Austen,  Jane 
Pride and Prejudice
In this sparkling satire of love and matrimony, all five Bennett sisters require suitable husbands, to the chagrin of their harried parents, and all available suitors seem somehow deficient.
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Bronte,  Charlotte 
Jane Eyre
After accepting a position as governess in Edward Rochester's home and falling in love with him, Jane begins to suspect that all is not what it seems, and that Thornfield Hall is haunted by a dreadful secret.
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Bronte,  Emily 
Wuthering Heights
When Lockwood is forced to shelter with his unsociable landlord, he learns the tragic story of Heathcliff's passionate love affair with Catherine, and why her ghost still haunts the bleak Yorkshire moors.
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Butler,  Samuel 
The Way of All Flesh
The satiric saga of the Pontifexes outlines the struggles of its conscientious, freethinking sons against the hypocrisies of wealth, education, class, family and religion in Victorian England.
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Collins,  Wilkie 
The Moonstone
In the first police mystery, the disappearance of the Moonstone diamond on Rachel Verinder's birthday spurs an investigation by the dogged Sergeant Cuff, who uncovers more than simple theft.
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Defoe,  Daniel 
Robinson Crusoe
A castaway marooned on a desert island, Crusoe survives a harsh and primitive existence for nearly thirty years, relying on his English ingenuity and the help of a man called Friday. Inspired by a true story.
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Dickens,  Charles 
Oliver Twist
By turns hilarious and terrifying, this tale of a young man determined to escape the life of a common pickpocket and to better his chances in the world features truly unforgettable characters.
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Eliot,  George 
Middlemarch
The panorama of nineteenth-century provincial society comes to life in a multi-faceted story of its inhabitants who, like Dorothea Brooks, search for happiness in love and significant lives.
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Fielding,  Henry 
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Young Tom takes readers on a roller coaster ride through eighteenth century British life, after his sexual exploits get him into trouble with his adoptive family and force him to seek his fortune in the world.
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Forster,  E.M. 
A Passage to India
Three English newcomers to Chandrapore eagerly form a friendship with the educated Indian, Dr. Aziz, but jeopardize international relations when one of them accuses him of sexual assault.
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Goldsmith,  Oliver 
The Vicar of Wakefield
As with Job, disaster strikes Dr. Primrose's fortune and family, but he suffers poverty and public humiliation with gentle patience, relying on his faith, wit and good natured outlook.
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Graves,  Robert 
I, Claudius
The fictional lost autobiography of Emperor Tiberius Claudius reveals his intelligence and political savvy, amidst a decadent, cruel and superficial society that thinks him a stuttering idiot.
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Greene,  Graham 
The Heart of the Matter
Disaster looms beneath the thin veneer of civilized good cheer in British West Africa, when a scrupulously honest native police official jeopardizes his honor for the love of a woman.
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Haggard,  H. Rider
King Solomon's Mines
When a fellow explorer goes missing, Allan Quartermain and his daring companions embark on a perilous search that leads them to ancient treasure in the heart of darkest Africa in this ultimate adventure yarn.
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Hardy,  Thomas 
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
While working in her wealthy cousin's house, Tess succumbs to his sexual advances. Will she bear alone the shame of childbirth and the condemnation of the man she loves?
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Hudson,  W.H.  
Green Mansions
The creeping encroachment of European civilization on indigenous traditions is seen through young Abel's love for Rima, and their journey to her rain forest home across the dense terrain of South America.
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Joyce,  James 
Dubliners
Both social critique and loving portrait of the everyday lives of urban dwellers at the dawn of the last century, these fifteen stories reflect the inherent self-sufficiency and strength of the Irish people.
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Lawrence,  D.H. 
Sons and Lovers
Paul Morel's domineering mother runs life up into his early manhood, and threatens to doom him forever unless he disconnects from her neediness and recreates himself as a man.
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Maugham,  W.  Somerset
Of Human Bondage
Philip Carey's search for freedom and self-actualization goes tragically awry when he his dreams and his heart are shattered by a destructive sexual obsession.
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Orczy,  Baroness 
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Madame la Guillotine hovers menacingly over innocents in French prisons until their timely rescue by a swashbuckling masked avenger, known to the world and even his wife as an ignoble and foppish Englishman.
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Powell,  Anthony  
A Dance to the Music of Time
All the world's a stage, and this epic literary frolic, beginning just after World War I, features a large cast of British upper crust and bohemians moving through the rich and varied pageant of fifty years.
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Scott,  Sir Walter 
Ivanhoe
While the dastardly King John threatens to usurp King Richard's throne, Ivanhoe returns from the Crusades to reclaim his inheritance, save a maiden in distress and team up with Robin Hood to defeat the Normans.
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Shelley,  Mary Wollstonecraft
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
Fascinated by the quest for eternal life, Victor plays God when his unnatural experiments with cadavers bring forth a new being into the world, and then forsakes his own creation, with horrifying results.
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Stoker,  Bram 
Dracula
Eyewitness news reports and diary excerpts lend eerie credence to this nightmarish story of a shadowy man hunter who stalks London by night in search of fresh blood. Jack the Ripper, eat your heart out.
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Swift,  Jonathan 
Gulliver's Travels
In this brilliant social and political satire, Lemuel Gulliver embarks on four fantastic voyages to strange lands governed by tiny men, giants, pedantic fools, and an enlightened race of intelligent horses.
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Thackeray,  William Makepeace
Vanity Fair
Social vanity and inequity are on full display as the lives of five Victorians are contrasted, compared, and held to the light like trinkets at a fair.
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Trollope,  Anthony  
Barchester Towers
With wry humor and quirky characters, the author reveals the dangers of evangelical infighting as the incompetent new bishop, Dr. Proudie and the slimy curate, Slope, struggle for control of Barchester diocese.
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Waugh,  Evelyn 
Brideshead Revisited
Lord Sebastian Flyte, worldly scion of the aristocratic Marchmain clan, indulges in the mad decadence of the 1920's only to endure the mordant hangover of the 30's and the ageless ennui of alienated privilege.
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Wells,  H.G. 
Invisible Man
Already uneasy about the mysterious bandage-wrapped newcomer Mr. Griffin, citizens of the town of Iping, wind up defenseless and petrified when his vengeful wrath takes murderous form.
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Woolf,  Virginia 
Mrs. Dalloway
One day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares to host a society party, proves to be fertile ground for fond remembrances, recriminations and musings on the life's splendid futility.
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