Start reading

← All genres

Fiction

These are the novels people mean when they say “you should read the classics” — love stories, moral traps, adventures gone wrong, families coming apart. Each summary gives you the full arc in about five minutes: who wants what, what stands in the way, and how it ends. Read one while the kettle boils, and you'll know whether the real book deserves a place on your shelf.

Fiction Children's Classics Adventure Horror Epic Poetry Short Stories Mystery Philosophy Science Fiction Drama Gothic Classics Poetry Politics Essays Tragedy Comedy Romance Religion Sea Stories
Browse the full library

83 books · free to read or listen · no account needed

A Christmas Carol — first-edition cover
A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
5 min read
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court — first-edition cover
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Mark Twain
5 min read
A Modern Instance William Dean Howells
5 min read
A Tale of Two Cities — first-edition cover
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
5 min read
Adam Bede — first-edition cover
Adam Bede George Eliot
5 min read
Barchester Towers — first-edition cover
Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope
5 min read
Bartleby, the Scrivener — first-edition cover
Bartleby, the Scrivener Herman Melville
5 min read
Bel-Ami — first-edition cover
Bel-Ami Guy de Maupassant
5 min read
Candide — first-edition cover
Candide Voltaire
5 min read
Cousin Bette — first-edition cover
Cousin Bette Honoré de Balzac
5 min read
Cranford — first-edition cover
Cranford Elizabeth Gaskell
5 min read
Crime and Punishment — first-edition cover
Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky
5 min read
Daisy Miller — first-edition cover
Daisy Miller Henry James
5 min read
Dangerous Liaisons — first-edition cover
Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
5 min read
Dead Souls — first-edition cover
Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol
5 min read
Democracy: An American Novel — first-edition cover
Democracy: An American Novel Henry Adams
5 min read
Demons — first-edition cover
Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky
5 min read
Don Quixote — first-edition cover
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
5 min read
Effi Briest — first-edition cover
Effi Briest Theodor Fontane
5 min read
Eugénie Grandet — first-edition cover
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
5 min read
Fathers and Sons — first-edition cover
Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev
5 min read
George's Mother Stephen Crane
5 min read
Germinal — first-edition cover
Germinal Emile Zola
5 min read
Great Expectations — first-edition cover
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
5 min read
Gulliver's Travels — first-edition cover
Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
5 min read
Hadji Murat — first-edition cover
Hadji Murat Leo Tolstoy
5 min read
La Regenta — first-edition cover
La Regenta Leopoldo Alas (Clarin)
5 min read
Lazarillo de Tormes — first-edition cover
Lazarillo de Tormes Anonymous
5 min read
Les Miserables — first-edition cover
Les Miserables Victor Hugo
5 min read
Looking Backward — first-edition cover
Looking Backward Edward Bellamy
5 min read
Madame Bovary — first-edition cover
Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
5 min read
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Stephen Crane
5 min read
McTeague — first-edition cover
McTeague Frank Norris
5 min read
Michael Kohlhaas — first-edition cover
Michael Kohlhaas Heinrich von Kleist
5 min read
Middlemarch — first-edition cover
Middlemarch George Eliot
5 min read
Nana — first-edition cover
Nana Émile Zola
5 min read
Notes from Underground — first-edition cover
Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky
5 min read
Oblomov — first-edition cover
Oblomov Ivan Goncharov
5 min read
Pere Goriot — first-edition cover
Pere Goriot Honore de Balzac
5 min read
Pudd'nhead Wilson Mark Twain
5 min read
Resurrection — first-edition cover
Resurrection Leo Tolstoy
5 min read
Sentimental Education — first-edition cover
Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert
5 min read
Silas Marner — first-edition cover
Silas Marner George Eliot
5 min read
Tales of Soldiers and Civilians — first-edition cover
Tales of Soldiers and Civilians Ambrose Bierce
5 min read
Taras Bulba — first-edition cover
Taras Bulba Nikolai Gogol
5 min read
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer — first-edition cover
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain
5 min read
The Awakening — first-edition cover
The Awakening Kate Chopin
5 min read
The Betrothed — first-edition cover
The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni
5 min read
The Brothers Karamazov — first-edition cover
The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
5 min read
The Captain's Daughter Alexander Pushkin
5 min read
The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal
5 min read
The Country of the Pointed Firs — first-edition cover
The Country of the Pointed Firs Sarah Orne Jewett
5 min read
The Damnation of Theron Ware — first-edition cover
The Damnation of Theron Ware Harold Frederic
5 min read
The Death of Ivan Ilyich — first-edition cover
The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy
5 min read
The Devil's Dictionary — first-edition cover
The Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce
5 min read
The Gambler — first-edition cover
The Gambler Fyodor Dostoevsky
5 min read
The Good Soldier Švejk — first-edition cover
The Good Soldier Švejk Jaroslav Hašek
5 min read
The House of the Seven Gables — first-edition cover
The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne
5 min read
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame — first-edition cover
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Victor Hugo
5 min read
The Idiot — first-edition cover
The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky
5 min read
The Metamorphosis — first-edition cover
The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka
5 min read
The Mill on the Floss — first-edition cover
The Mill on the Floss George Eliot
5 min read
The Octopus — first-edition cover
The Octopus Frank Norris
5 min read
The Pit — first-edition cover
The Pit Frank Norris
5 min read
The Portrait of a Lady — first-edition cover
The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
5 min read
The Red and the Black Stendhal
5 min read
The Red Badge of Courage — first-edition cover
The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane
5 min read
The Rise of Silas Lapham — first-edition cover
The Rise of Silas Lapham William Dean Howells
5 min read
The Scarlet Letter — first-edition cover
The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
5 min read
The Sorrows of Young Werther — first-edition cover
The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5 min read
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall — first-edition cover
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë
5 min read
The Three Musketeers — first-edition cover
The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas
5 min read
The Trial — first-edition cover
The Trial Franz Kafka
5 min read
The Way of All Flesh — first-edition cover
The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler
5 min read
Tom Jones — first-edition cover
Tom Jones Henry Fielding
5 min read
Tristram Shandy — first-edition cover
Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne
5 min read
Uncle Tom's Cabin — first-edition cover
Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe
5 min read
Vanity Fair — first-edition cover
Vanity Fair William Thackeray
5 min read
Villette — first-edition cover
Villette Charlotte Brontë
5 min read
War and Peace — first-edition cover
War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
5 min read
Washington Square Henry James
5 min read
Waverley — first-edition cover
Waverley Walter Scott
5 min read
Wives and Daughters — first-edition cover
Wives and Daughters Elizabeth Gaskell
5 min read
Browse all 300 books in the library