Everyone’s familiar with Lewis Carroll’s famous children’s classic and the huge influence it’s had on modern culture. The Mad Hatter, the Duchess, the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar—all of these strange and familiar creatures appear in Alice, and the nonsensical style, memorable poems, and colorful set pieces are just as influential. The book was originally written as gift to Alice Liddel, the daughter of one of Carroll’s friends. Carroll had told the story to Alice during a rainy-day boat trip up a river. It stuck in his mind, and a few years later the completed manuscript was published in 1865. More than 150 years later, it’s just as popular as it ever was.

A doctor is released from the Bastille after being falsely imprisoned for almost eighteen years. A young woman discovers the father she’s never known is not dead but alive, if not entirely well. A young man is acquitted of being a traitor, due in part to the efforts of a rather selfish lout who is assisting the young man’s attorney. A man has a wine shop in Paris with a wife who knits at the bar. These disparate elements are tied together as only Dickens can, and in the process he tells the story of the French Revolution. Charles Dickens was fascinated by Thomas Carlyle’s magnum opus The French Revolution; according to Dickens’ letters, he read it “500 times” and carried it with him everywhere while he was working on this novel. When he wrote to Carlyle asking him for books to read on background, Carlyle sent him two cartloads full. Dickens mimicked Carlyle’s style, his chronology, and his overall characterization of the revolution; although A Tale of Two Cities is fiction, the historical events described are largely accurate, sometimes exactly so. Even so, Dickens made his name and reputation on telling stories full of characters one could be invested in, care about, and despise, and this novel has all of those and more. It also, in its first and last lines, has two of the most famous lines in literature. With the possible exception of A Christmas Carol, it is his most popular novel, and according to many, his best.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was the first collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories Conan Doyle published in book form, following the popular success of the novels A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, which introduced the characters of Dr. John Watson and the austere analytical detective Sherlock Holmes. The collection contains twelve stories, all originally published in The Strand Magazine between July 1891 and June 1892. Narrated by the first-person voice of Dr. Watson, they involve him and Holmes solving a series of mysterious cases. Some of the more well-known stories in this collection are “A Scandal in Bohemia,” in which Holmes comes up against a worthy opponent in the form of Irene Adler, whom Holmes forever after admiringly refers to as the woman; “The Redheaded League,” involving a bizarre scheme offering a well-paid sinecure to redheaded men; and “The Speckled Band,” in which Holmes and Watson save a young woman from a terrible death.

The Odyssey is one of the oldest works of Western literature, dating back to classical antiquity. Homer’s epic poem belongs in a collection called the Epic Cycle, which includes the Iliad. It was originally written in ancient Greek, utilizing a dactylic hexameter rhyme scheme. Although this rhyme scheme sounds beautiful in its native language, in modern English it can sound awkward and, as Eric McMillan humorously describes it, resembles “pumpkins rolling on a barn floor.” William Cullen Bryant avoided this problem by composing his translation in blank verse, a rhyme scheme that sounds natural in English. This epic poem follows Ulysses, one of the Greek leaders that brought an end to the ten-year-long Trojan war. Longing for home, he travels across the Mediterranean Sea to return to his kingdom in Ithaca; unfortunately, our hero manages to anger Neptune, the god of the sea, making his trip home agonizingly slow and extremely dangerous. While Ulysses is trying to return home, his family in Ithaca is also in danger. Suitors have traveled to the home of Ulysses to marry his wife, Penelope, believing that her husband did not survive the war. These men are willing to kill anyone who stands in their way.

Madame Bovary, often ranked among the greatest novels of all time, is Flaubert’s first novel, and considered to be both his masterpiece and one of the most influential works in literary history, with authors from Henry James to Proust to Nabokov heaping it with praise. The novel tells the story of Emma Bovary, a commoner wife of a country doctor, and her attempts to escape the drudgery of day-to-day mediocrity by engaging in adulterous affairs and overspending on luxuries. She remains unsatisfied even though her husband adores her and they want for little, and her shallowness eventually leads to their ruin. The story was first serialized in Revue de Paris, where prosecutors tried to have it censored for obscenity, arguing that not only is the story immoral, but that realism as a literary style is an offence against art and decency. The trial only served to increase the story’s fame, and when it was published as a single novel it quickly became a bestseller. The novel is groundbreaking in its emphasis on the psychological and emotional lives of its characters. Literature up to then had mostly focusing on the external events that make characters react, instead of focusing on the internal thought processes of those characters. Madame Bovary changed that forever. It was also revolutionary in its criticism of the middle class, which at the time was a still-new social class vying for elbow room between the working poor and hereditary aristocracy. Flaubert critiqued the middle class as being ambitious, shallow, greedy, materialistic, and totally without culture; Emma’s burning desire to reach even higher social strata, contrasted against that satisfaction being fundamentally denied to her by her middle-class nature, is an early echo of Marx’s theory of alienation in industrial societies. Today Madame Bovary, with its careful but charming description of the banality of everyday life, is considered the first great example of literary realism in fiction novels. Eleanor Marx-Aveling’s translation, though over a hundred years old, is remarkably fresh and smooth, and is a pleasure even for modern readers.

Dmitri Karamazov and his father Fyodor are at war over both Dmitri’s inheritance and the affections of the beautiful Grushenka. Into this feud arrive the middle brother Ivan, recently returned from Moscow, and the youngest sibling Alyosha, who has been released into the wider world from the local monastery by the elder monk Zossima. Through a series of accidents of fate and wilful misunderstandings the Karamazovs edge closer to tragedy, while the local townspeople watch on. The Brothers Karamazov was Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final novel, and was originally serialised in The Russian Messenger before being published as a complete novel in 1880. This edition is the well-received 1912 English translation by Constance Garnett. As well as earning wide-spread critical acclaim, the novel has been widely influential in literary and philosophical circles; Franz Kafka and James Joyce admired the emotions that verge on madness in the Karamazovs, while Sigmund Freud and Jean-Paul Satre found inspiration in the themes of patricide and existentialism.

