Anthologies
Eliot, Charles
W., ed. 1909–17. The Harvard Classics
and Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction.
The most popular anthology
of the twentieth century comprises 70 volumes.
Matthews,
Brander, ed. 1907. The
Short-Story.
Twenty-three classic short
stories trace the development of the genre from the Middle Ages to the beginning
of the twentieth century.
Rhys, Ernest, ed. 1921. The
Haunters and the Haunted.
Fifty-seven ghost stories
from literary works, folklore and myth.
Volumes
Aeschylus.
1909–14. The House of Atreus: Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers & The Furies.
The Oresteian trilogy represents the height
of Greek drama. The sins of the parent rest on the head of the child, who seeks
vengeance and expiation.
1909–14. Prometheus Bound.
The emergence of the
individual against his angry God.
Æsop. 1909–14. Fables.
These 82 allegories remain
part of everyday speech and provide eternal tales of caution.
Alcott, Louisa M.
1899. Little Women; or Meg, Jo, Beth, and
Amy.
Andersen, Hans
Christian. 1909–14. Tales.
Written for children in the
local Danish idiom, these 20 tales have become part of world folklore.
Anderson,
Sherwood. 1919. Winesburg,
Ohio.
Short stories of the
alternately complex, lonely, joyful and strange lives of the inhabitants of a
small American town.
Aristophanes.
1909–14. The Frogs.
Dionysus descends into the
underworld, where he judges a contest between Euripides and Æschylus.
Austen, Jane.
1917. Pride and Prejudice.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
III, Part 2.
Balzac, Honorè
de. 1917. Old Goriot.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XIII, Part 1.
Björnson,
Björnstjerne. 1917. A Happy
Boy.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XX, Part 2.
Brown, Charles
Brockden. 1857. Edgar Huntley; or,
Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker.
Buchan, John.
1915. The Thirty-nine Steps.
The basis for the 1935
Hitchcock film, this engaging mystery novel is filled with intrigue and
suspense.
Bunyan, John.
1909–17. The Pilgrim’s Progress.
The most well-known
allegory ever written is simultaneously filled with vivid and full human
portraits of its characters.
Calderón de la
Barca, Pedro. 1909–17. Life Is a
Dream.
Metaphysical tale of the
blurring between reality and dreams.
Cather, Willa.
1922. One of Ours.
Pulitzer Prize–winning
novel of a midwestern American’s journey to the front of World War I.
Cervantes Saavedra,
Miguel de. 1909–17. Don Quixote, Part
1.
Published nearly 400 years
ago in Spanish, this parody of the chivalrous life remains amazingly familiar in
translation today.
Chesterton, G.K.
1908. The Man Who Was Thursday.
Set in a fantastic London,
this zany mystery story is filled with often-surreal twists that turn more
traditional thrillers on their ear.
Christie,
Agatha. 1920. The
Mysterious Affair at Styles.
Agatha Christie begins the
illustrious career of detective-extraordinaire Hercule Poirot in her 1920
mystery classic.
Colum, Padraic.
Classic retellings of
ancient myth for younger readers by a preeminent poet and illustrator.
1918. The Adventures of Odysseus and
the Tale of Troy.
1922. The Golden
Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived before Achilles.
Cooper, James
Fenimore. 1911. The Spy; a Tale of
the Neutral Ground.
Corneille,
Pierre. 1909–17. Polyeucte.
Corneille’s great religious
tragedy.
Daudet, Alphonse.
1917. Five Short Stories.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XIII, Part 4.
Dickens, Charles.
1917. David Copperfield.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vols.
VII & VIII.
Dostoevsky,
Fyodor. 1917. Crime and
Punishment.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XVIII.
Dryden, John.
1909–17. All for Love.
Eliot, George.
1917. The Mill on the Floss.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
IX.
Euripides.
1909–14. The Bacchæ.
Dionysus punishes Thebes, and its
ruler Pentheus, for denying his godhood.
1909–14. Hippolytus.
Aphrodite causes Phaedra to fall in
love with her stepson, Hippolytus, with tragic consequences.
Fielding, Henry.
1917. The History of Tom Jones, a
Foundling.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vols.
I & II.
