Author: Homer

Rendered into English Prose for the use of those who cannot read the original.

Author: Homer

Published: 1900

This ancient Greek epic poem centers on the hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his long journey home following the fall of Troy. In the ten years it takes him to reach Ithaca his family assumes he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage.

Translated by G.C. Macaulay

Translated by G.C. Macauley

Published: 431 B.C.

Translated by Richard Crawley.

Of all writers of speculative philosophy, both ancient and modern, there is probably no one who has attained so eminent a position as Plato. What Homer was to Epic poetry, what Cicero and Demosthenes were to oratory, and what Shakespeare was to the drama of England, Plato was to ancient philosophy, not unapproachable nor unapproached, but possessing an inexplicable but unquestioned supremacy. Translated by Henry Cary.

Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

The Ethics of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his Politics is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject. This subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the "philosophy of human affairs;" but more frequently Political or Social Science. In the two works taken together we have their author's whole theory of human conduct or practical activity, that is, of all human activity which is not directed merely to knowledge or truth.

Published: 1919

The Politics of Aristotle is the second part of a treatise of which the Ethics is the first part. It looks back to the Ethics as the Ethics looks forward to the Politics. For Aristotle did not separate, as we are inclined to do, the spheres of the statesman and the moralist. (Translated by William Ellis.)

Author: Sophocles

Antigone
Oedipus at Colonus
Oedipus The King
Translated by Francis Storr, 1912.

Published: 1915

Translated into English rhyming verse with explanatory notes by Gilbert Murray.

The Alcestis would hardly confirm its author's right to be acclaimed "the most tragic of the poets." It is doubtful whether one can call it a tragedy at all. Yet it remains one of the most characteristic and delightful of Euripidean dramas, as well as, by modern standards, the most easily actable. And I notice that many judges who display nothing but a fierce satisfaction in sending other plays of that author to the block or the treadmill, show a certain human weakness in sentencing the gentle daughter of Pelias.

Author: Euripides

The first tragedy of Euripides was produced when he was about twenty-five, and he was several times a victor in the tragic contests. In spite of the antagonisms which he aroused and the criticisms which were hurled upon him in, for example, the comedies of Aristophanes, he attained a very great popularity; and Plutarch tells that those Athenians who were taken captive in the disastrous Sicilian expedition of 413 B.C. were offered freedom by their captors if they could recite from the works of Euripides. Of the hundred and twenty dramas ascribed to Euripides, there have come down to us complete eighteen tragedies and one satyric drama, "Cyclops," beside numerous fragments.

(tr W.E. Leonard)

Author: Virgil

Published: 19BC

Published: 1893

Translated by Long, with a Biographical Sketch.

Published: 401

From the 1921 Chatto & Windus edition, translated by Edward Bouverie Pusey.

Author: Dante Alighieri

Published: 1321

Translated by H.W. Longfellow

Published: 14th century

"The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. In a long list of works, including "Troilus and Criseyde", "House of Fame", "Parliament of Fowls", the Canterbury Tales is Chaucer's magnum opus, and a towering achievement of Western culture."--Wikipedia

Every known work of the Bard, in one large volume.

Author: Molière

Translated by Curtis Hidden Page.

Published: 1661

Published: 1668

Translated by A.R. Waller

Translated by Bayard Taylor

Author: Henrik Ibsen

Translated by R Farquharson Sharp

Published: 1879

A Doll’s House, written two years after The Pillars of Society, was the first of Ibsen’s plays to create a sensation and is now perhaps his most famous play, and required reading in many secondary schools and universities. The play was highly controversial when first published, as it is sharply critical of 19th Century marriage norms. It follows the formula of well-made play up until the final act, when it breaks convention by ending with a discussion, not an unravelling. It is often called the first true feminist play, although Ibsen denied this. (From Wikipedia)

Published: 1890

Translated by Edmund Gosse and William Archer.

Published: 1892

A curious pathological study, translated by Edmund Gosse and William Archer.

Published: 1898

Published: 1905

Published: 1912

Published: 1914

The story of Professor Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, who wagers that he can turn a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into the toast of London society merely by teaching her how to speak with an upper-class accent. In the process, he becomes fond of her and attempts to direct her future, but she rejects his domineering ways and marries a young but poor man of the genteel class, Freddy.

Published: 1912

Published: 1905

Published: 1678

An allegorical novel, written while Bunyan was imprisoned for conducting un-authorized religious services outside the Church of England.