Esmeralda is a breathtaking beauty and attracts the attention of men all around her, including an actor, a captain, and an archdeacon, to whom she is of course forbidden. But because of a kindness she paid to him, there is one whose love for her is pure: the archdeacon’s bellringer. The actions of the archdeacon, who cannot control his lust for the young woman, ultimately draws all four men into her orbit, and his, with tragic consequences. Hugo’s tragic novel is an ode to gothic architecture in general and that of Notre-Dame de Paris in particular. Hugo was upset both at the neglect of buildings like Notre-Dame, and the modernization of those that weren’t being neglected. By centering on the building, he was able to bring all classes into his story: from kings and nobles to bellringers and sewer rats. The first American translation changed the title to “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” shifting attention to the bellringer, but Hugo’s focus was always on Notre-Dame and the beautiful gothic architecture of Paris.

White Fang is Jack London’s companion novel to The Call of the Wild. In The Call of the Wild we follow a dog’s journey from domestication to wilderness, but in White Fang we see the opposite: a wild wolf-dog captured by men and eventually domesticated. White Fang’s journey isn’t an easy one; both the wild and civilization have their share of brutal violence. But he eventually seems happy in a home with a loving family. When read side-by-side with The Call of the Wild, White Fang poses an interesting question: is wilderness really an improvement over civilization? Is there one right way to live?

The Adventures of Pinocchio is a story that has reached many people across the globe since it was first penned by Carlo Collodi in 1883. The adventures were originally published in serial format in an Italian weekly magazine for children. In 1940, Disney released an animated film adaptation of the story that has solidified the fable in popular culture. A wooden puppet is crafted out of a magical piece of wood by Geppetto, a humble woodworker. To Geppetto’s surprise, the puppet comes to life. Thus begins the adventures of this magical puppet, Pinocchio. Geppetto takes the role of father to Pinocchio, and tries to stress the importance of his education. Pinocchio, however, is drawn into many mischievous adventures by his peers and others.

The Jungle Book is a short collection of stories published by Kipling in various magazines between 1893 and 1894. Kipling spent both his early years and his late teenage years in India, and that upbringing is front and center in these stories—despite them being written while he was living in Vermont, in the United States. The stories are fable-like, with most of them centering on the lives of anthropomorphised jungle animals and a few focused on human characters in India. The stories were popular from the start, and have since been adapted in countless ways in print, screen, and other media.

Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progress was Charles Dickens’ second novel, following The Pickwick Papers, and was published as a serial in the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany between 1837 and 1839. It details the misadventures of its eponymous character, Oliver Twist, born in a Victorian-era workhouse, his mother dying within minutes of his birth. He is raised in miserable conditions, half-starved, and then sent out as an apprentice to an undertaker. Running away from this situation, he walks to London and falls under the influence of a criminal gang run by an old man called Fagin, who wants to employ the child as a pickpocket. The novel graphically depicts the wretched living conditions of much of the poor people of Victorian times and the disgusting slums in which they were forced to live. It has been accused of perpetrating anti-Semitic stereotypes in the character of Fagin, almost always referred to as “the Jew” in the book’s early chapters. Interestingly, while the serial was still running in the magazine, Dickens was eventually persuaded that he was wrong in this and removed many such usages in later episodes. He also introduced more kindly Jewish characters in such later novels as Our Mutual Friend. Oliver Twist was immediately popular in serial form, with its often gripping story and lurid details. It has remained one of Dickens’ best-loved novels, and the story has often been made into films and television series, as well as into a very popular musical, Oliver!.

Anna Karenina is certainly somewhat unhappy in her life, but presents a strong and vivacious character when called in to smooth over a major crack that’s appeared in her brother’s marriage. Unfortunately, the very visit designed to help her brother introduces her to Count Alexei Vronsky and sets in motion a chain of events that will ripple through families and the unforgiving society of wealthy Moscow and St. Petersburg. Initially serialized over five years in The Russian Messenger, Anna Karenina was first published as a two-volume novel in 1878. It was Leo Tolstoy’s second novel, coming after War and Peace and further cementing his role as the primary Russian author of his age. Tolstoy drew on his aristocratic upbringing to set the scene for the novel, and it’s widely believed that he wrote his own experiences and struggles with religion (documented in A Confession) into the central character of Konstantin Levin. This edition compiles into a single volume the 1901 English translation by Constance Garnett.

Walking along a mountain path towards a remote hot springs hotel, our unnamed protagonist muses on his theory of “unhumanity” and his hopes that it will break him out of his creative block. On arrival, the town itself has plenty of unhumanity on display, but while poems on those subjects spring easily to mind, painting still eludes him. Will the mysterious Nami-san, the daughter of the hotel owner, be the catalyst that unlocks that frustratingly out-of-reach art? Natsume Sōseki was already a household name in Japan after his previous novels I Am a Cat and Botchan, but it was the success of Kusamakura that allowed him to give up his role as a professor of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University to focus on writing. Kusamakura translates to English directly as “grass pillow,” which for the Japanese reader has a connotation of a poetic wandering; for this edition Takahashi Kazutomo added the subtitle “Unhuman Tour” to bring the same feeling to the translation.