Fitzgerald, F.
Scott. 1920. This Side of
Paradise.
Describing life at
Princeton among the glittering, bored and disillusioned—the post–World War I
“lost generation.”
Fontane, Theodor.
1917. Trials and Tribulations.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XV, Part 4.
Foster, Hannah
Webster. 1855. The Coquette, or The
History of Eliza Wharton.
Gay, John. 1920.
The Beggar’s Opera.
Goethe, J. W.
von. 1909–14. Faust. Part I.
Goethe’s retelling of the
classic Faust legend and the crowning achievement of his literary
output.
1909–14. Egmont.
Count Egmont leads an
ultimately tragic rebellion against Spanish rule in The Netherlands.
1909–14. Hermann and Dorothea.
This “novelette in verse”
tells the story of a young girl who finds love after fleeing the chaos of the
French Revolution.
1917. The Sorrows of Werther.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XV, Part 1.
1917. Wilhelm Meister’s
Apprenticeship.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XIV.
Goldsmith,
Oliver. 1909–17. She Stoops to
Conquer.
Grimm, Jacob and
Wilhelm. 1909–14. Household
Tales.
These 42 selections
preserved the folklore of the German people and formed an inspiration to
generations of storytellers.
Hale, Edward
Everett. 1917. The Man without a
Country.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
X, Part 6.
Harte, Francis
Bret. 1917. Three Stories.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
X, Part 4.
Hawthorne,
Nathaniel.
1850. The Scarlet
Letter.
Hawthorne’s classic tragedy
of love and morals in Puritan New England.
1917. The Scarlet Letter &
Rappaccini’s Daughter.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
X, Part 1.
Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle,
Homerica. 1922.
The pre-Homeric myths of
the Ancient Greeks.
Homer. 1909–14. The Odyssey.
The myriad adventures of
the first epic hero from a distant war to the land of his faithful
family.
1898. The Iliad of Homer.
Samuel Butler’s prose
translation.
Hugo, Victor
Marie. 1917. Notre Dame de Paris.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XII.
Irving,
Washington. 1917. Rip Van Winkle
& The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
X, Part 2.
James, Henry.
1917. The Portrait of a Lady.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XI.
Jewett, Sarah
Orne. 1910. The Country of
the Pointed Firs.
Capturing the beauties of
everyday small-town life, the modern reader is transported to a time past—where
life was much simpler but in many ways just as complex.
Keller,
Gottfried. 1917. The Banner of the
Upright Seven.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XV, Part 2.
Kielland, Alexander
L.. 1917. Skipper Worse.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XX, Part 3.
Lamb, Charles and
Mary. 1878. Tales from
Shakespeare.
The Lambs interweave the
words of Shakespeare with their own to bring twenty of his most famous plays to
the young reader.
Lessing, Gotthold
Ephraim. 1909–17. Minna von
Barnhelm.
Lessing’s great national
drama.
Lewis, Sinclair.
1922. Babbitt.
The novel behind the name,
Babbitt is the classic commentary on middle-class American
society.
Malory, Sir
Thomas. 1909–14. The Holy Grail.
A selection from Mallory’s
famed Morte d’Arthur.
Manzoni,
Alessandro. 1909–14. I Promessi
Sposi.
The faith of two lovers
overcomes all obstacles to their union.
Marlowe,
Christopher. 1909–14. The Tragical
History of Dr. Faustus.
Marlowe was the first to
turn the Faustian myth into a morality play; it remains an apogee of Elizabethan
drama.
1909–17. Edward the Second.
Maupassant, Guy
de. 1917. Walter Schnaffs’
Adventure and Two Friends.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XIII, Part 5.
Melville, Herman.
1853. Bartleby, the
Scrivener.
In this classic short
story, Melville presents us with a perplexing legal scrivener, Bartleby, and his
disturbing effect on those around him.
1922. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.
The Great American
Novel.
Molière. 1909–17.
Tartuffe.
Molière’s satire of the
religious hypocrite.
Montesquieu.
1901. Persian Letters.
Musset, Alfred
de. 1917. The Story of a White
Blackbird.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XIII, Part 3.
O’Neill, Eugene.