Published: 1719

Sometimes considered to be the first novel in English, this book is a fictional autobiography of a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Venezuela.

Author: Jonathan Swift

Published: 1726

Edited with Introduction and Notes by Thomas M. Balliet, 1900.

Published: 1729

Published: 1770

Ostensibly Tristram's narration of his life story, one of the central jokes of the novel is that the main character cannot explain anything simply without making explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to the extent that we do not even reach Tristram's own birth until Volume III. Most of the action is concerned with domestic upsets or comic misunderstandings, which find humour in the opposing temperaments. In between such events, Tristram as narrator finds himself discoursing at length on sexual practices, insults, the influence of one's name, noses, as well as explorations of obstetrics, siege warfare and philosophy, as he struggles to marshall his material and finish the story of his life.

Published: 1749

Published: 1813

Austen's finest comedy of manners portrays life in the genteel rural society of the early 1800s, and tells of the initial misunderstandings (and mutual enlightenment) between lively and quick witted Elizabeth Bennet and the haughty Mr. Darcy.

Published: 1815

The main character, Emma Woodhouse, is described in the opening paragraph as ''rich, beautiful and clever,'' but is also rather spoiled. As a result of the recent marriage of her former governess, Emma prides herself on her ability to matchmake, and proceeds to take under her wing an illegitimate orphan, Harriet Smith, whom she hopes to marry off to the vicar, Mr Elton. So confident is she that she persuades Harriet to reject a proposal from a young farmer who is a much more suitable partner for the girl.

Published: 1847

Emily Brontë's only novel, this tale portrays Catherine and Heathcliff, their all-encompassing love for one another, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them both, leading Heathcliff to shun and abuse society. First published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, Wuthering Heights is considered to be a classic of English literature.

Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

Published: 1848

A satire of 19th-century British society.

Published: 1836

Written for publication as a serial, The Pickwick Papers is a sequence of loosely-related adventures. Its main literary value and appeal is formed by its numerous memorable characters. Each character in The Pickwick Papers, as in many other Dickens novels, is drawn comically, often with exaggerated personalities. --Wikipedia

Published: 1849

or The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (which he never meant to publish on any account).

It adds to the charm of this book to remember that it is virtually a picture of the author's own boyhood. It is an excellent picture of the life of a struggling English youth in the middle of the last century. The pictures of Canterbury and London are true pictures and through these pages walk one of Dickens' wonderful processions of characters, quaint and humorous, villainous and tragic. Nobody cares for Dickens heroines, least of all for Dora, but take it all in al,l this book is enjoyed by young people more than any other of the great novelist. After having read this you will wish to read Nicholas Nickleby for its mingling of pathos and humor, Martin Chuzzlewit for its pictures of American life as seen through English eyes, and Pickwick Papers for its crude but boisterous humor.

Published: 1853

The story concerns a long-running legal dispute which has far-reaching consequences for all involved, and serves as Dickens' assault on the flaws of the British judiciary system (based in part on his own experiences as a law clerk). The author's harsh characterization of the slow, arcane Chancery law process gave voice to widespread frustration with the system, helping to set the stage for its eventual reform in the 1870s.

Published: 1861

"The story of the orphan Pip, writing his life from his early days of childhood until adulthood and trying to be a gentleman along the way. The story can also be considered semi-autobiographical of Dickens, like much of his work, drawing on his experiences of life and people."--Wikipedia

Published: 1854

A bitter and scathing satire on the belief in "Facts, nothing but Facts" in education, the results developed in a tale of deep and pathetic interest.

Published: 1865

The story of the Harmon ''dust'' fortune and those who inherit it. Although somewhat a mystery, an important point concerning the identity of certain characters is revealed halfway through, without hinting as to the ending.

Published: 1855

Dickens' classic love story, set in a time of chronic debt and financial collapse.

Published: 1860

The novel details the lives of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, a brother and sister growing up on the fictional river Floss near the fictional village of St. Oggs, after the Napoleonic Wars but prior to the first Reform Bill in 1832. Spanning the years from Tom and Maggie’s childhood up until their deaths in a river flood, the book is loosely autobiographical and reflects the disgrace that the author herself faced while in a relationship with a married man.

Author: George Eliot

Published: 1871

Making masterful use of a counterpointed plot, Eliot presents the stories of a number of denizens of a small English town on the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832. The main characters, Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate, each long for exceptional lives but are powerfully constrained by their own unrealistic expectations as well as conservative society. The novel is notable for its deep psychological insight and sophisticated character portraits.

