Suffolk with a step father who is cruel and a mother who dies young. He is sent to school and makes friends with Steerforth and Traddles...

Jane Eyre

A novel about the life of Jane, an English girl and an orphan, who is admitted into an orphanage until she starts work as a governess. She falls in love with the...

Wuthering Heights

The Heathcliff Linton house called Wuthering Heights is one of violence and incident, with the story told by the neighbour Lockwood, a tenant at the Grange. It is the...

Moby Dick

The young narrator, Ismael, decides to go to sea on the whaler Pequod, which was ultimately doomed. Here we are introduced to the harpooner Queequeg, the first-mate...

The Moonstone

The moonstone diamond is stolen from an Indian shrine and handed to an English girl, but it disappears without trace. With many persons coming under suspicion,...

Around the World in Eighty Days

A rich Englishman, Fogg, makes a bet: according to him, it is possible to go around the world in 80 days. To win the bet, he embarks on a journey with Passepartout (a...

Treasure Island

Jim Hawkins narrates the story throughout. On the west coast of England in the 1700s his mother was the innkeeper at Admiral Benbow Inn. One day an old pirate arrived...

Little women

The beloved story of the March girls is a classic American novel, telling the story of four sisters: independent, tomboyish Jo; delicate, loving Beth; pretty, kind...

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer lives with his brother Sid and Aunt Polly in St Petersburg, Missouri. He is a great friend of Huckleberry Finn and this is an account of their adventures....

The Turn of the Screw

A short story about haunting told by a young governess sent to a country house called Bly. She is engaged by the uncle of two orphaned children. She becomes embroiled...

Quo vadis?

Historical novel, set in imperial Rome, in the time of St. Peter, St. Paul and Nero (63 AD), based on many documented historical facts. The title of the book derives...