The people of the obscure village Erl demand to be ruled by a magic lord, so their ruler sends his son Alveric to Elfland to wed the elfin princess Lirazel. He brings her back to Erl and the couple have a son, but Lirazel has trouble integrating with human society. When a scheme by her father spirits her away and Elfland vanishes, Alveric begins a mad quest to find where Elfland went. The King of Elfland’s Daughter is written in the pseudo-archaic prose style for which Dunsany is known. Some contemporaries thought the style did not suit a novel-length work, but contemporary Irish writer George Russell called the book “the most purely beautiful thing Lord Dunsany has written.” The book touches on a range of themes, including the longing for fantastical things lost, the perception of time, sanity and madness, the fear of the unknown, and being careful what you wish for. Large passages are also devoted to hunting; the original edition even featured an illustration of a unicorn hunt opposite the title page. Neil Gaiman wrote an introduction to the 1999 edition, and Christopher Lee was a featured vocalist on a 1977 progressive rock album based on the book.

Whose Body?, published in 1923, is the first in a long and very popular series of mystery novels written by Dorothy L. Sayers and featuring her aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey. In this novel we are introduced to Wimsey, his imperturbable and multi-skilled butler Bunter, and his close friend Charles Parker of Scotland Yard as they come together to investigate an extremely mysterious incident: the naked body of a man, wearing a golden pince-nez, has been discovered in the bath of a bewildered tenant of a flat in Battersea. There’s a good deal of humor in the book, carefully balanced against the grim reality of murder. Whose Body? was well-received on first publication, and provided a basis for Sayer’s successful career as a novelist. In sum, she wrote some eleven Wimsey novels as well as several short stories featuring the characters. Nevertheless, it appears that she herself felt that her translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy was her greatest literary work.

Mary’s parents fall ill and die, forcing her to be transplanted from India to the English countryside. She arrives at a strange and foreign country manor, where she discovers a long-neglected garden and hears strange sobbing noises at night. Thus begins The Secret Garden, a children’s book with an unusually dense collection of themes, symbols, and motifs. Mary’s personal development mirrors her unraveling the secret of the hidden garden, and a subtle backdrop of magical realism adds a mysterious air to the proceedings. Contemporary reception left The Secret Garden largely unnoticed, eclipsed by Hodgson’s other work, Little Lord Fauntleroy. Since then, however, the book’s reputation has steadily grown, with modern critics considering it one of the finest children’s books of the 20th century.

Cogewea, a mischievous young rancher, lives with her older sister and brother-in-law on their homestead, the Horseshoe Bend Ranch, located in the Flathead Indian Reservation. A member of the Okanogan tribe, Cogewea is nevertheless stigmatized as a “breed”—a derogatory term historically applied to people of mixed Native American and European descent. Drama arrives at the Horseshoe Bend with the person of Alfred Densmore, a businessman who has set out from the Eastern states in search of adventure and money. After he breaks his arm by being thrown by a half-tame bronco, Densmore develops a romantic interest in Cogewea, sparking a rivalry with Cogewea’s friend Jim, who is the ranch’s foreman and a fellow breed. Cogewea must navigate the interwoven challenges of choosing a suitor and reckoning with her ethnic identity, with the aid of advice in the form of stories told by her grandmother, the Stemteemä. Cogewea was one of the first novels ever published by a Native American woman. It was the product of collaboration between Mourning Dove and her editor, Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, a Euro-American anthropologist and advocate of indigenous American cultures. Critics have debated the extent of McWhorter’s influence on the final product, but Mourning Dove’s own correspondence with McWhorter suggests that McWhorter revised her draft significantly and introduced his own voice into the novel. Cogewea continues to be studied as an early example of Native American literature.

D-503 is the Builder of the Integral, the United State’s first spaceship. A life of calculations and equations in the United State leaves little room for emotional expression outside of the pink slips that give one private time with another Number. The façade however starts to crack when I-330, a mysterious she-Number with a penchant for the Ancients, enters the picture. We, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s fourth novel, was written in 1920–21, but remained unpublished until its English release in 1924 due to conditions in the Soviet Union at the time (it was eventually published there in 1988). Its dystopian future setting predates Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World, and it’s now considered a founding member of the genre. It has been translated into English and other languages many times; presented here is the original 1924 translation by Gregory Zilboorg.

The wealthy Bengali zamindar Nikhil has spent his last nine years of marriage trying to modernize and westernize his wife Bimala. But when he invites his friend Sandip, a fiery pro-Swadeshi activist fighting for Indian independence, to his home, Bimala becomes enraptured by the nationalist cause—and by the fascinating figure himself. The Home and the World is a complex exploration of the contradictions of the anti-British Swadeshi movement in the early 1900s. Rabindranath Tagore was himself active in the early days of the movement, but later became disillusioned, for reasons this novel examines in depth. The novel is also an examination of the traditional organization of wealthy Bengali households, in which women are kept separate from the outside world. The Home and the World was adapted into a 1984 Golden Palm nominated film by Satyajit Ray.

At the height of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, a mysterious daredevil rescues French aristocrats from execution and smuggles them out of France. This secretive escape artist is known to the French authorities only by the drawings of a flower, the scarlet pimpernel, that he leaves as his calling card. Marguerite St. Just has avoided the worst of the revolutionary turmoil. Her recent marriage to the English baronet Sir Percy Blakeney has taken her away from the chaos in France to England, where she is quickly recognized as the most fashionable and clever lady in London. But even in England, she is unable to escape the effects of the Revolution, and she is soon blackmailed into a plot to unmask and capture the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel. With The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy introduced the world to a talented, adventurous hero hiding behind a dull and ineffectual secret identity. Countless imitators followed, until the “secret identity” became a common feature of adventure stories. In addition to the novel, Orczy wrote with her husband a stage play of the same name, which broke stage records and saw several revivals. Both the play and the novel received much critical and popular acclaim, and Orczy went on to write several sequels about the mysterious Pimpernel and his companions.

Three male explorers set out to reach a legendary land where only women live, and find—to their surprise—that the legends are true. This country hidden in the mountains is a feminist utopia. There are no men, nor is there war, poverty, or crime. The residents subsist on food from cultivated forests, maintain immaculate houses and roads, and reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis. Although the main characters are men, their role is to show us how their notions about society and womanhood are humorously upturned. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an outspoken activist and suffragist, most famous nowadays for her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” As a writer, she was stunningly prolific. She founded The Forerunner, a monthly magazine for which she personally wrote every article, story, and poem. Because she chose to run no advertisements, she covered the cost of printing the magazine herself. In contrast to many women’s publications of the day, Gilman advocated for equal rights and expanded social roles for women. Originally published serially in The Forerunner in 1915, Herland was not republished as a standalone work until decades later. It is the second in Gilman’s Utopian trilogy, along with Moving the Mountain and With Her in Ourland.

During her brief career as a writer, Nella Larsen published two novels and three short stories. The most famous of her short works, the short story “Sanctuary” and the novella “Passing,” focus on the perspectives of African-American and mixed-race people in the United States, and handle themes of solidarity and prejudice based on both race and class. Though Larsen’s literary reputation rests mainly upon her treatment of these issues, her other stories, “The Wrong Man” and “Freedom,” concern infidelity and marriage. Larsen was born in Chicago to a mother and father who had immigrated to the United States from Denmark and the Danish West Indies respectively. She published her first stories in the 1920s, when she was living with her husband in Harlem and working as a librarian. During these years she became active in the literary community of the Harlem Renaissance, but her career was cut short after some accused her of plagiarizing “Sanctuary.” This alienated publishers despite Larsen’s denying any wrongdoing in print. Her short fiction draws on her experiences of not belonging and of the African-American middle class into which she had married. It is noted for the acuity of its psychological insight, its use of suspense and plot twists, and the simplicity and elegance of its prose. Larsen’s novella “Passing” concerns the possibility of moving between the highly race-conscious social groups of 1920s New York, and explicitly mocks the idea that ancestry is straightforwardly deducible from behavior. The concept of “passing” had already been featured in American fiction for several decades before, but “Passing” presented the issue in a new way, alongside questions of social class and morality. The novella was positively received by critics, including W. E. B. Du Bois, and was instrumental in Larsen’s receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1930. “Sanctuary” is set along a desolate strip of the Southern coast. A desperate man named Jim Hammer seeks refuge at Annie Poole’s isolated cottage. When Jim reveals he’s shot a man—possibly white—Annie reluctantly agrees to hide him, not from kindness but because of her son Obadiah’s inexplicable fondness for this man she considers “no ’count trash.”

Jeeves Stories is a collection of humorous short stories by P. G. Wodehouse that feature the adventures of his most famous characters, Jeeves and Wooster. Wooster is a wealthy and idle young English gentleman of the interwar era. Jeeves is his extraordinarily competent valet whose name has since become synonymous with perfect service. The stories follow Wooster in his wanderings about London, around England, and across the Atlantic to New York, with Jeeves following in his wake and striving to keep his employer well-groomed and properly presented. Along the way Jeeves must somehow also manage to extricate Wooster and his friends from the various scrapes and follies they get themselves into. First published as early as 1915, the stories first appeared on both sides of the Atlantic in publications like The Saturday Evening Post and The Strand Magazine. They were later collected into books or reworked into novels. Though only less than 50 of Wodehouse’s over 300 short stories feature Jeeves and Wooster, they remain his most enduring characters. They’ve been copied, imitated, and featured in countless interpretations and adaptations. A century later, these stories still are as amusing and entertaining as they were when they were first published.

Two hundred years ago, merchants in the small country of Dorimare, weary of the capricious nature of the ruling class, cast out the aristocracy and established their own government. Believing that their former rulers’ erratic behavior was caused by their neighbors in Fairyland, the mention of anything fairy quickly became taboo among Dorimare’s citizens. Now, though, illicit trade of fairy fruit is on the rise in the border town of Lud-in-the-Mist and the government seems powerless to stop it. As influential families fall victim to the maddening effects of the fruit it becomes clear that someone is working to undermine the status quo, and the Mayor needs to discover who it is before it’s too late. Lud-in-the-Mist is Hope Mirrlees’s third and most popular book. It has been reprinted several times, and was a part of the Fantasy Masterworks series produced by Orion Books. It has been referred to as a masterpiece of fantasy literature, with Neil Gaiman calling it “a little golden miracle of a book.”

Even though Doyle is most famous for his Sherlock stories, he was also a prolific novelist, and The Lost World is one of his more famous non-Sherlock novels. Like many novels of the day, it was first published serially. In it we meet a group of adventurers who head to a deep South American jungle to explore rumors of long-lost dinosaurs. The plot is driven by their journey, discoveries, and subsequent narrow escape. Notably, The Lost World is the novel in which Doyle’s popular recurring character, Professor Challenger, is introduced. Doyle based many of the characters and locations on people and places he was familiar with: the journalist Ed Malone was modeled on E. D. Morel, and Lord John Roxton on Roger Casement; the Lost World itself was based on descriptions of Bolivia in letters sent to Doyle by his friend Percy Harrison Fawcett. The novel remains hugely influential and widely adapted today. The title might even remind modern readers of a certain very famous movie franchise about dinosaur theme parks!

In A Princess of Mars, John Carter is transported to a Mars inhabited by strange civilizations and embarks on various adventures on his quest home. Often held up as a seminal example of pulp science fiction, A Princess of Mars is the first entry in Burroughs’ epic Martian series, and the first to feature the character of John Carter. Though often categorized as just a pulp adventure tale, A Princess of Mars was hugely influential on many budding science fiction writers, professional scientists, and explorers of the day. The novel remains a light, fast-paced, and enjoyable read, and continues to inspire adaptations nearly a hundred years after its publication.

