Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet exacts on his uncle Claudius for murdering the king, Claudius's brother and Prince Hamlet's father, and then succeeding to the throne and taking as his wife Gertrude, the old king's widow and Prince Hamlet's mother. The play vividly portrays both true and feigned madness – from overwhelming grief to seething rage – and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption.

This ancient story centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his decade long journey home after the fall of Troy.

Nothing is quite what it seems once Alice journeys through the looking-glass. This story explores concepts of mirror imagery, time running backward, and strategies of chess-all wrapped up in the exploits of a spirited young girl who parries with the Red Queen, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and other unlikely characters.

Great Expectations is perhaps Dickens' greatest novel, about the growth and personal trials of the orphan named Pip, as he struggles to reconcile his new-found wealth and refinement with his working class origins.

Twelve-year-old Karana finds herself totally alone on a harsh desolate island. How she survives - physically and psychologically - in the face of all sorts of dangers makes a gripping and inspiring tale. Based on a true story.

One of Poe’s best short stories. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". Ultimately the narrator's guilt betrays him.

A great journey takes a professor and his nephew deep below the crust of the earth into a strange world of prehistoric monsters and subterranean skies. While Verne’s vision of the earth’s core has almost wholly been refuted by science, it remains one of the most cherished and classic adventure tales of the nineteenth century.

When Ishmael sets sail on the whaling ship Pequod, he has no idea of the horrors awaiting him out on the vast and merciless ocean. The ship’s strange captain, Ahab, is in the grip of an obsession to hunt down the famous white whale, Moby Dick, and will stop at nothing to annihilate his nemesis.

After losing her parents and being shipped from India to the Yorkshire Moors, Mary Lennox is terribly lonely. Living in her uncle's gloomy mansion, she has nobody to play with. But one day, she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that her uncle won't allow anyone to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed - she turns the key and enters a world she could never have imagined.

A dreary castle, blood-thirsty vampires, open graves at midnight, and other gothic touches fill this chilling tale about a young Englishman's confrontation with the evil Count Dracula. A horror romance as deathless as any vampire, the blood-curdling tale still continues to hold readers spellbound a century later.

A family of Lithuanian immigrants lives in Chicago and works in the Chicago's Union Stock Yards. Although a work of fiction, “The Jungle” brought to light the horrible working conditions of the Chicago meat-packing industry at the beginning of the 20th century. Showed the vast socio-economic divide between the haves and have-nots and the corrupt alignment of American politicians with the industrial-capitalist machine.

This novel follows the spellbinding journey of a poor orphan girl who overcomes cruelty, loneliness, starvation and heartbreak on her quest for independence. Her romance with rich, brooding Mr. Rochester, and her discovery of his devastating secret, forces her to choose between love and self-respect.

Tolstoy's epic masterpiece captures with unprecedented immediacy the broad sweep of life during the Napoleonic wars and the brutal invasion of Russia. The burning of Moscow, the intrigues of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles, the quiet moments of everyday life--all in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed.

Holden Caulfield leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it.

A great adventure novel loaded with well written characters and enough action. Penned by Alexandre Dumas, it traces the life of Edmond Dantes, a young French sailor who is at the threshold of happiness and prosperity.

Don Quixote has become so entranced reading tales of chivalry that he decides to turn knight errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, these exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world together-and together they have haunted readers' imaginations for nearly four hundred years.

Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum in Switzerland, and becomes embroiled in the frantic amatory and financial intrigues which ultimately lead to tragedy. His serene selflessness is contrasted with the worldly qualities of every other character in the novel. Dostoevsky supplies a harsh indictment of a world that could not accommodate the goodness of this idiot.

Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice—but the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

The story tells of Charles Marlow, an Englishman who took a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Explores the dark side of colonization and the capacity of human beings to commit indefensibly immoral acts.

So rich in drama that it has been adapted many times for stage and screen, "Les Mis" blends adventure with social commentary. A convict's heroic struggle for justice and redemption plays out against a fiery backdrop of the Napoleonic wars.

Buck is the pampered offspring of a St. Bernard and a shepherd dog. Kidnapped and dragged away to be a sled dog in the harsh and freezing North, Buck must fight for survival. London's most famous work draws from his experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness as well as his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence.

A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America.

Published in 1920, the book examines the lives and morality of post- World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive Princeton University student who dabbles in literature. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking.

Perhaps the most important and compelling moral allegory the 20th century ever produced. Integrating Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with psychoanalysis and philosophy, this strangely simple tale, written with a deep and moving empathy for humanity, has touched the lives of millions since its original publication in 1922.

Willy Loman has spent his life following the American way, living out his belief in salesmanship as a way to reinvent himself. But somehow the riches and respect he covets have eluded him. At age 63, he searches for the moment his life took a wrong turn.