Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of self-discovery of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Gautama Buddha. The book, Hesse's ninth novel, was written in German, in a simple, lyrical style. It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became influential during the 1960s...
The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan's Magazine in 1880-81 and then as a book in 1881. It is one of James's most popular long novels and is regarded by critics as one of his finest. The Portrait of a Lady is the story of a spirited young Am...
Madame Bovary. Madame Bovary is the debut novel of French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Cover done by @Emnabm2
War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, which is regarded as a central work of world literature and one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements. The novel chronicles the history of the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society through the stories of five Ru...
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839. Cover by the lovely @FayLane
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is relayed by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his sanity while simultaneously describing a murder he committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls...
Heart of Darkness is a short novel written by Joseph Conrad, presented as a frame narrative, about Charles Marlow's job as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa. In the course of his commercial-agent work in Africa, the seaman Marlow becomes obsessed by Mr. Kurtz, an ivory-procurement agent, a ma...
"The Count of Monte Cristo" focuses on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires a fortune and sets about getting revenge on those responsible for his imprisonment. However, his plans have devastating consequences for the innocent as well as the guilty. Cover by xflowerpetalsx
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River.
Notes from Underground, also translated as Notes from the Underground or Letters from the Underworld, is an 1864 novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Notes is considered by many to be one of the first existentialist novels. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (g...
"Jane Eyre" follows the emotions and experiences of its eponymous character, including her growth to adulthood, and her love for Mr. Rochester, the byronic master of fictitious Thornfield Hall.
The story traces the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity. David was born in Blunderstone, Suffolk, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, in 1820, six months after the death of his father. David spends his early years with his mother and their housekeeper, Peggotty. When he is seven years old, his mot...
A Christmas Carol tells the story of bitter and miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and his ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation resulting from supernatural visits by Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.
"Ulysses" chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's poem Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between its characters and events and those of the poem. Cover by the wonderful @Azurina77.
The Time Machine is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 and written as a frame narrative. Wells is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposely and selectively forwards or backward in time. The term "time m...
"Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" is about an eccentric scientist Victor Frankenstein, who creates a grotesque creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment.
The Brothers Karamazov, also translated as The Karamazov Brothers, is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger from January 1879 to November 1880. The Brothers Karamazov is a pass...
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...
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle featuring his famous detective.
"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 h...
"Moby-Dick" tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab has one purpose on this voyage: to seek out Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bi...
The Three Musketeers (French: Les Trois Mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, which recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends Athos, Porthos an...
Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by the English author George Eliot, first published in eight installments (volumes) during 1871-72. The novel is set in the fictitious Midlands town of Middlemarch during 1829-32, and it comprises several distinct (though intersecting) stories and a large cast of cha...
