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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.