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Tag: Classic

  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    Huck Finn, last seen in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is living uneasily with the Widow Douglas, who wants to civilise him, when his drunken, violent father reappears to claim the money Huck found. Huck fakes his own death to escape and hides on an island in the Mississippi, where he meets Jim, an enslaved man who has run away after learning he is to be sold downriver.

    The two set off on a raft, hoping to reach the free states. Along the river they meet feuding families, a lynch mob, and two swindlers who call themselves the Duke and the King and drag them into scams in riverside towns. Throughout, Huck wrestles with what his society has taught him about right and wrong as his friendship with Jim deepens.

    Told in Huck's vernacular voice, the novel transformed American prose; Hemingway said modern American literature came from it. It is a satire of racism and moral hypocrisy, yet its frequent use of racial slurs and depiction of Jim have made it one of the most debated and challenged books in American schools.

    Book details

    AuthorMark Twain
    First published1884
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)366
    SettingMississippi River valley, 1830s-1840s

    Themes

    • Slavery and freedom
    • Conscience
    • Friendship
    • Hypocrisy
    • Coming of age

    Who should read it

    Readers interested in American literature, satire and the history of race in the United States.

  • Anna Karenina

    Anna Karenina travels to Moscow to patch up the marriage of her brother Stiva Oblonsky, whose infidelity has thrown his household into chaos. At the railway station she meets Count Alexei Vronsky, a dashing officer, and an attraction begins that will upend her marriage to Alexei Karenin, a senior government official, and her position in St Petersburg society.

    Running alongside Anna's story is that of Konstantin Levin, a serious, awkward landowner modelled partly on Tolstoy himself, who loves Stiva's sister-in-law Kitty Shcherbatskaya. Levin's chapters deal with farming, the peasants who work his land, brotherhood, death and a long struggle to find faith and a reason to live.

    Serialised between 1875 and 1877, the novel examines marriage, adultery, hypocrisy, jealousy and the very different rules society applies to men and women. Tolstoy's psychological insight and the realism of his world, from horse races to hayfields, have made it a frequent contender for the title of greatest novel ever written.

    Book details

    AuthorLeo Tolstoy
    First published1878
    Original languageRussian
    Translated byRichard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)864
    SettingMoscow, St Petersburg and the Russian countryside, 1870s

    Themes

    • Adultery
    • Marriage
    • Social hypocrisy
    • Faith
    • Rural life

    Who should read it

    Readers who want a richly detailed psychological novel about love, society and the search for meaning.

  • The Picture of Dorian Gray

    In a London studio the painter Basil Hallward completes a portrait of Dorian Gray, a young man of extraordinary beauty whom he idolises. Basil's friend Lord Henry Wotton, a languid aristocrat with a talent for scandalous epigrams, tells Dorian that youth is the only thing worth having. Seized by the thought of growing old, Dorian wishes the picture could age instead of him.

    The wish seems to come true. As Dorian follows Lord Henry's philosophy of pleasure and new sensations, his face remains unlined while the canvas, locked away in an old schoolroom, begins to change with every cruel act. His romance with a young actress, Sibyl Vane, is the first sign of what he is becoming, and rumours of his corrupting influence spread through London society.

    First published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890 and expanded as a book the following year, the novel was attacked as immoral and later used against Wilde at his trials. It combines Gothic fable with sparkling dialogue and explores aestheticism, vanity, hidden lives and the relationship between art and morality.

    Book details

    AuthorOscar Wilde
    First published1890
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)254
    SettingLondon, late 19th century

    Themes

    • Vanity
    • Aestheticism
    • Corruption
    • Double life
    • Art and morality

    Who should read it

    Readers who enjoy witty dialogue and Gothic morality tales about beauty, influence and secret sin.

  • Oliver Twist

    Oliver Twist is born in a provincial workhouse, where his mother dies at once, and grows up under the brutal regime of the Poor Law. After famously asking for more gruel, he is sold as an apprentice to an undertaker, mistreated, and finally runs away on foot to London.

    On the road he meets the Artful Dodger, a swaggering young pickpocket who takes him to Fagin, an old receiver of stolen goods who trains boys to steal. Oliver's innocence is tested when he is caught up in a robbery, rescued by the kindly Mr Brownlow, and pulled back into the underworld by the violent housebreaker Bill Sikes and his partner Nancy, whose conscience becomes central to the plot. A mysterious figure named Monks seems strangely interested in Oliver's fate.

    Serialised in 1837 to 1839, the novel was an attack on the New Poor Law of 1834 and on the treatment of poor children. Its melodrama and caricatures, including a portrayal of Fagin now criticised as antisemitic, sit alongside vivid scenes of London's slums that shocked readers into paying attention.

    Book details

    AuthorCharles Dickens
    First published1838
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)554
    SettingLondon and provincial England, 1830s

    Themes

    • Poverty
    • Child exploitation
    • Crime
    • Innocence
    • Social reform

    Who should read it

    Readers interested in Victorian social history and a fast-moving story of an orphan in the London underworld.

  • Great Expectations

    Pip is an orphan raised by his harsh older sister and her kind husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery, in the Kent marshes. One evening in the churchyard he is seized by an escaped convict and forced to steal food for him, an encounter that will echo through his life. Soon afterwards he is summoned to Satis House to play with Estella, the cold, beautiful ward of the jilted Miss Havisham, who still wears her wedding dress and has stopped every clock.

    Ashamed of his common origins, Pip longs to be worthy of Estella. When a lawyer announces that an unnamed benefactor has given him great expectations of fortune, he moves to London to be educated as a gentleman and assumes Miss Havisham is responsible. City life brings friendship with Herbert Pocket, snobbery and debt, and growing coldness towards Joe.

    Narrated by an older Pip looking back on his younger self, the novel is one of Dickens's most tightly constructed works, mixing comedy, mystery and moral reckoning about class, ambition, loyalty and guilt. Characters such as the lawyer Jaggers, his clerk Wemmick with his castle in Walworth, and the decaying Miss Havisham are among the most vivid Dickens ever created.

    Book details

    AuthorCharles Dickens
    First published1861
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)505
    SettingKent and London, England, early 19th century

    Themes

    • Social class
    • Ambition
    • Guilt
    • Loyalty
    • Self-improvement

    Who should read it

    Readers who want Dickens at his most compact and personal, with memorable characters and a gripping mystery.

  • Wuthering Heights

    In 1801 a new tenant, Mr Lockwood, visits his landlord Heathcliff at the isolated farmhouse of Wuthering Heights and finds a hostile, strange household. Snowbound for the night, he has a terrifying dream at a window, and back at his rented house the housekeeper Nelly Dean begins to tell him the history behind it.

    Years earlier, Mr Earnshaw brought home a dark-skinned orphan boy from the streets of Liverpool and named him Heathcliff. He and Earnshaw's daughter Catherine grew up inseparable on the moors, while her brother Hindley came to hate the newcomer. The neighbouring Linton family of Thrushcross Grange, refined and wealthy, enters their lives and offers Catherine a very different future, setting off a chain of resentment and revenge.

    The layered narration, told mostly through Nelly and Lockwood, and the novel's raw violence and passion puzzled early critics. Emily Bronte died a year after publication. It is now regarded as one of the most original novels in English, a study of obsession, class and the untamed landscape that mirrors its characters.

    Book details

    AuthorEmily Bronte
    First published1847
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)416
    SettingYorkshire moors, England, late 18th century to 1802

    Themes

    • Obsessive love
    • Revenge
    • Class
    • Nature
    • Inheritance

    Who should read it

    Readers drawn to dark, intense love stories and unconventional storytelling rather than tidy romance.

  • Pride and Prejudice

    Mr and Mrs Bennet of Longbourn have five daughters and no son, which means their estate will pass to a distant cousin and the girls must marry well. When a wealthy young bachelor, Mr Bingley, rents a nearby house, Mrs Bennet sets her sights on him for her eldest daughter, the gentle Jane. Bingley's friend Mr Darcy, richer still, makes a poor first impression at a local ball by snubbing the second daughter, Elizabeth.

    Elizabeth is clever, lively and quick to judge, and her dislike of Darcy hardens when the charming officer George Wickham tells her a story about Darcy's past. Around them circle a memorable cast: the pompous clergyman Mr Collins, the imperious Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the flighty youngest sister Lydia and the sardonic Mr Bennet.

    Austen's irony, sharp dialogue and free indirect narration make the novel feel modern more than two centuries after publication. Beneath the romance it examines class, marriage as economic necessity and the danger of trusting first impressions. It has inspired countless adaptations and retellings.

    Book details

    AuthorJane Austen
    First published1813
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)432
    SettingHertfordshire and Derbyshire, England, early 1800s

    Themes

    • Marriage and class
    • First impressions
    • Pride
    • Family
    • Women's independence

    Who should read it

    Anyone who enjoys witty dialogue and romance, and readers looking for an accessible way into classic literature.

  • Jane Eyre

    Jane Eyre is an orphan raised resentfully by her aunt at Gateshead Hall, where she is bullied by her cousins and locked in a room she believes is haunted. Sent away to Lowood, a harsh charity school run by a hypocritical clergyman, she endures cold, hunger and disease but gains an education and a lasting friendship that shapes her moral outlook.

    As a young woman she takes a post as governess at Thornfield Hall, teaching the French ward of Edward Rochester, a moody, sardonic gentleman. A strong bond grows between them, but the house holds mysteries: strange laughter in the upper corridors, a fire in the night and a secret that tests Jane's principles. Later sections take her across the moors and into the household of the austere clergyman St John Rivers.

    Told in Jane's own intimate, passionate first-person voice, the novel was startling in 1847 for its plain heroine who insists on equality of spirit with the man she loves. It blends Gothic atmosphere with a coming-of-age story and remains central to discussions of women's independence in fiction.

    Book details

    AuthorCharlotte Bronte
    First published1847
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)500
    SettingNorthern England, early 19th century

    Themes

    • Independence
    • Moral integrity
    • Class
    • Love
    • Religion

    Who should read it

    Readers who want a Gothic-tinged love story with a heroine who refuses to compromise her self-respect.

  • Emma

    Emma Woodhouse is twenty-one, mistress of her widowed father's house at Hartfield and the leading young lady of the village of Highbury. Having taken credit for her governess's happy marriage, she decides she has a talent for matchmaking and takes up Harriet Smith, a sweet young woman of unknown parentage, determined to find her a husband above her station.

    Emma's schemes misfire again and again because she misreads the people around her, including the ambitious vicar Mr Elton, the charming Frank Churchill and the reserved, accomplished Jane Fairfax. Her neighbour and old family friend Mr Knightley is the only one who regularly tells her when she is wrong. The supporting cast includes the endlessly talkative Miss Bates and the hypochondriac Mr Woodhouse.

    Austen said she was creating a heroine whom no one but herself would much like, yet Emma's flaws and growing self-knowledge make the novel one of her richest. Its intricate plotting and irony influenced the modern novel, and it inspired adaptations including the film Clueless.

    Book details

    AuthorJane Austen
    First published1815
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)474
    SettingHighbury, Surrey, England, early 1800s

    Themes

    • Self-deception
    • Class
    • Matchmaking
    • Maturity
    • Village society

    Who should read it

    Readers who love Pride and Prejudice and want Austen's subtlest comedy of misjudgement and growing up.