Classic Novels

lord of the flies

william golding - schoolboys on a deserted island without adults

the awakening

kate chopin - the book portrays a married woman who defies social convention first by falling in love with another man, and then by committing suicide when she finds that his views on women are as oppressive as her husband's. The novel reflects the changing role of women during the early 1900s.

the pearl

john steinbeck - follows Kino, Juana, and their infant son, Coyotito. One morning, calamity strikes when a scorpion stings Coyotito. Hoping to protect their son, Kino and Juana rush him to the doctor in town. When they arrive at the doctor's gate, they are turned away because they are poor natives who cannot pay enough. Then the and it is the biggest (title item) ever. They are now rich, but now everyone wants to steal it. Kino though, wont give away the (title item). Now he is in trouble and they wont sell it. Now they are being tracked by trackers and they are running for their lives. Final part, Coyotito dies

of mice and men

john steinbeck - follows George and Lennie's ambition of owning their own ranch, and the obstacles that stand in the way of that ambition. Lennie, the mentally handicapped giant who makes George's dream of owning his own ranch worthwhile, ironically becomes the greatest obstacle to achieving that dream.

grapes of wrath

john steinbeck - follows the fortunes of a poor family as they travel from the Dust Bowl region to California, this book is based on the great depression

julius caesar

william shakespeare - made dictator for life in 45 BCE, after conquering Gaul, assassinated in 44 BCE by the Senate because they were afraid of his power

the odessey

homer - follows Odyssus's adventures home after the Greeks defeated the Trojans.

the lliad

homer - Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.

tale of two cities

charles dickens - takes place in France and England during the French Revolution. One of the main characters is Madame Defarge. This novel shows the contrast between innocence and evil taking place in two cities.

oliver twist

charles dickens - addressed problems of poverty, the cruelty of the workhouse, abandoned children in industrial cities

great expectations

charles dickens - follows Pip, an English orphan who rises to wealth, deserts his true friends, and becomes humbled by his own arrogance. It also introduces one of the more colorful characters in literature: Miss Havasham.

moby dick

herman melville - portrayed ahab, story of courage and the strength of the individual but also tragedy of pride and revenge

1984

george orwell - an insane world of dehumanization through terror in which the individual was systematically obliterated by an all-power elite.

animal farm

george orwell - animals take over a farm to escape human tyranny, but the pigs treat the other animals worse then the people did. A famous quotation from the book is "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

the miracle worker

william gibson - A three-act play adapted from his 1957 Playhouse 90 teleplay of the same name. It is based on Helen Keller's autobiography The Story of My Life.

romeo and juliet

william shakespeare - tragic tale of forbidden love in which the families of Montague and Capulet are all "punish'd" in the end.

the bean trees

barbara kingsolver - follows Taylor Greer as she leaves her rural upbringing in Kentucky, drives across the country to Tucson, Arizona, and unexpectedly becomes the caretaker of a young toddler she calls Turtle.

to kill a mockingbird

harper lee - Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice.

jane eyre

charlotte brontë - follows an impoverished young woman as she struggles to maintain her autonomy in the face of oppression, prejudice, and love

little prince

antoine de saint-exupery - pilot's plane crashes in the desert. He meets a boy, whom he calls the little prince, from asteroid B-612. As the pilot repairs his plane, he learns of the little prince's travels. The little prince lives on a tiny planet and cares for a beautiful rose

the great gatsby

f. scott fitzgerald - follows tragic story of the title character, a self-made millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy young woman whom he loved in his youth, the pursuit of success and the collapse of the American dream.

our town

thornton wilder - play divided into three acts: "Daily Life" (Professor Willard and Emily Webb gossip on the everyday lives of town residents); "Love and Marriage" (Emily Webb and George Gibbs fall in love and marry); and "Death" (Emily dies while giving birth, and her spirit converses about the meaning of life with other dead people in the cemetery). A Stage Manager talks to the audience and serves as a narrator throughout the drama, which is performed on a bare stage.

the color of water

james mcbride - A memoir of James, who tells the first half of the book, and Ruth who tells the second. James is being discriminated, growing up, living in the poor neighborhoods and Ruth tell sof her story, her life and marriage.

a farewell to arms

ernest hemingway - tells the story of a love affair between an American ambulance driver and a British nurse in Italy during WWI.

