Shakespeare's "Scottish tragedy" was first performed a few years after James, King of Scotland, had succeeded Queen Elizabeth to become also... More

Shakespeare's "Scottish tragedy" was first performed a few years after James, King of Scotland, had succeeded Queen Elizabeth to become also King of England. It tells the story of Macbeth, a nobleman who (prompted by his ambitious wife) kills his king and usurps the crown. Driven to madness by their crimes, Macbeth and his wife are besieged by natural and supernatural forces until their corrupt reign collapses.
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain is commonly accounted as one of the first Great American Novels. It was also one of the first major... More

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain is commonly accounted as one of the first Great American Novels. It was also one of the first major American novels ever written using Local Color Realism or the vernacular, or common speech, being told in the first person by the eponymous Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer (hero of three other Mark Twain books). The book was first published in 1884.

The book is noted for its innocent young protagonist, its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River, and its sober and often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism, of the time. The drifting journey of Huckleberry Finn and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature.

The book has been popular with young readers since its publication, and taken as a sequel to the comparatively innocuous The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (which had no particular social message), it has also been the continued object of study by serious literary critics. Although the Southern society it satirized was already a quarter-century in the past by the time of publication, the book immediately became controversial, and has remained so to this day.
[Textual Summary from Wikipedia]
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This play tells the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who yearns to take revenge on his uncle (the current king) for killing his father (the former king)... More

This play tells the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who yearns to take revenge on his uncle (the current king) for killing his father (the former king). The main conflict of the play, however, is internal to Hamlet as he must decide how to proceed. Eventually, the protagonist drifts toward insanity (feigned or real, it is unclear).
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's best-known and most-quoted plays. It is generally included on lists of the world's greatest literature, and many critics (T.S. Eliot excluded) consider it Shakespeare's best work.
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The Divine Comedy (titled by Giovanni Boccaccio), written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic... More

The Divine Comedy (titled by Giovanni Boccaccio), written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. A culmination of the medieval world-view of the afterlife, it helped establish the Tuscan dialect, in which it is written, as the Italian standard.

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Don Quixote de la Mancha is a novel by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The first part was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. It... More

Don Quixote de la Mancha is a novel by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The first part was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. It is one of the earliest written novels in a modern European language and is arguably the most influential and emblematic work in the canon of Spanish literature.
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"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by Herman Melville. The story first appeared, anonymously, in Putnam's Magazine... More

"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by Herman Melville. The story first appeared, anonymously, in Putnam's Magazine in two parts. The first part appeared in November 1853, with the conclusion published in December 1853. It was reprinted in Melville's The Piazza Tales in 1856 with minor textual alterations. The work is said to have been inspired, in part, by Melville's reading of Emerson, and some have pointed to specific parallels to Emerson's essay, "The Transcendentalist." The story has been adapted for film twice: once in 1970, starring Paul Scofield, and again in 2001, starring Crispin Glover.
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Emma is a comic novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1816, about the perils of misconstrued romance. The main character, Emma Woodhouse, is described... More

Emma is a comic novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1816, about the perils of misconstrued romance. The main character, Emma Woodhouse, is described in the opening paragraph as "handsome, clever, and rich" but is also rather spoiled. Prior to starting the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." — Excerpted from Emma on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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A Midsummer Night's Dream portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke and Duchess... More

A Midsummer Night's Dream portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta, and with fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.
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The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published... More

The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788 . A compilation of these and eight others, called The Federalist, was published in 1788 by J. and A. M’Lean.
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Twelfth Night is a comedy by William Shakespeare, named after the Twelfth Night holiday of the Christmas season. It was written around 1601 and first published... More

Twelfth Night is a comedy by William Shakespeare, named after the Twelfth Night holiday of the Christmas season. It was written around 1601 and first published in the First Folio in 1623.
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The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellany in May 1712 in two cantos... More

The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellany in May 1712 in two cantos (334 lines), but then revised, expanded and reissued under Pope's name on March 2, 1714, in a much-expanded 5-canto version (794 lines).
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The Discourse on the Method is one of the most influential works in the history of modern science. It is a method which gives a solid platform from which... More

The Discourse on the Method is one of the most influential works in the history of modern science. It is a method which gives a solid platform from which all modern natural sciences could evolve. In this work, Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism which had been revived from the ancients by contemporary authors such as Michel de Montaigne. Descartes modified it to account for a truth that he found to be incontrovertible. Descartes started his line of reasoning by doubting everything, so as to assess the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions.
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