The Three Musketeers is the first of three adventure novels written by Alexandre Dumas featuring the character of d’Artagnan. The young d’Artagnan leaves home in Gascony for Paris to join the King’s Musketeers. On his way to Paris, the letter which will introduce him to the commander of the Musketeers is stolen by a mysterious man in the town of Meung. This “Man of Meung” turns out to be a confidant of the infamous Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of the government of France. When he arrives in Paris and seeks an audience with the commander of the Musketeers, d’Artagnan sees this man again and rushes to confront him. As he pushes his way out he provokes three inseparable musketeers—Athos, Porthos and Aramis—and ends up setting up duels with all three of them that afternoon. At the first of the duels he discovers, to his surprise, that each of the three is a second to the other. As they start to fight, they are ambushed by the Cardinal’s men and join forces. So begins one of the most enduring partnerships in literature. When d’Artagnan’s landlord tells him that his wife has been kidnapped, d’Artagnan investigates, falls in love and becomes embroiled in a plot to destabilize France. The Three Musketeers was first published in 1844 and has been adapted for stage, film, television, and animation many times; such is the endurance of its appeal. At its heart is a fast-paced tale of love and adventure.

Isaac Asimov’s reputation precedes him; his prolific output of science fiction novels and short stories between the 1940s and the 1990s, along with his many Hugo and Nebula awards, cemented his reputation as the premier science fiction author of his time. His writing, at least in the first half of his career, focused on “hard” science fiction: stories that were broadly founded in realistic science. Indeed, as well as writing fiction, he was a professor of biochemistry, and wrote a wide variety of popular science essays and books. This collection brings together the few Asimov science fiction short stories that are currently known to have passed into the U.S. public domain, arranged in order of publication. It includes one focused on robots and the positronic brain, a subject that he would return to many times over his career.

Peter Pan, a young boy who refuses to grow up, takes Wendy to the lost boys on the fantasy island of the Neverland to be their mother. Wendy’s two brothers, John and Michael, accompany them on their many adventures, including skirmishes with the Native Americans who reside there, and battles with pirates, led by Pan’s nemesis Captain Hook, who is said to be feared even by Captain Flint and Long John Silver. Peter and Wendy, J. M. Barrie’s most famous work, was influenced by Barrie’s relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family and the death of his older brother, who, by dying in his youth, would remain a young boy forever. It began as a play first performed in 1904, and then was later published as a novel in 1911. A large number of adaptations including plays, television, and films have since been produced.

Four strangers, each enchanted by an advertisement addressed “To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine,” impulsively pool their savings to lease a medieval Italian castle for the month of April. All are deeply dissatisfied with life and in need of escape: awkward Mrs. Wilkins, increasingly resentful of a husband who largely ignores her; proper Mrs. Arbuthnot, whose own marriage seems headed toward estrangement; beautiful and unmarried Lady Caroline Dester, tired of men constantly “grabbing” at her; and elderly Mrs. Fisher, widowed and walled off in memories of the past. As they come to know one another, each woman finds herself gradually transformed by the beauty of San Salvatore—a magical place where conflict just might turn to friendship, and even the most soured relationship has a chance of being salvaged. Later adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film, The Enchanted April was an instant bestseller upon its publication in 1922. It continues to enchant readers today as a lighthearted, often comedic exploration of friendship and romance that is steeped in vibrant, intoxicating descriptions of wisteria and sunshine.

L. M. Montgomery is perhaps best known as an author of youth fiction, especially her Anne of Green Gables series. But of her novels intended for adult readers, The Blue Castle is the most famous. In Valancy Stirling’s rural Ontario town, marriage is thought to be a young woman’s vital accomplishment. Yet Valancy, now in her late 20s, has never had a flicker of interest from any suitor. Add to this the oppressive home life she endures with her mother, and Valancy’s misery is complete. In order to find some relief, she builds a fantasy world in her imagination—her “Blue Castle”—full of love and beauty. Even this, however, fails to support her when her chest pains prove to be the sign of a terminal condition. This traumatic discovery combines with Valancy’s inspirational reading to prompt her to take back her life—much to her relatives’ consternation. Undeterred, Valancy finds new worth and freedom in relationships she could never have imagined before, which bring their own surprising twists and turns.

Attending medical school in Boston, Reuel Briggs has neither wealth nor the good looks of the upper-class white society with which he surrounds himself. He is, however, incredibly talented, and has a rare gift in the psychological study of mysticism and supernatural phenomenon. Even if his peers aren’t too keen on him, they can’t help but be awed by his talent, and subsequently call on his aid in reaching out to the minds of the sick and dying who would otherwise be lost. Though this field of mysticism is his life’s work and sole talent, it may soon be his downfall as it leads him down a dark path of secrets and discoveries. Of One Blood was first published serially in The Colored American Magazine, which Hopkins edited at the time. Written at the turn of the century and shortly after the Civil War, Hopkins explores the legacy of slavery, questions of identity, and the bounds of love and loyalty.

Crime and Punishment tells the story of Rodion Raskolnikov, an ex-student who plans to murder a pawnbroker to test his theory of personality. Having accomplished the deed, Raskolnikov struggles with mental anguish while trying to both avoid the consequences and hide his guilt from his friends and family. Dostoevsky’s original idea for the novel centered on the Marmeladov family and the impact of alcoholism in Russia, but inspired by a double murder in France he decided to rework it around the new character of Raskolnikov. The novel was first serialized in The Russian Messenger over the course of 1866, where it was an instant success. It was published in a single volume in 1867. Presented here is Constance Garnett’s 1914 translation.

Griffin, a scientist, has devoted his life to the study of optics. As his work progresses, he invents a method of making a person invisible. After testing the experiment on himself, he comes to realize that while the experiment was a complete success, he has no way of reversing his invisibility. Written in a time of rapid scientific progress and industrial development, Wells uses Griffin’s struggle with his condition and descent into obsession and madness to reflect on the dangers of unbridled scientific progress untempered by compassion or humanity. The Invisible Man was initially serialized in Pearson’s Weekly in 1897, after which it was published as a whole novel that same year.