Hamlet

william shakespeare - the ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son to avenge his murder by killing the new king, his uncle. the title character feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill the title character

othello

william shakespeare - story of a soldier (title character) and his love Desdemona. (title character) is tricked by Iago to think Desdemona is in love with Cassio. (title character) murders his wife and attempts to kill Cassio before killing himself.

canterbury tales

geoffrey chaucer - follows a group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury Cathedral compete in a storytelling contest (satire)

oedipus

sophocles - mythical Greek king of Thebes, killed his father Laius & married his mother Jocasta, brought disaster on his city/family

red badge of courage

stephen crane - american civil war novel about a deserter who wanted an honorable injury

antigone

sophocles - daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, and is given the death sentence for disobeying her uncle Creon (king of Thebes) for wanting to give her dishonored brother a proper burial, kills herself before they can kill her

david copperfield

charles dickens - the title character endures the hardships of his mother's death, a wretched education at Salem House, the toiling at Murdstone and Grinby's, and a desperate escape to his aunt's. many elements within the novel follow events in Dickens' own life, and it is probably the most autobiographical of all of his novels, in the preface to the 1867 Charles Dickens edition, he wrote, "... like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is (title character)."

wuthering heights

emily brontë - Heathcliff, an adopted son, seeks revenge on the family after the father's death. His love, Catherine, dies, and he speaks to her as a ghost.

beowulf

anglo-saxon epic poem dated to the 8th century which details Anglo-Saxon society through the adventures of the hero (title character).

a brave new world

aldous huxley - follows several characters who live in the World State, a technologically advanced society that creates life in factories, denounces monogamous relationships, and focuses on physical pleasure

catcher in the rye

j.d. salinger - follows a boy named Holden Caulfield. It takes place in Agerstown, PA. Reflects the colloquial language of teenagers at the time, including "flit", "phony" and "that killed me". Holden Caufield's life problems lead him to realize the importance of life itself.

scarlet letter

nathaniel hawthorne - Hester Prynne is in love with Reverend Dimmesdale and commits adultery with him. They have a child and name her Pearl. Hester is convicted of adultery and punished by a jail sentence and having to wear a scarlet A on her breast. Roger Chillingworth is Hester's husband and he is still in love with Hester, so he plays mindgames with Dimmesdale to make him feel guilty

last of the mohicans

james fennimore cooper - follows the journey of Hawkeye and his companions as they navigate the dangerous wilderness and encounter Native American tribes and rival European forces

Night

eli weisel - follows his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944-1945, at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War

i know why the caged bird sings

maya angelou - autobiographical coming of age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma. Title comes from Paul Lawrence Dunbar's poem "Sympathy"

the glass menagerie

tennessee williams - Tom Wingfield's recollections of his mother and sister after he has left his family title: Laura's collection of tiny glass animals

death of a salesman

arthur miller - about the last day in the life of salesman Willy Loman, who, at 63, has failed at his career. While at home, he dissociates from reality, entering in time switches that explain why he turned out the way he did through interactions with his brother Ben and his mistress

the adventures of huckleberry finn

mark twain - follows a barely literate teen who fakes his own death to escape his abusive, drunken father. He encounters a runaway slave named Jim, and the two embark on a raft journey down the Mississippi River

the adventures of tom sawyer

mark twain - follows the rebellious Tom Sawyer during his formative years as he begins to mature out of his childish, troublemaking behavior

the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde

robert louis stevenson - the title character discovers a way to split his own personality between good and evil. However, his alter ego begins to take over his persona and finally, unable to find the antidote, he ends his life in despair.

