Born into “the blessings of liberty in a free State,” Solomon Northup was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Bayou Boeuf region of Louisiana’s Red River Valley. Twelve Years a Sl
Featured title on PBS’s The Great American Read in 2018Ignoring prophecies of doom, the seafarer Ishmael joins the crew of a whaling expedition that is an obsession for the ship’s captain,
Featured title on PBS’s The Great American Read in 2018The orphaned Jane Eyre has emerged a fiercely independent young woman. As governess at Thornfield Hall, she’s found her first real ho
Ebenezer Scrooge has no time for the poor or the wretched. And it’s “Bah, humbug!” to anyone who wishes him a Merry Christmas. But when he turns in for the night one cold, fateful Ch
Featured title on PBS’s The Great American Read in 2018Whether he’s sneaking doughnuts, mooning over a pretty girl, or snookering the local boys to do his work for him, Tom Sawyer is the c
There’s only one way for Professor George Edward Challenger to prove that dinosaurs still roam the earth. He invites skeptical journalist Edward Malone to accompany him and a group of adventurer
It’s the perfect match—gentleman lawyer Newland Archer will marry young socialite May Welland. The marriage should be a source of pride for Newland, accustomed as he is to meeting the expe
A caustic criticism of nearly every philosophic predecessor and a challenge of traditionally held views on right and wrong, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil paved the way for modern ph
A metallic cylinder falls to earth, landing in the sands of Horsell Common, Surrey, generating curiosity and awe. But what’s inside soon induces only terror. The story that unfolds is a breathle
A soul-searching reflection on spirituality, A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God has been regarded as a classic Christian work since its publication in 1948. Tozer, a beloved, self-taught pastor, i
A celebration of individuality, diversity, and nonconformity, On Liberty still makes a persuasive argument for what John Stuart Mill believed to be humankind’s essential liberties: the freedoms
Featured title on PBS’s The Great American Read in 2018Lemuel Gulliver, English surgeon turned ship captain, embarks on four fantastic voyages, each a clash with strange beings and cultures̵
Featured title in the 2018 PBS Great American ReadsAs a New England mother struggles to support her family in the wake of her husband’s service in the Civil War, her four daughters struggle, too
A scientist and gentleman inventor in industrialized Victorian England claims to have irrefutable proof that time is not simply a concept—it’s a whole other dimension. When he reveals the
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, to a middle-class glover and a landowner’s daughter. He married Anne Hathaway in 1582 and moved to London to
What is justice? In Plato’s Socratic dialogue, The Republic, the citizens of ancient Greece explore the world’s most fundamental question.In search of an ideal civilization, Socrates leads
The orphaned Mary Lennox is sullen, ill tempered, and unloved when she’s sent to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven. A man consumed by grief over the death of his wife, Archibald has allowed
In Paradise, God’s favored new creations—Adam and Eve—live in bliss, untainted by sin. In another realm, Satan and his banished rebel angels collude to destroy God’s tranquil n
Frederick Douglass’s celebrated memoir is among the most influential works of the nineteenth-century abolitionist movement in the United States. Beginning with his birth on a Maryland plantation
Refusing to be civilized by Southern society or cowed by his drunken father’s lashings, young Huckleberry Finn decides he has only one option left: fake his own death and hop a raft down the Mis
Obsessed with the secret of creation, Swiss scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein cobbles together a body he’s determined to bring to life. And one fateful night, he does. When the creature opens hi
Featured title on PBS’s The Great American Read in 2018Having devoted his studies to optics and refraction, an impulsive scientist named Griffin has rendered himself invisible. Unable to reverse
As the protagonist in his own visionary three-part passage through the afterlife, Dante begins at the gate of Hell, guided by the poet Virgil. Together they journey through the underworld’s nine
Influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the transcendentalist movement, Walt Whitman’s groundbreaking collection of poetry broke from the meditative traditions of the symbolic, the allegorical, an
One night on the heath, the brave and respected general Macbeth encounters three witches who foretell that he will become king of Scotland. At first skeptical, he’s urged on by the ruthless, sin
Featured title in the 2018 PBS Great American ReadsEleven-year-old orphan Anne Shirley has just arrived at Green Gables, and already her guardians want to send her back. First, she’s not the boy
Featured title on PBS’s The Great American Read in 2018Raised together on the Yorkshire moors, Heathcliff and Catherine become lovers and soul mates so utterly inseparable that their destiny see
Direct and coldly pragmatic, Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince is the preeminent guide to winning and maintaining power at the highest levels, where deception and manipulation are necessary
Bequeathed a rare diamond by her late uncle, heiress Rachel Verinder has no idea it was stolen from an Indian temple or that it has a cursed history. When the diamond disappears on her eighteenth birt
Seven years ago, Anne Elliot broke off her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth, convinced that marrying a man without money or status would be a grave mistake. Now, she is past her prime and sin
Charming, rich, and clever, heiress Emma Woodhouse has no need for an occupation—or a husband. Still, she considers herself quite skilled at matchmaking. Although her dear friend Mr. Knightley a
Swindled out of his inheritance, recently orphaned David Balfour finds himself kidnapped and aboard a slave ship bound for the Carolinas shortly after the Jacobite rising of 1745. A shipwreck leads to
Isolated from society in a tenement basement in St. Petersburg, a malicious former civil servant vents his resentments. In the rambling notes that follow, we are exposed to the inner turmoil of the Un
After Hank Morgan of Hartford, Connecticut, takes a blow to the head, he inexplicably awakens in sixth-century Camelot. At first lost and confused, the time traveler soon realizes that he can use mode
Once upon a time, there was a talking, walking, dancing piece of wood. His name was Pinocchio, the marionette created from an enchanted log by Tuscan woodcarver Geppetto.The miraculous puppet dreams o
Stephen Dedalus is an Irish Catholic son in a pious Dublin family when he chooses to shed the constraints of religion, abandon his social and familial obligations, and escape the limits of his country
Filled with the power of love and the beauty of nature, Heidi is a lyrical tale about a little girl sent to live in the mountains of the Swiss Alps with her grandfather. A grumpy recluse, her grandfat
A sixteenth-century cryptogram spurs modern geologist Otto Liedenbrock to embark on the most remarkable human quest ever taken. With his nephew and guide, he leads the descent from a dormant Icelandic
Wronged by human and beast alike, White Fang has endured through brazen ferocity. An enemy of his kind, he is sold to a dogfighter who pits him against other canines to the death—until a Yukon g
After his ships and money are lost at sea, Antonio, a prominent Venetian merchant, cannot repay a loan to Shylock, the Jewish moneylender and long-suffering target of his ridicule. Antonio must rely o