The irrepressible Tom Sawyer drives his Aunt Polly to distraction; she can’t decide whether to cry or laugh at his antics. He fights, falls in love, and finds adventure with two of his friends, one of whom will later become famous in his own right. Along the way he attends his own funeral, wins the girl by falsely confessing to something she did, and, most famously, convinces most of the boys in town to pay him for the privilege of painting his aunt’s fence. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was Mark Twain’s first novel written solely by himself. Although he was already a well-known author, it was for autobiographical sketches (The Innocents Abroad) and novels written with others (The Gilded Age). In writing about Tom, Twain drew on his childhood growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, infusing the story with his usual biting satire and social commentary. In Tom Sawyer and his friends, Twain created young men who would long outlive him. Not without controversy over the years due to its language and negative depiction of a Native American, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is arguably Twain’s most endearing, and enduring, work.

Dr. William Dyer of New England’s Miskatonic University recounts his experiences on an Antarctic expedition leading to strange, enormous mountains deep within the frozen continent, hiding prehuman horrors only spoken of in esoteric tomes. Reflecting H. P. Lovecraft’s interest in the Antarctic—a continent still very unknown in the 1930s—this story gives a detailed account of the geology and history of Lovecraft’s universe. The dry, scientific text gradually becomes more suspenseful as the expedition uncovers more and more of the cosmic horrors Lovecraft became famous for. Taking inspiration from Edgar Allen Poe’s Arthur Gordon Pym and geological discoveries in his time, as well as building on his world established in previous works, At the Mountains of Madness establishes a story following the natural sense of mystery evoked by the frozen and uninhabited southernmost continent.

Gulliver’s Travels was published in 1726 and is probably the most famous work by Jonathan Swift. It was an instant hit—selling out within a week—and has never been out of print, as well as having been adapted many times. Lemuel Gulliver, an English surgeon on the Antelope, is shipwrecked and washed up on the island of Lilliput, where the inhabitants are less than six inches tall. This part of the book is a thinly veiled attack on the political classes of the time, as the Lilliputians focus on the minutiae of life, most notably the rift which has developed according to which end of a boiled egg gets opened at breakfast—the big end or the little end. On his second recorded journey he is abandoned on an island of giants where he is paraded as a curiosity at local markets and fairs. On his third journey he is marooned by pirates and is rescued by the inhabitants of a floating island devoted to music, mathematics and astronomy. On his final journey he meets the Houyhnhnms, a race of talking horses who have subdued the Yahoos, creatures who resemble humans. On his return to England, Gulliver has a very different outlook on life and views the human race in a very different way.

One of the great American novels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn tells the story of Huck Finn and his travels with Jim, an escaped slave. Roundly criticised by contemporary reviewers for its colorful and literal language and even banned by several libraries, it sealed its historical importance in part by being one of the first novels to be written entirely in American vernacular. While Huck Finn is, on its face, an adventure tale for younger readers, it’s also a cutting satire and a nuanced examination of racism and morality. Hemingway called it “the best book we’ve had.”

Anne of Green Gables established the career of Canadian writer Lucy Maude Montgomery. When Matthew Cuthbert sends away for an orphan boy to help on his farm, he is surprised to instead meet the captivatingly imaginative Anne Shirley. What ensues is one of the most enduringly popular coming-of-age stories, bringing the pastoral beauty of Prince Edward Island to the world.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the classic American children’s novel about the adventures of Dorothy, a young girl who along with her dog Toto is swept away by a cyclone to the magical Land of Oz. It was written by L. Frank Baum and published in May 1900. Dorothy lives with her Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and Toto on a farm in the Kansas prairie. One day, Dorothy and Toto are caught up in a cyclone that deposits her farmhouse into Munchkin Country in the magical Land of Oz. The falling house has killed the Wicked Witch of the East, the evil ruler of the Munchkins. The Good Witch of the North arrives with three grateful Munchkins and gives Dorothy the magical Silver Shoes that once belonged to the Wicked Witch. The Good Witch tells Dorothy that the only way she can return home is to go to the Emerald City and ask the great and powerful Wizard of Oz to help her. The Library of Congress has declared it “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairy-tale.” Its groundbreaking success and the success of the Broadway musical adaptation led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books which serve as sequels to the first story. The 1939 film musical adaptation starring Judy Garland is considered by many to be one of the greatest films in cinema history.

Jack London spent nearly a year in Alaska and the Klondike, mining for gold and braving the Alaskan winter. There he was inspired to write what would become The Call of the Wild, one of his most famous novels. The Call of the Wild tells the tale of a domesticated dog stolen from his California family and sold to sledders in Alaska. As he adapts to the harsh and wild environment, he slowly sheds domestication and returns to his primal roots. The Call of the Wild was London’s first major success, ensuring he’d have a readership for his future writing and paving the way for him to become one of the first writers to amass a fortune from just his fiction.

Hercule Poirot has retired to the English village of King’s Abbot, determined to use his little grey cells in the growing of vegetable marrows. But when Roger Ackroyd, a local businessman and former acquaintance of Poirot’s, is murdered, the man’s niece begs Poirot to investigate in order to clear her fiancé. With Hastings having married and moved to Argentina, Poirot enlists the local doctor to be his assistant and scribe, and the two of them sift through clues to try to discern the ones that will lead them to the killer. Agatha Christie’s two previous Poirot novels had been generally well-received, but The Murder of Roger Ackroyd made her a household name. Consistently ranked among Christie’s best works, in 2013 it was voted as the best crime novel ever written by the 600-member Crime Writers’ Association of the United Kingdom.