snow in august

pete hamill - revolves around two of the most endearing characters in recent fiction: an 11-year-old Irish Catholic boy named Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch, a refugee from Prague.

the heart is a lonely hunter

carson mccullers - Four lonely individuals, each obsessed with a vision of his/her place in the world, collect about a single deaf-mute (Mr. Singer) with whom they share their deepest secrets. A would-be composer, an itinerant drunk who wants to organize a union, a physician who wants to motivate African-Americans, and a creepy, obsessed café owner. Mr. Singer commits suicide, upon the death of a friend.

dracula

bram stoker - tells the story of the title characters attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between the title character and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham van Helsing.

house on mango street

sandra cisneros - follows a young girl named Esperanza as she navigates the challenges of growing up in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago

time machine

h.g. wells - a scientist builds the title item and travels to future. He finds that humanity has devolved into two races: the childlike Eloi and the monstrous Morlocks. His machine disappears, so he explores the future world

taming of the shrew

william shakespeare - depicts the courtship of Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, and Katherina, the headstrong, obdurate shrew. Initially, Katherina is an unwilling participant in the relationship, but Petruchio tempers her with various psychological torments—the "taming"—until she becomes a compliant and obedient bride. The subplot features a competition between the suitors of Katherina's more desirable sister, Bianca.

the tempest

william shakespeare - set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place, using illusion and skillful manipulation. He conjures up a storm, the eponymous tempest, to lure to the island his usurping brother Antonio and the complicit Alonso, King of Naples.

a midsummer nights dream

william shakespeare - Theseus will marry Hippolyta in 4 days -Hermia loves Lysander but her father wants her to marry Demitrius - Helena loves Demitrius but he loves Hermia - KIng Oberon wants a changeling boy from Titania

my antonia

willa cather - follows a bohemian girl whose family came from the Old Country two settle on the open prairies of Nebraska. While she lives on her farm and tills the soil, she is a child of the prairie, but when (title character) goes to the city, she faces heartbreak, disillusionment, and social ostracism.

macbeth

william shakespeare - considered one of his darkest and most powerful tragedies. Set in Scotland, the play dramatizes the corrosive psychological and political effects produced when its protagonist, the Scottish lord, chooses evil as the way to fulfill his ambition for power. He commits regicide to become king and then furthers his moral descent with a reign of murderous terror to stay in power, eventually plunging the country into civil war. In the end, he loses everything that gives meaning and purpose to his life, before losing his life itself.

king lear

william shakespeare - title character descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all.

flowers for algernon

daniel keyes - follows the mentally handicapped Charlie Gordon is transformed by a surgery that allows him to become intelligent

count of monte cristo

alexandre dumas - follows the protagonist, Edmund Dantes, who is betrayed and falsely imprisoned on the eve of his wedding. While imprisoned, Dantes learns the location of the treasure on The Island of (title). Dantes escapes from the prison and uses the treasure to become the (title)

johnny got his gun

dalton trumbo - anti-war novel, follows Joe Bonham, a young soldier serving in World War I, awakens in a hospital bed after being caught in the blast of an exploding artillery shell. He gradually realizes that he has lost his arms, legs, and all of his face (including his eyes, ears, teeth, and tongue), but that his mind functions perfectly, leaving him a prisoner in his own body.

Pride and Prejudice

jane austen - follows the turbulent relationship between Elizabeth Bennet, the daughter of a country gentleman, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a rich aristocratic landowner. They must overcome the titular sins in order to fall in love and marry

Don Quixote

miguel de cervantes - revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, an hidalgo from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant to revive chivalry and serve his nation

Crime and Punishment

fyodor dostoyevsky - raskolnikov, a former student, lives in poverty and chaos in St. Petersburg. He decides—through contradictory theories, including utilitarian morality and the belief that extraordinary people have the “right to transgress”—to murder Alyona Ivanovna, an elderly pawnbroker

The Picture of Dorian Gray

oscar wilde - tells the story of a wealthy young Englishman who prizes his looks and his youth above all else, has his portrait painted as a young man, and the portrait takes on his sins and his signs of aging

Heart of Darkness

joseph conrad - various European powers are exploiting Africa for its riches and resources while leaving little or nothing to the Africans who are laboring under them. Through Marlow, Conrad shows the horrors of colonialism and concludes that the Europeans, not the Africans, are the true savages.

