The Winter's Tale is a late tragicomedy (or "romance") by William Shakespeare, written around 1610–1611. The play is famously divided into two distinct tonal halves: the first half is a dark, intense psychological tragedy set in Sicily, while the second half leaps forward 16 years into a pastoral, romantic comedy set in Bohemia, ultimately culminating in a miraculous, redemptive conclusion.
The Great Gatsby is a classic 1925 American novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the summer of 1922 during the height of the Roaring Twenties and the Prohibition era, the story explores themes of wealth, class, love, materialism, and the corruption of the American Dream. It is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and World War I veteran who moves to New York and becomes entangled in the l…
Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is an 1848 (originally published in two parts between 1748 and 1749) epistolary novel by English author John Cleland. Written while Cleland was imprisoned for debt, it is historically famous as one of the first English-language erotic novels and arguably the most notorious obscenity trial target in literary history. Despite its scandalous re…
On the Origin of Species (originally published as On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) is a foundational scientific work written by British naturalist Charles Darwin and published on November 24, 1859. Widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential books in scientific history, it introduced the …
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a classic satirical novel written by Mark Twain and published in 1889. Blending historical fiction, science fiction, and biting social satire, the novel tells the story of an ordinary 19th-century American engineer who is mysteriously hurled back in time to sixth-century England, where he attempts to modernize medieval society using Yankee ingenuit…
Villette is a classic 1853 novel written by English author Charlotte Brontë (under the pen name Currer Bell). Widely regarded as her masterpiece and her most psychological work, it is loosely based on Brontë's own experiences living and teaching in Brussels.
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an epic 1851 novel by American author Herman Melville. Widely considered a masterpiece of American literature and a defining work of the American Renaissance, the novel tells the harrowing, obsessive quest of Captain Ahab seeking vengeance against the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg. Blending high-seas adventure, encyclopedic details of 19th-century whal…
The Spook's Witches (published in the United States as The Last Apprentice: Attack of the Fiend) is the eighth installment in Joseph Delaney's dark fantasy-horror series, The Wardstone Chronicles (also known as The Spook's Apprentice). Published in 2012, this terrifying installment ramps up the psychological dread and cosmic stakes as young apprentice Thomas Ward faces a massive coalition of wi…