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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.