Emma

jane austen - follows a precocious young woman whose misplaced confidence in her matchmaking abilities occasions several romantic misadventures.

Lolita

vladimir nabokov - follows humbert humbert and his obsession with a young girl

Little Women

louisa may alcott - follows the lives of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Set in New England during the Civil War, the novel is a coming-of-age story of the four main characters who grow and learn from their mistakes

Sense and Sensibility

jane austen - novel follows the three Dashwood sisters and their widowed mother as they are forced to leave the family estate at Norland Park and move to Barton Cottage, a modest home on the property of distant relative Sir John Middleton

Fahrenheit 451

ray bradbury - set in a future society where books are banned and “firemen” burn any that are discovered. Follows the protagonist, Guy Montag, a fireman who begins to question his duty to the state and ultimately has to choose between his personal beliefs and his loyalty to the government.

first line - “it was a pleasure to burn”

The Sun Also Rises

ernest hemingway - a tragic love story involving two people on the cusp of change that never takes place

Madame Bovary

gustave flaubert - the story of the title character Emma, a doctor's wife whose passions and romantic notions drive her to start an affair, accumulate debts, entangle herself in lies and, in the end, commit suicide.

Middle March

george eliot (mary ann evans) - the life of Dorothea Brooke, the career of Tertius Lydgate, the courtship of Mary Garth by Fred Vincy, and the disgrace of Nicholas Bulstrode.

Robinson Crusoe

daniel defoe - a young and impulsive wanderer, defied his parents and went to sea. After surviving a storm, the title character and the others were shipwrecked. He was thrown upon shore only to discover that he was the sole survivor of the wreck.

The Stranger

albert camus - centers on a French man, Meursault, living in French-occupied Algeria. Meursault goes through life in isolation, reacting to events and relationships without much emotion or attachment.

A Christmas Carol

charles dickens - recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

Mrs Dalloway

virginia woolf - covers one day from morning to night in one woman's life. an upper-class housewife, walks through her London neighborhood to prepare for the party she will host that evening. When she returns from flower shopping, an old suitor and friend, Peter Walsh, drops by her house unexpectedly.

Persuasion

jane austen - follows the story of Anne Elliot, who must navigate the social norms and expectations of her time in order to pursue a second chance at love with Captain Wentworth.

Northanger Abbey

jane austen - coming-of-age story of a young woman named Catherine Morland. It is divided into two sections, Book I and Book II. The two Books differ significantly from each other in setting and, to a degree, in tone.

The Sound and the Fury

william faulkner - tells the story of the Compson family including Quentin, Jason, Benjy and Caddy, and addresses themes related to moral, personal, and social demise and religion, especially in its depiction of the castrated, mentally challenged Benjy

On the Road

jack kerouac - a young man named Sal Paradise who was heavily based on Kerouac himself. Sal travels across America with his friend, Dean Moriarty, because he wants to better understand himself and the world - beat movement novel

Things Fall Apart

chinua achebe - details the life of Okonkwo. His struggle with his father's reputation, the standards of masculinity, and the cultural practices of his clan all mirror the hardships and eventual destruction of his clan. provides a broad view of Igbo culture

Invisible Man

ralph ellison - bildungsroman that tells of a naive and idealistic (and, significantly, nameless) Southern Black youth who goes to Harlem, joins the fight against white oppression, and ends up ignored by his fellow Blacks as well as by whites

Mansfield Park

jane austen - focuses on the life of Fanny Price and her experience living at the title location, where she's been sent due to her family's financial problems.