1920. Beyond the Horizon.
Explores the results of two
men’s love for the same woman and the compromises each will make to have
her.
1922. Three Plays.
Comprises “The Hairy Ape,” “The First
Man” and Pulitzer Prize–winning “Anna Christie.”
Poe, Edgar Allan.
1917. Three Stories.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
X, Part 3.
Quiller-Couch,
Arthur. 1910. The Sleeping Beauty and
other Fairy Tales.
Quiller-Couch’s retelling
of four classic fairy tales from the Cabinet des Fèes.
Racine, Jean.
1909–17. Phædra.
Racine’s retelling of
Euripides’s Hippolytus.
Rowson, Susanna
Haswell. 1905. Charlotte Temple: A
Tale of Truth.
Sand, George.
1917. The Devil’s Pool.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XIII, Part 2.
Schiller, Friedrich
von. 1909–17. Wilhelm Tell.
A powerful tale of
resistance to Austrian domination.
Scott, Sir
Walter. 1917. Guy Mannering, or the
Astrologer.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
IV.
Shaw, Bernard.
1903. Man and Superman.
This play—in which an
idealistic, cerebral man succumbs to marriage—contains the almost equally famous
dream sequence “Don Juan in Hell.”
1916. Pygmalion.
Based on the classical
myth, this drama plays on the complex business of human relationships in a
social world.
Shakespeare,
William. 1914. The Oxford
Shakespeare.
The 37 plays, 154 sonnets
and miscellaneous verse that constitute the unrivaled literary cornerstone of
Western civilization.
Sophocles.
1909–14. Antigone.
Creon forbids the burial of those who
rebelled against his rule; but, Antigone, soon to marry his son, disobeys this
edict to bury her brother.
1909–14. Oedipus the King.
Unknowlingly, Oedipus kills
his father and marries his mother.
Stein, Gertrude.
1909. Three Lives.
This first of Stein’s works
established her position as a master of the English language and expositor of
the twentieth-century woman.
Sterne, Laurence.
1917. A Sentimental Journey through
France and Italy.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
III, Part 1.
Stevenson, Robert
Louis.
1886. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
The nightmare-inspired “bogey tale.”
1889. The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s
Tale.
A Romance set in Stevenson’s native Scotland.
Stories from the Thousand and one
Nights. 1909–14.
42 selections that have
become among the best-known of folk tales for younger readers.
Storm, Theodor.
1917. The Rider on the White Horse.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XV, Part 3.
Stowe, Harriet
Beecher. 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or,
Life Among the Lowly.
Synge, J.M. 1911.
The Playboy of the Western
World.
The controversial play that
ignited the “Playboy Riots.”
Tarkington,
Booth. 1918. The
Magnificent Ambersons.
The rise and fall of three
generations of a successful and socially connected family in the face of a
changing America.
Thackeray, William
Makepeace. 1917. Vanity Fair, A Novel
without a Hero.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vols.
V & VI.
Tolstoy, Leo.
1917. Anna Karenin.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vols.
XVI & XVII.
1917. Ivan the Fool.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XVII, Part 2.
Turgenev, Ivan.
1917. A House of Gentlefolk.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XIX, Part 1.
1917. Fathers and Children.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XIX, Part 2.
Twain, Mark.
1917. Jim Smily and His Jumping
Frog.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
X, Part 5.
Valera, Juan.
1917. Pepita Jimenez.
From the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol.
XX, Part 1.
Voltaire. 1884.
Candide, or The Optimist.
Wells, H.G.
1897. The Invisible
Man.
Wells’s thrilling
masterpiece of the mad scientist.
1896. The Island of Doctor
Moreau.
The scientist
playing god seems more relevant than ever in the age of cloning.
1898. The Time
Machine.
The classic
time-traveling yarn: what seems too good to be true invariably is.
1898. The War of the
Worlds.
The original
invasion from Mars, made all-too-real by Orson Welles in his 1938 radio
adaptation.
Wharton, Edith.
1920. The Age of
Innocence.
Set in the sumptuous Golden
Age of New York society, dated social norms prove a still powerful force against
personal desire.
Woolf, Virginia.
1921. Monday or Tuesday.
Eight early short stories
are highly representative of Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness
style.
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