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All time Classic Books-Literature's greatest hits
47
items As a literature student, I’ve read a wide range of classics, from British to Russian to American and beyond. If you enjoy exploring classic literature, this list brings together many of the essential works that have shaped literary history.
Sections
4
Russian Classics
American Classics
International classics
British Classics
Russian Classics
The Brothers Karamazov, paints a complex and richly detailed portrait of a family tormented by its extraordinarily cruel patriarch, Fyodor Pavlovich, whose callous decisions slowly decimate the lives of his sons--the eponymous brothers Karamazov--and...
The Brothers Karamazov-Fyodor Dostoevsky
Anna 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 thereby exposes herself to the hypocrisies of society.
Anna Karenina-Leo Tolstoy
At its center are Pierre Bezukhov, searching for meaning in his life; cynical Prince Andrei, ennobled by wartime suffering; and Natasha Rostov, whose impulsiveness threatens to destroy her happiness.
War and Peace-Leo Tolstoy
One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator of Dostoevsky's most revolutionary novel is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence.
Notes from Underground-Fyodor Dostoevsky
While contemplating his life and deeming himself ridiculous, a man on the verge of suicide is interrupted by a young girl begging for his help. In his dark mood, he brushes her away, but when he returns home to commit the act he cannot move past his ...
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
By the time he dies, Ivan Ilych has come to understand the worthlessness of his life. Paradoxically, this elevates him above the common man, who avoids the reality of death and the effort it takes to make life worthwhile.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich-Leo Tolstoy
One spring afternoon, the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow.
The Master and Margarita-Mikhail Bulgakov
In Crime and Punishment, when Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that is almost unequalled in world literature for its excruciating suspense,...
Crime and Punishment-Fyodor Dostoevsky
A man becomes dangerously obsessed with a young girl and manipulates her into a cross-country journey under the guise of parental care, leading to a tragic and disturbing exploration of desire and control.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
American Classics
The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black ma...
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni...
Giovanni's Room a book by James Baldwin
This sensuous book tells of a woman's abandonment of her family, her seduction, and her awakening to desires and passions that threated to consumer her.
The Awakening - Kate Chopin
Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's. In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape—her poignancy, wi...
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce...But when he meets an eccentric you...
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
A consummate prankster with a quick wit, Tom Sawyer dreams of a bigger fate than simply being a “rich boy.” Yet through the novel’s humorous escapades—from the famous episode of the whitewashed fence to the trial of Injun Joe—Mark Twain explores the ...
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The story of a down-on-his-luck Cuban fisherman and his supreme ordeal—a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.
The Old Man and the Sea a book by Ernest Hemingway
This classic story by Herman Melville follows the keen young whaler, Ishmael, aboard the Pequod for his first whaling mission, and Captain Ahab's obsession with a huge white whale, Moby Dick. The captain lost his leg to the creature years earlier and...
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
International classics
A dark castle, blood-thirsty vampires, flying bats, howling wolves, spiders, open graves at midnight, and other gothic touches fill this chilling tale about a young Englishman's confrontation with the evil Count Dracula. A horror romance as deathless...
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The story of Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect.
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The Stranger—Camus's masterpiece—gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach.
The Stranger a book by Albert Camus
Set in eighteenth-century France, the classic novel that provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.
Perfume, by Patrick Suskind
A symbolically compounded novel, it follows the rise and fall of Nana, a street-walking prostitute who becomes an actress at the Théâtre des Variétés.
Nana, by Emile Zola
The first novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author lays the foundation for The Stranger, telling the story of an Algerian clerk who kills a man in cold blood.
Happy Death - Albert Camus
Letters to Milena is a collection of letters Franz Kafka wrote to Milena Jesenska. The letters cover their long-distance relationship, his thoughts on life and writing, and his daily struggles. It’s a window into Kafka’s private world through his cor...
Letters to Milena - Franz Kafka
British Classics
At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortuneno...
Persuasion - Jane Austen paperback
At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortuneno...
Persuasion-Jane Austen, hardcover
Though her sisters are keen on finding men to marry, Elizabeth Bennet would rather wait for someone she loves - certainly not someone like Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, whom she finds to be smug and judgmental, in contrast to the charming George Wickham. Bu...
Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen hardcover
Though her sisters are keen on finding men to marry, Elizabeth Bennet would rather wait for someone she loves - certainly not someone like Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, whom she finds to be smug and judgmental, in contrast to the charming George Wickham. Bu...
Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen paperback
At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anyth...
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Innovative and deeply poetic, The Waves is often regarded as Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece. It begins with six children—three boys and three girls—playing in a garden by the sea, and follows their lives as they grow up, experience friendship and love,...
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor,...
Sense and Sensibility-Jane Austen paperback
Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby, she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behavior leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor,...
Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen hardcover
David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist.
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
The long-lived protagonist of Orlando begins as a passionate teenage aristocrat, whose days are spent in rowdy revelry at the colorful Tudor court of Queen Elizabeth and his nights in writing earnest poetry. A favorite of the elderly queen, he falls ...
Orlando-Virginia Woolf
In To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf masterfully captures the complexities of human experience through the lens of the Ramsay family's summer visits to the Isle of Skye.
To the Lighthouse- Virginia Woolf
The story of Oliver Twist - orphaned, and set upon by evil and adversity from his first breath - shocked readers when it was published. After running away from the workhouse and pompous beadle Mr Bumble, Oliver finds himself lured into a den of thiev...
Oliver Twist-Charles Dickens
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus ...
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Dorian Gray, obsessed with remaining youthful, makes a fateful wish: that his portrait age instead of him. As he indulges in a life of hedonism and immorality, the painting becomes a grotesque reflection of his inner decay, a visible record of his si...
The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde Hardcover
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years ...
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte paperback
Having grown up an orphan in the home of her cruel aunt and at a harsh charity school, Jane Eyre becomes an independent and spirited survivor-qualities that serve her well as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic emp...
Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister—a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, and equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, he...
A Room Of One's Own-Virginia Woolf
The four March sisters couldn't be more different. But with their father away at war, and their mother working to support the family, they have to rely on one another.
Little Women-Louisa May Alcott, hardcover
Mary Shelley's timeless gothic novel presents the epic battle between man and monster at its greatest literary pitch. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and ...
Frankenstein-Mary Shelley
Emma Woodhouse believes herself to be an excellent matchmaker, though she herself does not plan on marrying. But as she meddles in the relationships of others, she causes confusion and misunderstandings throughout the village, and she just may be ove...
Emma- Jane Austen hardcover
Mrs Dalloway is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional high-society woman in post-First World War England. The story travels forwards and back in time and in and out of the characters' minds to cons...
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf paperback
A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor-these form a s...
Great Expectations-Charles Dickens