Slaughterhouse-five

kurt vonnegut - Billy Pilgrim, the novel’s protagonist, has become “unstuck in time.” He travels between periods of his life, unable to control which period he lands in - a bird sings poo tee weet

The Brothers Karamazov

fyodor dostoyevsky - follows the circumstances leading up to the murder of the brothers' father Fyodor, and the subsequent arrest of one of them for the crime

The Metamorphosis

franz kafka - Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who wakes up one day to find that he has transformed into a giant insect. His family is disgusted with him, especially when he is no longer able to earn income. Gregor eventually dies after deciding that he is a burden to his family

As I Lay Dying

william faulkner - account of the Bundren family's odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members -- including Addie herself -- as well as others; the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos

The Age of Innocence

edith wharton - follows the loveless marriage of Newland Archer, a lawyer from New York, and May Welland, a New York debutante. The story is a love triangle, for Newland falls in love with the Countess, Ellen Olenska, an unconventional divorcee

Brideshead Revisited

evelyn waugh - follows the narrator's journey through his relationship with the aristocratic Marchmain family and their opulent ancestral home, exploring themes of love, faith, and the decline of British society.

In Search of Lost Time

marcel proust - follows the narrator's recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century high-society France, while reflecting on the loss of time and lack of meaning in the world

The House of Mirth

edith wharton - tells the story of Lily Bart, a well-born but impoverished woman belonging to New York City's high society around the end of the 19th century and traces Lily's slow two-year social descent from privilege to a lonely existence on the margins of society

A Passage to India

e.m. forster - portrays the relationship between the British and the Indians in India and the tensions that arise when a visiting Englishwoman, Adela Quested, accuses a well-respected Indian man, Dr. Aziz, of having attacked her during an outing.

Ulysses

james joyce - Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus both journey through one single day's events; eventually, the two wind up at Bloom's residence. The journey that Bloom and Dedalus takes mirrors those of Odysseus in Homer's The Odyssey

Catch-22

joseph heller - a tragicomic novel detailing the efforts of a man named Yossarian, a captain in the US Army Air Force, to avoid flying any more combat missions, takes place on Pianosa, a small Italian island not far from Rome, at the end of the Second World War

Beloved

toni morrison - Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman lives with just her daughter, Denver. They are joined by Paul D and a mysterious girl who adopts the name of (title). The story eventually reveals that (title) is the physical manifestation of the spirit of Sethe's murdered daughter

One Hundred Years of Solitude

gabriel garcia marquez - the history of the isolated town of Macondo and of the family who founds it, the Buendías. For years, the town has no contact with the outside world, except for gypsies who occasionally visit, peddling technologies like ice and telescopes

To the Lighthouse

virginia woolf - revolve around various members of the Ramsay family during visits to their summer residence on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. A central motif of the novel is the conflict between the feminine and masculine principles at work in the universe

Gone with the Wind

margaret mitchell - It focuses on Scarlett O'Hara, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy planter. The novel follows Scarlett through the Civil War and the Reconstruction period in the South. Scarlett's foolish longing for the love of Ashley Wilkes is central to the plot as well.

Anna Karenina

leo tolstoy - the adulterous affair between (title character), wife of Aleksey, and Count Vronsky, a young bachelor. Aleksey’s discovery of the liaison arouses only his concern for his own public image. (title character) promises discretion for the sake of her husband and young son but eventually becomes pregnant by Vronsky

The Color Purple

alice walker - follows an African-American teenager named Celie being raised in rural Georgia in the early 1900s. Through letters written by Celie to God, we follow her struggle with an abusive father, a teenage pregnancy, and abusive marriage.

Midnight's Children

salman rushdie - a historical chronicle of modern India centring on the inextricably linked fates of two children who were born within the first hour of independence from Great Britain. Exactly at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, two boys are born in a Bombay hospital, where they are switched by a nurse