Fiction Classics Books

The principal setting is a communal farm called Blithedale (i.e., "Happy Valley"), a would-be modern Arcadia along the lines of the anti-capitalist ideals of Charles Fourier, yet is nonetheless destroyed by the self-interested behavior of some of its members. Among those members are...

Fanshawe is the first published work of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864).The novel was based on Hawthorne’s 1820s undergraduate experiences at Bowdoin College. It was his very first attempt at writing a novel, and he published it himself. It went unnoticed and he later burned the unsold copies...

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY, Lodore. "When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?"

Based on Melville's actual experiences after having jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands, this work was extremely popular, and provoked disbelief among its readers until the events it described were corroborated by Melville's fellow castaway, Richard Greene. While the book is based on fact, Typee...

Wellington Redburn is a fifteen-year-old from the state of New York, with only one dream - to run away to sea. However, when he does fulfil this long-held fantasy, he quickly finds that reality as a cabin boy is far harsher than he ever imagined. Mocked by the crew on board the Highlander for his...

A prize fighter faces the corruption of civilization and finds redemption in the wilds of California.

Jerry is a dog whose experiences reflect the cruelty and racism of colonial Melanesia.

Written in the form of letters, it recounts a blossoming romance amid St. Petersburg's slums between a middle-aged writer and a much younger seamstress.

The Possessed (In Russian: Бесы, tr. Besy), also translated as The Devils or Demons, is an 1872 novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. For an explanation of the marked difference in the English-language title, please see the section "Note on the title" below. An extremely political book, The Possessed is...

The Gambler was written under the pressure of crushing debt. It is a stunning psychological portrait of a young man’s exhilarating and destructive addiction, a compulsion that Dostoevsky–who once gambled away his young wife’s wedding ring–knew intimately from his own experience. In the...