Published: 1865

Followed by Through the Looking Glass.

Author: Lewis Carroll

Published: 1871

A sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Published: 1886

Author: Joseph Conrad

Published: 1904

The history of a South American revolution. But on this leading theme there hang such a multitude of side-issues and of individual experiences that it is certainly the hardest of Conrad's novels to summarize. In this story of vast riches, of unbridled passions, of patriotism, of greed, of barbaric cruelty, of the most debased and of the most noble impulses, the whole history of South America seems to be epitomized.

Published: 1922

Ulysses chronicles the passage through Dublin of Leopold Bloom during an unremarkable day, June 16, 1904. The title alludes to the hero of Homer's Odyssey, and there are many parallels, both implicit and explicit, between the two works. Written from 1914 to 1921, the novel was serialized in the American journal The Little Review from 1918, until the publication of the Nausicaa episode led to a prosecution for obscenity. The book was first published in its entirety in Paris in 1922, but was banned in both the United States and United Kingdom until the 1930s. The work was blacklisted by Irish customs.

Published: 1913

The story of Paul Morel, a young man and budding artist, growing up in a working class mining community. Considered by many to be D.H. Lawrence's earliest masterpiece.

Published: 1925

Josef K. awakens one morning and, for reasons never revealed, is arrested and subjected to the rigours of the judicial process for an unspecified crime. Translated by David Wyllie.

Author: Franz Kafka

The Kafka texts below are new translations prepared by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC, Canada. They are all in the public domain and may be used without charge and without permission, provided the source is acknowledged, released November 2003.

Author: François Rabelais

Published: 1653

Translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty and Peter Antony Motteux. The text of the first Two Books of Rabelais has been reprinted from the first edition (1653) of Urquhart's translation. Footnotes initialled 'M.' are drawn from the Maitland Club edition (1838); other footnotes are by the translator. Urquhart's translation of Book III. appeared posthumously in 1693, with a new edition of Books I. and II., under Motteux's editorship. Motteux's rendering of Books IV. and V. followed in 1708. Occasionally (as the footnotes indicate) passages omitted by Motteux have been restored from the 1738 copy edited by Ozell.

Author: Voltaire

Published: 1759

Widely considered to be one of the most significant works of the Western canon, Voltaire's novel tells the tale of its naive protagonist Candide, taught to believe in optimism. Candide undergoes a series of extraordinary hardships, parodying many adventure and romance cliches.

Published: 1834

Translated by Ellen Marriage.

Author: Honoré de Balzac

Published: 1857

In a provincial village far from Paris, a doctor named Charles Bovary marries a beautiful farm girl: Emma. She rapidly grows bored with him and takes a rich landowner as a lover. When her lover rejects her, she takes up with a law clerk. Her husband knows nothing of her romances, nor does he know that Emma has ruined him with her waste, poor management, and self-indulgence...

Author: Marcel Proust

Published: 1922

Translated from the French by C. K. Scott Moncrieff.

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, An Appreciation
Life of Poe, by James Russell Lowell
Death of Poe, by N. P. Willis
The Unparalled Adventures of One Hans Pfall
The Gold Bug
Four Beasts in One
The Murders in the Rue Morgue (Audio version)
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt
The Balloon Hoax
MS. Found in a Bottle
The Oval Portrait

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrative of A. Gordon Pym
Ligeia
Morella
A Tale of the Ragged Mountains
The Spectacles
King Pest
Three Sundays in a Week

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Classic short stories by the early American master of horror.

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Published: 1850

In 17th-century Puritan Boston Hester Prynne gives birth after committing adultery and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity.

Author: Herman Melville

Published: 1851

The voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab, who leads his crew on a hunt for the great whale Moby Dick, reveals a profound meditation on society, nature, and the human struggle for meaning, happiness, and salvation. Often considered the epitome of American Romanticism, the novel is now considered one of the greatest novels in the English language.

Author: Herman Melville

Published: 1856

Published: 1884

The drifting journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature. Although the society it satirized was already history at the time of publication, the book was quite controversial, and has remained so to this day.

Published: 1903

This dark comedy, one of the masterpieces of James' final period, follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of his widowed fiancée's supposedly wayward son. Strether is to bring the young man back to the family business, but he encounters unexpected complications. (summary from Wikipedia)

Published: 1615

Translated by John Ormsby.
One of the earliest novels in a modern European language, one which many people consider the finest book in the Spanish language.