Anne Elliot is the under-valued daughter of a vain and improvident English baronet, Sir Walter Elliot. Some years previously, at the urging of a family friend, Anne had rejected a marriage proposal from a young but impoverished naval captain. When she unexpectedly encounters him again, she is filled with regrets. Persuasion was published in 1817, six months after Jane Austen’s death, and is the last novel she completed in full. It was well-regarded on publication and has been turned into several television series and movies.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843 and the first edition, published on 19th December, was so successful that it sold out in just six days. The publishers had to produce two further editions between Christmas and the new year to meet the demand, and the novella has never been out of print. A Christmas Carol tells the story of a greedy money-lender, Ebenezer Scrooge, who is first visited by the ghost of his former business partner and then by three spirits—the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. They show Scrooge’s lack of compassion to him, compelling him to act more compassionately in the future and to honor Christmas in his heart.

Emma is one of Jane Austen’s best-loved novels. Its eponymous heroine, Emma Woodhouse, has lived a pampered, protected life and consequently is somewhat unrealistic when she sets her sights on becoming a matchmaker for a young friend. The novel provides a light-hearted insight into the distinctions of the rigid class structure of England in the Regency period, and the social barriers to marriage between persons considered to be of superior and inferior rank. Emma was published in 1815, the last of Austen’s novels to be published while she still lived. It received a generally very positive reception, and was well reviewed (though anonymously) by Sir Walter Scott. Criticisms of the novel, such as they were, centered around its supposed lack of plot, though its treatment of character was recognized and applauded. Today it is regarded as one of Austen’s best works. The novel has been adapted many times for theater, movies and television.

H. G. Wells’ classic tale of alien invasion has to this day never been out of print. Like many works of the era, it was originally published as a serial—though the publisher, Pearson’s Magazine, demanded to know the ending before committing to publication. The War of the Worlds, with its matter-of-fact narrative style and deft mixture of contemporary science and fictionalized interstellar war machines, became an instant hit. Its themes of colonialism, social Darwinism, good and evil, and total war still resonate with modern-day readers, so much so that it’s been continuously adapted for screen, radio, television, comics, and print.

Charles Dickens was a British author, journalist, and editor whose work brought attention to the struggles of Victorian England’s lower classes. His writings provided a candid portrait of the era’s poor and served as inspiration for social change. Great Expectations, Dickens’ thirteenth novel, was first published in serial form between 1860 and 1861 and is widely praised as the author’s greatest literary accomplishment. The novel follows the life, relationships, and moral development of an orphan boy named Pip. The novel begins when Pip encounters an escaped convict whom he helps and fears in equal measure. Pip’s actions that day set off a sequence of events and interactions that shape Pip’s character as he matures into adulthood. The vivid characters, engaging narrative style, and universal themes of Great Expectations establish this novel as a timeless literary classic, and an engaging portrait of Victorian life.

It would be hard to nominate a more well-known character in English literature than that of the austere analytical detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle in the late 1880s. Holmes, alongside his friend and biographer Dr. John Watson, appeared in two initial novels and dozens of short stories serialized in popular magazines, attracting a devoted, almost fanatical following which continues to this day. The Hound of the Baskervilles, serialized in 1901–1902, was the third novel featuring Holmes and Watson. Sherlock Holmes is consulted in his Baker Street apartment by Dr. Mortimer, a physician now living on the fringes of Dartmoor. He gives Holmes and Watson an account of a centuries-old legend, in which a hell-hound slaughtered the debauched heir of the Baskerville family who had been in lecherous pursuit of an innocent maiden across the moor. The same hound is reputed to have harrowed several of the subsequent heirs to the estate. This ancient story might be dismissed as mere fancy, but for the fact that the elderly Sir Charles Baskerville recently died in very mysterious circumstances, apparently fleeing in terror from something which came from the moor. Dr. Mortimer is concerned that the new heir, Sir Henry, just returned from Canada, may be at risk from this supernatural beast. Holmes is intrigued, but being too busy to go himself, sends Dr. Watson to accompany Sir Henry to the ancestral home on Dartmoor and to report anything suspicious. The Hound of the Baskervilles is arguably the best, and certainly the most popular, of Doyle’s novels featuring his iconic detective. It has been translated into almost every language in the world and been the basis of dozens of movies (starting as early as 1914), radio plays and comic books.

Treasure Island isn’t just one of the most famous coming-of-age tales in modern storytelling, it’s also the book that invented everything you know about pirates: Peg legs, parrots, treasure chests, tropical islands, Long John Silver, maps marked with an “X,” swashbuckling adventure, and “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.” Its brisk pace and easy tone have stood the test of the time—Treasure Island is as readable, enjoyable, and memorable today as it ever was.

Arsène Lupin, with his characteristic wit, plots over the course of nine short stories to steal many of France’s best antiques and artworks from under their owners’ noses. Only his classic opponent Detective Ganimard has the brilliance to attempt to foil Arsène’s plans, albeit with mixed results. This first collection of nine Arsène Lupin stories were originally serialised in the magazine Je Sais Tout from 1905 and translated into English in 1910. The final story of the set features Herlock Sholmes. In the original printings, Sholmes was simply an unauthorized Sherlock Holmes, but this appearance annoyed Arthur Conan Doyle; the character’s name was changed to “Herlock Sholmes” for later printings and future stories. Arsène Lupin later went on to feature in over fifty stories by Maurice Leblanc along with many other books, films and plays around the world.

When her husband dies and leaves his estate to his son from a former marriage, Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters are offered a cottage on the estate of a distant relative. The two oldest daughters fall in love, only to find that the objects of their affection have secrets that throw their lives into an uproar. The reserved oldest daughter and impetuous, fiery middle daughter will take very different journeys to discovering the true worth of their respective beaus. Published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility, was largely written fifteen years earlier, when Austen was approximately the same age as her older protagonist Elinor. It was published anonymously (“By A Lady”), possibly due to propriety, or perhaps because she wanted to avoid any negative publicity if the book was not well-received. She needn’t have worried; it sold out its first printing of a modest 750 copies. She used well-defined characters, humor, and satire to paint a vivid picture of life in the England of George III, with all of its manners, class issues, and unwritten rules of behavior. That it’s still being read over two hundred years later is a testimony to her brilliance.

