Difference between revisions of "Classic literature"
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Revision as of 23:43, 16 June 2015
Article in Adult Fiction, and Historical categories.
- Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott
- This novel follows the four March sisters, detailing their passage from childhood to adulthood, and is loosely based on the author and her three sisters.
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Read about Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet's eighteenth century courtship, a comedy of manners, and the foundation for the modern romantic comedy. This popular novel is also on the list of Top 100 Beach Books
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- In the future, firemen don't put out fires, they create them to burn books. This is a good example of dystopian literature, and it's on the list of Top 100 Science Fiction Novels.
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Jane Eyre, an orphan, becomes governess at Thornfield, where she falls in love with her secretive employer, Mr. Rochester.
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- Another popular Romance novel, this also made the list of Top 100 Beach Books
- The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
- Winner of the 1932 Pulitzer Prize, this book chronicles several years in the life of a Chinese farming family during the early 20th century.
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- My Antonia by Willa Cather
- Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
- Inspired by the journey the author took up the Congo River, this dark allegorical story combines adventure with psychological insight.
- The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- In this coming-of-age story, an anonymous benefactor gives the orphan Pip money, which changes every aspect of his life.
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Silas Marner by George Eliot
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Fitzgerald's novel observes the lives of society folks on Long Island during the Roaring 20's. Love, obsession and excess in the Roaring Twenties between a mysterious millionaire, Gatsby, and Daisy Buchanan, a former debutante, who is married to an unfaithful husband. This was the Big Read Selection in 2007. For more information, see Typically Gatsby
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
- Emma Bovary tries to escape a dull marriage that does not live up to her expectations by taking a lover, but her romantic dreams lead her life to spiral out of control.
- A Room With a View by E.M. Forster
- Lucy Honeychurch begins to see the world differently after meeting some other English travelers while staying at a pensione in Florence, Italy.
- Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Marooned on an island, a group of boys gradually sheds order and standards of behavior. A more primitive world arises.
- Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
- Heller's experiences as a bombardier during World War II inspired this book, which makes fun of American bureaucracy and the brutality of war.
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- This Pulitzer-Prize winning fish tale also contributed to Hemingway being awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize. The story centers on Santiago, an old fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Sea.
- The Best Short Stories by O. Henry
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- Janie Crawford reflects on the relationships she's had with different men in her life in Florida during the early part of the 20th century. Their Eyes Were Watching God was the Big Read selection in 2009.
- A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
- The story of a struggle between the iron-fisted Nurse Ratched and a newly admitted mental patient who introduces chaos, gambling, and drinking on a psychiatric ward.
- A Separate Peace by John Knowles
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Young Scout Finch witnesses the injustices of her small Alabama town during the 1930s as her father defends an innocent black man accused of murder.
To Kill a Mockingbird was the Big Read selection in 2008.
- The Call of the Wild by Jack London
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
- Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- Epic story of Scarlett O'Hara's life and loves in Georgia during the American Civil War and postwar years.
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Written in 1948, 1984 was Orwell's chilling prediction of the future, where “Big Brother is watching you.”
- Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
- All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- Follows the sarcastic Holden Caulfield, who has run away from prep school, and rejects growing up and “phony” adults.
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Dr. Frankenstein assembles a human from stolen body parts, and brings it to life. As the monster searches for love and acceptance, he develops a humanity to rival his creator’s.
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- The Joad family, driven from their home in Oklahoma by the Dust Bowl, head to California. An eloquent portrayal of the economic, social, and natural forces aligned against the common man.
- Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- Against the backdrop of a changing 19th c. Russian society, the novel follows the doomed love affair between Anna Karenina, trapped in a dull marriage, and Count Vronsky, a dashing but irresponsible officer.
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
- Earth is attacked by Martians in this prototypical alien invasion story. The tale was popularized by Orson Welles' radio drama, when listeners thought the alien invasion was real.
- Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- Dorian sells his soul for eternal youth, beginning a moral disintegration which is reflected in a portrait that becomes grotesque as his humanity deteriorates.
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Bilbo Baggins sets off on a heroic quest to recover gold guarded by a dragon, and along the way discovers a magical ring. The famous prelude to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
- Native Son by Richard Wright