Published: 1842

Published: 1866

From the Russian master of psychological characterizations, this novel portrays the carefully planned murder of a miserly, aged pawnbroker by a destitute Saint Petersburg student named Raskolnikov, followed by the emotional, mental, and physical effects of that action. Translated by Constance Garnett.

Published: 1879

Generally considered one of Dostoyevsky's greatest novels, on the surface it is the story of a patricide in which all of the murdered man's sons share varying degrees of complicity, but on a deeper level it is a spiritual dramatization of the struggle between faith, doubt, reason, and free will. [Translated by Constance Garnett.]

Published: 1869

The novel tells the story of a number of aristocratic families and the entanglements of their personal lives with Napoleon's invasion of Russia. As events proceed, Tolstoy systematically denies his subjects any significant free choice: the onward roll of history determines happiness and tragedy alike. (Translated by Aylmer and Louise Shanks Maude.)

Author: Thomas Hobbes

Published: 1651

Leviathan was written during the English Civil war; much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war. Any abuses of power by this authority are to be accepted as the price of peace. In particular, the doctrine of separation of powers is rejected: the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers.

Published: 1688

Published: 1777

Published: 1888

One of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the Communist League and written by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it laid out the League's purposes and program. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and present) and the problems of capitalism, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.--Wikipedia

Author: Sigmund Freud

Published: 1920

The publishers of the present book deserve credit for presenting to the reading public the gist of Freud’s psychology in the master’s own words, and in a form which shall neither discourage beginners, nor appear too elementary to those who are more advanced in psychoanalytic study. Authorized English translation by M.D. Eder.

Published: 1513

Translated by W.K. Marriott.

Published: 1877

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

Author: René Descartes

Published: 1670

With an introduction by T.S. Eliot, published 1958.

Published: 1835

The primary focus of Democracy in America is an analysis of why republican representative democracy has succeeded in the United States when it failed in so many other places. Tocqueville also speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing both possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy, including his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into what he calls ''mild despotism.'' He also observed that the strong role religion played in the United States was due to its separation from the government, a separation all parties found agreeable. Translated by Henry Reeve

Published: 1840

Translated by Henry Reeve

Published: 1841

Published: 1844

Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Published: 1850

Essays on Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Goethe.

Published: 1904

Author: Henry David Thoreau

Published: 1854

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.

Published: 1849

An argument that people should not permit governments to overrule their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. (Original title: Resistance to Civil Government)

Author: William James

Published: 1907

Author: William James

Published: 1909

Author: William James

Published: 1902

Author: John Donne

Published: 1959

Published: 1667

The protagonist of this Protestant epic is the fallen angel Satan. From a modern perspective it may appear that Milton presents Satan sympathetically, as an ambitious and prideful being who defies his tyrannical creator, omnipotent God, and wages war on Heaven, only to be defeated and cast down. Some critics regard the character of Satan as a Byronic hero.

Published: 1899

Author: John Milton

Published: 1644

Published as an appeal to the English Parliament to rescind their Licensing Order of 1643, which was designed to bring publishing under government control by creating a number of official censors to whom authors would submit their work for approval prior to publication.

Author: William Blake

Published: 1800

Published: 1817

Published: 1874

Published: 1897

Published: 1897

Published: 1902

Author: William Butler Yeats

Published: 1904

The Unicorn From The Stars
Cathleen Ni Houlihan
The Hour-Glass

Published: 1908

Published: 1912

Published: 1912

Published: 1921

Published: 1927

Published: 1891

One of the best known American poems.

Author: Robert Frost

Published: 1922

Published: 1914

Author: Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison

Published: 1768

Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society, London, 1903

Author: James Boswell

Published: 1791

Published: 1918

At the utmost, the active-minded young man should ask of his teacher only mastery of his tools. The young man himself, the subject of education, is a certain form of energy; the object to be gained is economy of his force; the training is partly the clearing away of obstacles, partly the direct application of effort. Once acquired, the tools and models may be thrown away. The manikin, therefore, has the same value as any other geometrical figure of three or more dimensions, which is used for the study of relation. For that purpose it cannot be spared; it is the only measure of motion, of proportion, of human condition; it must have the air of reality; must be taken for real; must be treated as though it had life. Who knows? Possibly it had!