Returning from Liverpool, Mr. Earnshaw brings with him a dirty, ragged, black-haired child called Heathcliff, and sets into motion a tale of destructive passions. The book’s two locations, the genteel Thrushcross Grange and the wild Wuthering Heights, serve as matching backgrounds to the characters of their occupants, as they struggle to gain the upper hand in marriage and power. All the while, the ghosts of the past seem to drive revenge more than inspire forgiveness. Wuthering Heights was Emily Brontë’s sole published novel before her early death at the age of 30. Published under the pen name of Ellis Bell, a shared surname with the pen names of her sisters, many assumed that such a book could only have been written by a man. Reviewers of the time praised its emotional power but were also shocked at the actions of its characters, and most agreed that it was impossible to put down. After the novel’s original publication in 1847 it was revised into a single volume in 1850, and over time has become a classic of English literature. The story has been reworked into plays, operas, films, TV dramatisations and a ballet, and has inspired many further works of art, music and literature.

The Time Machine is the novel that gave us the concept of—and even the word for—a “time machine.” While it’s not Wells’ first story involving time travel, it is the one that most fully fleshes out the concept of a device that can send a person backwards and forwards in time with complete precision. Time machines have since become a staple of the science fiction and fantasy genres, making The Time Machine one of the most deeply influential science fiction novels of the era.

The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published as a serial in Lippencott’s Monthly Magazine, and the publishers thought it would so offend readers that they removed nearly 500 words without Wilde’s approval. Wilde soon expanded it and republished it as a novel, including a short preface justifying his art. Even though his contemporaries considered it so offensive that some argued for his prosecution, Dorian Gray today survives as a classic philosophical novel that explores themes of aestheticism and double lives. Couched in Wilde’s trademark cutting wit, Dorian Gray is still being adapted today, with Dorian and his moldering portrait remaining cultural touchstones.

Jane Eyre experienced abuse at a young age, not only from her aunt—who raised her after both her parents died—but also from the headmaster of Lowood Institution, where she is sent away to. After ten years of living and teaching at Lowood Jane decides she is ready to see more of the world and takes a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall. Jane later meets the mysterious master of Thornfield Hall, Mr. Rochester, and becomes drawn to him. Charlotte Brontë published Jane Eyre: An Autobiography on October 16th 1847 using the pen name “Currer Bell.” The novel is known for revolutionizing prose fiction, and is considered to be ahead of its time because of how it deals with topics of class, religion, and feminism.

Pride and Prejudice may today be one of Jane Austen’s most enduring novels, having been widely adapted to stage, screen, and other media since its publication in 1813. The novel tells the tale of five unmarried sisters and how their lives change when a wealthy eligible bachelor moves in to their neighborhood.

Dracula is one of the most famous horror novels, responsible not just for introducing the eponymous Count Dracula, but for laying the foundations for many of the common tropes we see in modern horror fiction. Count Dracula isn’t the first vampire to have graced the pages of Western literature—that honor belongs to Lord Ruthven in “The Vampire,” a short story by John William Polidori—but Dracula is the vampire on which the modern vampire trope is based. Dracula wasn’t as famous in its day as it is today; readers of the time seemed to enjoy it as nothing more than a good story, and Stoker died nearly penniless. But its long-lasting influence is undeniable, and for all its age Dracula remains a gripping, fast-paced, and enjoyable read.

Edmond Dantès is a young man about to be made captain of a cargo vessel and marry his sweetheart. But he is arrested at his pre-wedding feast, having been falsely accused of being a Bonapartist. Thrown into the notorious Château d’If prison, he eventually meets an ancient inmate who teaches him language, science, and passes hints of a hidden fortune. When Edmond makes his way out of prison, he plots to reward those who stood by him (his old employer, for one), and to seek revenge on the men who betrayed him: one who wrote the letter that denounced him, one that married his fiancée in his absence, and one who knew Dantès was innocent but stood idly by and did nothing. The Count of Monte Cristo is another of Alexandre Dumas’ thrilling adventure stories, possibly more popular even than The Three Musketeers. Originally serialized in a French newspaper over the course of a year-and-a-half, it was enormously popular after its publication in book form, and has never been out of print since. Its timeless story of adventure, historical drama, romance, revenge, and Eastern mystery has been the source of over forty movies and TV series.

Mary Shelley (then Godwin) and Percy Bysshe Shelley were visiting their friend Lord Byron in Geneva one rainy summer. With the weather against them, they decided to spend their time writing ghost stories for each other. Frankenstein is Mary Shelley’s submission to their contest, later published anonymously in 1818. Victor Frankenstein, a strange but brilliant scientist, discovers a method of imparting life to inanimate matter. The Monster is thus born: a hideous, 8-foot-tall creature of muscle, speed, and intellect. Frankenstein’s rejection of his appalling creation sends it into a spiral of despair, and Frankenstein’s life is never the same. Considered by many to be the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein is a powerful narrative that explores complex themes of belonging, morality, and the consequences of the power over life and death. This edition is based on Shelley’s revised 1831 edition.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the classic novella of split personality. Stevenson wrote it in just a few days while sick and bedridden, and famously burned the first draft after his wife suggested it should be written as an allegory and not as a story. He re-wrote it in three to six days, and after a few weeks of editing and revision he published what would become one of his most famous and best-selling works. The story follows a London lawyer as he investigates the relationship between a brilliant scientist and a misshapen misanthrope. As the link between the two becomes clearer, Jekyll and Hyde develops into an allegory on the nature of good and evil.