Fiction You Must Read
Discover the must-read fiction books of all time! Explore our curated list of top fiction reads that will captivate and inspire any book lover.
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The War of the Jewels
by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
An analysis of Tolkien's story of Middle Earth looks at the wars of Elves and Men against Morgoth, the "Grey Annals," and Beleriand geography
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Till We Have Faces
by Clive Staples Lewis
This is the story of Orual, Psyche's embittered and ugly older sister, who posessively and harmfully loves Psyche. Much to Orual's frustration, Psyche is loved by Cupid, the god of love himself, setting the troubled Orual on a path of moral development.
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The Complete Chronicles of Narnia
by C. S. Lewis
All seven Chronicles are bound together in this one magnificent volume with a personal introduction by Douglas Gresham, stepson of C. S. Lewis.
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Homer - The Lliad - The Odyssey
by Homer
A boxed set of the classic books 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey' by Homer. Translated by Robert Fagles, with an introduction and notes by Bernard Knox.
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The Aeneid
by Virgil
"Fitzgerald's [translation] is so decisively the best modern Aeneid that it is unthinkable that anyone will want to use any other version for a long time to come." âNew York Review of Books Virgil's great epic transforms the Homeric tradition into a triumphal statement of the Roman civilizing missionâtranslated by Robert Fitzgerald.
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Beowulf
by Seamus Heaney
Presents a new translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic chronicling the heroic adventures of Beowulf, the Scandinavian warrior who saves his people from the ravages of the monster Grendel and Grendel's mother.
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The Faerie Queene
by Edmund Spenser
âGreat Lady of the greatest Isle, whose light Like Phoebus lampe throughout the world doth shineâ The Faerie Queene was one of the most influential poems in the English language. Dedicating his work to Elizabeth I, Spenser brilliantly united Arthurian romance and Italian renaissance epic to celebrate the glory of the Virgin Queen. Each book of the poem recounts the quest of a knight to achieve a virtue: the Red Crosse Knight of Holinesse, who must slay a dragon and free himself from the witch Duessa; Sir Guyon, Knight of Temperance, who escapes the Cave of Mammon and destroys Acrasiaâs Bowre of Bliss; and the lady-knight Britomartâs search for her Sir Artegall, revealed to her in an enchanted mirror. Although composed as a moral and political allegory, The Faerie Queeneâs magical atmosphere captivated the imaginations of later poets from Milton to the Victorians. This edition includes the letter to Raleigh, in which Spenser declares his intentions for his poem, the commendatory verses by Spenserâs contemporaries and his dedicatory sonnets to the Elizabethan court, and is supplemented by a table of dates and a glossary For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
by William Shakespeare
FOLGER Shakespeare Library: the world's leading center for Shakespeare studies. Each edition includes: Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play Scene-by-scene plot summaries A key to famous lines and phrases An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare
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The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
by William Shakespeare
After seeing the ghost of his murdered father, Hamlet realizes that his new stepfather was the killer and plots revenge and ponders the value of life.
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The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
by William Shakespeare
Presents the text of the play, accompanied by explanatory notes and an introduction to Shakespeare's life and theater.
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To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.
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Emma
by Jane Austen
Emma, first published in 1816, was written when Jane Austen was at the height of her powers. In a novel remarkable for its sparkling wit and modernity, Austen presents readers with two of literatureâs greatest comic creationsâthe eccentric Mr. Woodhouse and that quintessential bore, Miss Bates. Here, too, we have what may well be Jane Austenâs most profound characterization: the witty, imaginative, self-deluded Emma, a heroine the author declared âno one but myself will much like,â but who has been much loved by generations of readers. Delightfully funny, full of rich irony, Emma is regarded as one of Jane Austenâs finest achievements.
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Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Nominated as one of Americaâs best-loved novels by PBSâs The Great American Read âIt is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.â So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austenâs witty comedy of mannersâone of the most popular novels of all timeâthat features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. Renowned literary critic and historian George Saintsbury in 1894 declared it the âmost perfect, the most characteristic, the most eminently quintessential of its authorâs works,â and Eudora Welty in the twentieth century described it as âirresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be.â
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Moby-Dick, Or, The Whale
by Herman Melville
A classic of the sea, telling of the pursuit of Moby Dick, the white whale who defied capture.
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The Scarlet Pimpernel
by Baroness Orczy
A timeless novel of adventure, intrigue, and romance is sparked by one man's defiance in the face of authority... The year is 1792. The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. Daily, tumbrels bearing new victims to the guillotine roll over the cobbled streets of Paris.⊠Thus the stage is set for one of the most enthralling novels of historical adventure ever written. The mysterious figure known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, sworn to rescue helpless men, women, and children from their doom; his implacable foe, the French agent Chauvelin, relentlessly hunting him down; and lovely Marguerite Blakeney, a beautiful French exile married to an English lord and caught in a terrible conflict of loyaltiesâall play their parts in a suspenseful tale that ranges from the squalid slums of Paris to the aristocratic salons of London, from intrigue on a great English country estate to the final denouement on the cliffs of the French coast. There have been many imitations of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but none has ever equaled its superb sense of color and drama and its irresistible gift of wonderfully romantic escape. With an Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand
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Clarissa
by Samuel Richardson
"Oh thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guilty hour, for a whole age of repentance!" Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of marriage are accompanied by unwelcome and increasingly brutal sexual advances. And yet, Clarissa finds his charm alluring, her scrupulous sense of virtue tinged with unconfessed desire. Told through a complex series of interweaving letters, Clarissa is a richly ambiguous study of a fatally attracted couple and a work of astonishing power and immediacy. A huge success when it first appeared in 1747, and translated into French and German, it remains one of the greatest of all European novels. In his introduction, Angus Ross examines characterization, the epistolary style, the role of the family and the position of women in Clarissa. This edition also includes a chronology, suggestions for further reading, tables of letters, notes, a glossary and an appendix on the music for the "Ode to Wisdom." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.