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.

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...

Beowulf is a heroic poem, the earliest European vernacular epic. It deals with events of the early 500s AD and is believed to have been composed between 700 and 750. It is about a hero called Beowulf. The poem opens to tell something of Beowulf, a prince of the Geats of southern Sweden. In the second part the hero goes to Denmark, where a king's mead hall often is ravaged at night by a monster among Danes. The young Beowulf comes to the rescue. He grapples with the monster and its mother too, and kills both. That makes the Danes glad. In the third part a fire-breathing dragon ravages Beowulf's land. Beowulf kills the dragon but is mortally wounded. There is no evidence of a historical Beowulf, but some characters, sites, and events in the poem can be historically verified. The following is the Strafford Riggs translation of 1933. Its language has been slightly modified for this on-line edition.

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer)-a castaway who spends twenty-eight years on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued.

"Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" is about an eccentric scientist Victor Frankenstein, who creates a grotesque creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891 and in book form in 1892. Though now considered a major nineteenth-century English novel and possibly Hardy's fictional masterpiece, Tess of the d'Urbervilles received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England.

A Comedy Don Pedro and his soldiers return from war, covered in glory, stopping at Signior Leonato's in Messina. Count Claudio, Don Pedro's lieutenant, has fallen in love with Hero and begs Don Pedro to arrange the marriage with Leonato, Hero's father. Beatrice and Benedick, hurt from a previous relationship together, swear to remain single all their lives. Their friends conspire to bring them together. Don John, Don Pedro's illegitimate brother, seeks to disrupt all. Uploaded from Gutenberg.org.

"Twelfth Night; or, What You Will" is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601-02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. Viola is shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria and she comes ashore with the help of a captain. She loses contact with her twin brother, Sebastian, whom she believes to be dead. Disguising herself as a young man under the name Cesario, she enters the service of Duke Orsino through the help of the sea captain who rescues her.

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (First Folio title: The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar) is a history play and tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It is one of several plays written by Shakespeare based on true events from Roman history, which also include Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra. Although the play is named Julius Caesar, Brutus speaks more than four times as many lines as the title character; and the central psychological drama of the play focuses on Brutus' struggle between the conflicting demands of honour, patriotism, and friendship. Cover by the wonderful @SaadSohail_.