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12 stories
Anne of Green Gables (1908) by LMMontgomery
Anne of Green Gables (1908)
LMMontgomery
  • Reads 555,673
  • Votes 17,289
  • Parts 38
Anne of Green Gables recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, a young orphan girl mistakenly sent to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a middle-aged brother and sister who have a farm on Prince Edward Island and who had intended to adopt a boy to help them.
Gulliver's Travels (1726) by JonathanSwift
Gulliver's Travels (1726)
JonathanSwift
  • Reads 124,363
  • Votes 1,823
  • Parts 42
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre.
Anna Karenina by LeoTolstoy
Anna Karenina
LeoTolstoy
  • Reads 1,423,562
  • Votes 29,551
  • Parts 239
"Anna Karenina" is the tragedy of married aristocrat and socialite Anna Karenina and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. The story starts when she arrives in the midst of a family broken up by her brother's unbridled womanizing—something that prefigures her own later situation, though with less tolerance for her by others.
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) by CharlesDickens
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
CharlesDickens
  • Reads 360,918
  • Votes 4,756
  • Parts 46
The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same time period. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events. The most notable are Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay is a former French aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Carton is a dissipated English barrister who endeavors to redeem his ill-spent life out of his unrequited love for Darnay's wife. Cover art done by @orangedusk
Mansfield Park (1814) by JaneAusten
Mansfield Park (1814)
JaneAusten
  • Reads 221,555
  • Votes 5,545
  • Parts 48
Fanny Price is a young girl from a large and relatively poor family, who is taken from them at age 10 to be raised by her rich uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas, a baronet, and Lady Bertram, of Mansfield Park. She had previously lived with her own parents, Lieut. Price and his wife, Frances (Fanny), Lady Bertram's sister. She is the second child and eldest daughter, with seven siblings born after her. She has a firm attachment to her older brother, William, who at the age of 12 has followed his father into the navy. With so many mouths to feed on a limited income, Fanny's mother is grateful for the opportunity to send Fanny away to live with her fine relatives.
Great Expectations (1861) by CharlesDickens
Great Expectations (1861)
CharlesDickens
  • Reads 1,399,588
  • Votes 12,037
  • Parts 60
On Christmas Eve, around 1812, Pip, an orphan who is about six years old, encounters an escaped convict in the village churchyard while visiting the graves of his mother, father, and siblings. The convict scares Pip into stealing food and a file to grind away his shackles, from the home he shares with his abusive older sister and her kind, passive husband Joe Gargery, a blacksmith. The next day, soldiers recapture the convict while he is engaged in a fight with another convict; the two are returned to the prison ships from which they escaped...
Sense and Sensibility (1811) by JaneAusten
Sense and Sensibility (1811)
JaneAusten
  • Reads 595,391
  • Votes 10,971
  • Parts 50
Sense and Sensibility is set in southwest England between 1792 and 1797, and portrays the life and loves of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. The novel follows the young ladies to their new home, a meagre cottage on a distant relative's property, where they experience love, romance and heartbreak.
Emma (1815) by JaneAusten
Emma (1815)
JaneAusten
  • Reads 1,391,879
  • Votes 14,737
  • Parts 55
Emma Woodhouse, aged 20 at the start of the novel, is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. She lives on the fictional estate of Hartfield in Surrey in the village of Highbury with her elderly widowed father, a hypochondriac who is excessively concerned for the health and safety of his loved ones. Emma's friend and only critic is the gentlemanly George Knightley, her neighbour from the adjacent estate of Donwell, and the brother of her elder sister Isabella's husband, John. As the novel opens, Emma has just attended the wedding of Miss Taylor, her best friend and former governess. Having introduced Miss Taylor to her future husband, Mr. Weston, Emma takes credit for their marriage, and decides that she rather likes matchmaking.
Little Women (1880) by LouisaMayAlcott
Little Women (1880)
LouisaMayAlcott
  • Reads 678,377
  • Votes 15,883
  • Parts 47
"Little Women" follows the lives of four sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March – and is loosely based on the author's childhood experiences with her three sisters.
Wuthering Heights (1847) by EmilyBronte
Wuthering Heights (1847)
EmilyBronte
  • Reads 1,979,525
  • Votes 21,531
  • Parts 34
Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure, the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting and the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature.