American ClassicsLike this list

25 items

1. 1. Orlando

   a Biography

   Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941,

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   Considered one of her masterpieces, Orlando is one of Woolf's most popular and accessible novels, a playful mock biography of a chameleon-like historical figure that is both a wry commentary on gender and, in Woolf's own words, a 'writer's holiday'…Read moreRead more of this annotation

2. 2. The Age of Innocence

   Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937

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   Written with elegance and wry precision, Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece is a tragic love story and a powerful homily about the perils of a perfect marriage. Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time.

3. 3. Their Eyes Were Watching God

   Hurston, Zora Neale

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   Once considered a lost classic, Zora Neale Hurston is most known for Their Eyes Were Watching God. In depicting one of the first strong black women of 20th-century literature, Hurston's story of Janie Crawford pulls the listener into a timeless…Read moreRead more of this annotation

4. 4. Bless Me, Ultima

   Anaya, Rudolfo A.,

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   Winner of the Premio Quinto Sol national Chicano literary award, this is a novel of a young boy in New Mexico in the 1940s who comes under the tutelage of Ultima, a curandera, who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

5. 5. The Picture of Dorian Gray

   Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900,

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   When Dorian Gray sees his stunning painted portrait, he is transfixed by its reflection of his own beauty. He is also troubled by the knowledge that the image in the painting will remain forever handsome while he himself grows older and less…Read moreRead more of this annotation

6. 6. Monkey King

   Journey to the West

   Wu, Cheng'en, approximately 1500-approximately 1582,

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   A shape-shifting trickster on a kung-fu quest for eternal life, Monkey King is one of the most memorable superheroes in world literature. Written by the irrepressible rogue hero of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, this…Read moreRead more of this annotation

7. 7. The Castle

   a New Translation, Based on the Restored Text

   Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924

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   Arriving in a village to take up the position of land surveyor for the mysterious lord of a castle, the character known as K. finds himself in a bitter and baffling struggle to contact his new employer and go about his duties. A haunting tale of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

8. 8. Notes From Underground

   Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881

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   One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator of Dostoevsky's most revolutionary novel is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In full retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

9. 9. The Song of Kìêu

   a New Lament = Truỵên Kiêu : (Đoạn Trừơng Tân Thanh)

   Nguŷẽn, Du, 1765-1820,

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   The legendary Vietnamese epic poem tells the story of the beautiful Vuong Thuy Kieu, who agrees to a financially profitable marriage in order to save her family from ruinous debts, but is tricked into working in a brothel. Her tragic life involves…Read moreRead more of this annotation

10. 10. Juneteenth

    a Novel

    Ellison, Ralph,

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    The story of a black man who passes for white and becomes a race-baiting U.S. senator. When he is shot on the Senate floor, the first visitor in the hospital is a black musician-turned-preacher who raised him. Ralph Ellison evokes the rhythms of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

11. 11. The Sun Also Rises

    Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961,

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    This story of American and English expatriates in Paris and on excursion to Pamplona was Hemingway's first major novel and it immediately established him as one of the great prose stylists and preeminent writers of his time. A classic novel of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

12. 12. The Color Purple

    Walker, Alice, 1944-

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    Walker won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for this novel, which depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

13. 13. The Dharma Bums

    Kerouac, Jack, 1922-1969

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    The story of two men engaged in a passionate search for Dharma or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen Way, which takes them climbing into the High Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude.

14. 14. Sanditon

    Also Including the Complete Texts of Lady Susan and The Watsons

    Austen, Jane, 1775-1817,

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    A novel about social drama in the small seaside town of Sanditon, once a small fishing village and now a bustling spa town, in which Austen contemplates a changing society with a mixture of skepticism and amusement. Adapted for a British historical…Read moreRead more of this annotation

15. 15. Swann's Way

    Proust, Marcel, 1871-1922

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    Remembrance of Things Past is one of the monuments of 20th century literature. Swann's Way is the first of seven volumes and is an unmatched portrait of fin-de-siecle France. The novel's narrator, Marcel, finds the true meaning of experience in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

16. 16. Fahrenheit 451

    Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012

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    In a society in which books are outlawed, Montag, a regimented fireman in charge of burning the forbidden volumes, meets a revolutionary school teacher who dares to read. Suddenly he finds himself a hunted fugitive, forced to choose not only between…Read moreRead more of this annotation

17. 17. The Bluest Eye

    Morrison, Toni

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    In Nobel Prize winner Morrison's bestselling first novel, Pecola Breedlove - an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others - prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be…Read moreRead more of this annotation

18. 18. The House on Mango Street

    Cisneros, Sandra

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    Greatly admired and bestselling book about a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza Cordero uses poems and stories to express thoughts and emotions about her oppressive environment. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes…Read moreRead more of this annotation

19. 19. The Red Badge of Courage

    Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900

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    Crane's most famous work portrays the initial cowardice and later courage of a Union soldier in the Civil War.

20. 20. Of Mice and Men

    Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968

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    Of Mice and Men (1937), a long short story that turns upon a melodramatic incident in the tragic friendship of two farm hands, written almost entirely in dialogue, was an experiment and was dramatized in the year of its publication, winning the New…Read moreRead more of this annotation