Top 100 referenced books in NAQT question sets
Oresteria
Aeschylus
The Stranger
Albert Camus
Brave New World
Aldous (Leonard) Miller- dystopian novel written in 1931 by English author Aldous Huxley, and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State of genetically modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning that are combined to make a utopian society that goes challenged only by a single outsider. Huxley followed this book with a reassessment in an essay, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with Island (1962), his final novel.
Eugene Onegin
Aleksandr Pushkin
The Count of Monte Christo
Alexandre Dumas (père)- Edmund Dantes, The story takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean during the historical events of 1815-1839: the era of the Bourbon Restoration through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France. It begins just before the Hundred Days period (when Napoleon returned to power after his exile). The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book, an adventure story primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, and forgiveness. It centres on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires a fortune, and sets about exacting revenge on those responsible for his imprisonment. His plans have devastating consequences for both the innocent and the guilty.
The Three Musketeers
Alexandre Dumas (père)- Situated between 1625 and 1628, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan (based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan) after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although d'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he befriends the three most formidable musketeers of the age--Athos, Porthos and Aramis, "the three inseparables," as these are called--and gets involved in affairs of the state and court.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Alfred, Lord Tennyson- Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. He wrote it on December 2, 1854, and it was published on December 9, 1854 in The Examiner. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom at the time.
The Crucible
Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller- William "Willy" Loman: The salesman. He is 63 years old and unstable, insecure, and self-deluded. Willy tends to re-imagine events from the past as if they were real. He vacillates between different eras of his life. Willy seems childlike and relies on others for support, coupled with his recurring flashbacks to various moments throughout his career. His first name, Willy, reflects this childlike aspect as well as sounding like the question "Will he?" His last name gives the feel of Willy's being a "low man", someone who won't succeed; however, this popular interpretation of his last name was dismissed by Miller, who stated that the character's name is due to his relation to the English queen. Linda- wife Biff and Happy- sons. Willy kills himself as a scheme to give his sons his life insurance.
David Copperfield
Charles (John Huffman) Dickens- It was first published as a serial in 1849-50, and as a book in 1850. The novel features the character David Copperfield, and is written in the first person, as a description of his life until middle age, with his own adventures and the numerous friends and enemies he meets along his way. It is his journey from being an impoverished, neglected child to a successful author. Many elements of the novel follow events in Dickens's own life, and it is often considered his veiled autobiography.[2] It was Dickens' favourite among his own novels. In the preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens wrote, "like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield."[3] Like some of his other novels, it contains descriptions of child exploitation and abuse, some based both on his own childhood experiences, and other published reports.[4]
A Tale of Two Cities
Charles (John Huffman) Dickens- set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met; Lucie's marriage and the collision between her husband and the people who caused her father's imprisonment; and Monsieur and Madame Defarge, sellers of wine in a poor suburb of Paris. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens- Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel: a bildungsroman that depicts the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person.[N 1] The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861.[1] In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes.[2] The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century[3] and contains some of Dickens's most memorable scenes, including the opening in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch.[4] Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery—poverty, prison ships and chains, and fights to the death[4]—and has a colourful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.[4] Great Expectations, which is popular both with readers and literary critics,[5][6] has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media.
Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens- Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy's Progress is Charles Dickens's second novel, and was first published as a serial 1837-39.[1] The story centres on orphan Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse and sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Twist travels to London, where he meets "The Artful Dodger", a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal, Fagin. Oliver Twist is notable for its unromantic portrayal by Dickens of criminals and their sordid lives, as well as for exposing the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century.[2] The alternative title, The Parish Boy's Progress, alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, as well as the 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress.[3] In this early example of the social novel, Dickens satirises the hypocrisies of his time, including child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens's own youthful experiences contributed as well.[4]
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë- girl raised in attic, Edward Rochester, Bertha Mason, Mrs. Reed
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe- its story chronicles pre-colonial life in the south-eastern part of Nigeria and the arrival of the Europeans during the late nineteenth century. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, one of the first to receive global critical acclaim. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and is widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world. Achebe's debut novel, it was first published by William Heinemann Ltd in the UK; in 1962, it was also the first work published in Heinemann's African Writers Series. The novel follows the life of Okonkwo, an Igbo ("Ibo" in the novel) man and local wrestling champion in the fictional Nigerian clan of Umuofia. The work is split into three parts, with the first describing his family, personal history, and the customs and society of the Igbo, and the second and third sections introducing the influence of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on the Igbo community. Things Fall Apart was followed by a sequel, No Longer at Ease (1960), originally written as the second part of a larger work along with Arrow of God (1964). Achebe states that his two later novels A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987), while not featuring Okonkwo's descendants, are spiritual successors to the previous novels in chronicling African history.
Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe- The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents.[2] Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer)—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra", now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.[3]
Inferno
Dante
The Divine Comedy
Dante (Alighieri)- epic poem. begins with "Inferno" and the ancient Roman poet Virgil guides Dante through hell. 9 concentric circles.
The Raven
Edgar Allen Poe
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest (Miller) Hemingway- It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia.
The Sun Also Rises
Ernest (Miller) Hemingway- a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early and enduring modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. However, Hemingway biographer Jeffrey Meyers writes that it is now "recognized as Hemingway's greatest work",[2] and Hemingway scholar Linda Wagner-Martin calls it his most important novel.[3] The novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by Scribner's. A year later, Jonathan Cape published the novel in London under the title Fiesta. It remains in print. The basis for the novel was Hemingway's trip to Spain in 1925. The setting was unique and memorable, depicting sordid café life in Paris and the excitement of the Pamplona festival, with a middle section devoted to descriptions of a fishing trip in the Pyrenees. Hemingway's sparse writing style, combined with his restrained use of description to convey characterizations and action, is demonstrative of his "Iceberg Theory" of writing. The novel is a roman à clef: the characters are based on real people in Hemingway's circle, and the action is based on real events. In the book, Hemingway presents his notion that the "Lost Generation"—considered to have been decadent, dissolute, and irretrievably damaged by World War I—was in fact resilient and strong.[4] Additionally, Hemingway investigates themes of love and death; the revivifying power of nature, and the concept of masculinity.
A Farewell to Arms
Ernest (Miller) Hemingway- set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant ("tenente") in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The title is taken from a poem by the 16th-century English dramatist George Peele. The novel, set against the backdrop of World War I, describes a love affair between the expatriate Henry and an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. Its publication ensured Hemingway's place as a modern American writer of considerable stature.[1] The book became his first best-seller,[2] and has been called "the premier American war novel from that debacle World War I."[ The novel has been adapted a number of times, initially for the stage in 1930; as a film in 1932 and again in 1957, and as a three-part television miniseries in 1966. The 1996 film In Love and War, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Chris O'Donnell and Sandra Bullock, depicts Hemingway's life in Italy as an ambulance driver in the events prior to his writing of A Farewell to Arm
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Eugene O'Neill- The play is widely considered to be his magnum opus and one of the finest American plays of the 20th century. It premiered in Sweden in February 1956 and then opened on Broadway in November 1956, winning the Tony Award for Best Play. O'Neill posthumously received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Long Day's Journey into Night. The work concerns the Tyrone family - consisting of parents James and Mary and their sons Edmund and Jamie. Mary is addicted to morphine and Edmund is ill with tuberculosis. The "Long Day" refers to the setting of the play, which takes place during one day. The play is semi-autobiographical
The Great Gatsby
F(rancis) Scott (Key) Fitzgerald
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor (Mikhaylovich) Dostoyevsky- Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who formulates a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. Before the killing, Raskolnikov believes that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds; but confusion, hesitation, and chance muddy his plan for a morally justifiable killing.
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez- tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founded the town of Macondo, a fictitious town in the country of Colombia. The magical realist style and thematic substance of One Hundred Years of Solitude established it as an important representative novel of the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s,[1] which was stylistically influenced by Modernism (European and North American) and the Cuban Vanguardia (Avant-Garde) literary movement. Since it was first published in May 1967 in Buenos Aires by Editorial Sudamericana, One Hundred Years of Solitude has been translated into 37 languages and has sold more than 30 million copies.[2][3][4] The novel, considered García Márquez's magnum opus, remains widely acclaimed and is recognized as one of the most significant works in the Spanish literary canon
The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chauncer- On a trip to Canterbury to see relics, a group competes to see who can tell the best story. Chaucer appeals to readers to credit Jesus Christ as the inspiration for anything in his book that they like, and to attribute what they don't like to his own ignorance and lack of ability. He retracts and prays for forgiveness for all of his works dealing with secular and pagan subjects, asking only to be remembered for what he has written of saints' lives and homilies.
Pygmalion
George Bernard Shaw- In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. The general idea of that myth was a popular subject for Victorian era English playwrights, including one of Shaw's influences, W. S. Gilbert, who wrote a successful play based on the story called Pygmalion and Galatea that was first presented in 1871. Shaw would also have been familiar with the burlesque version, Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed. Shaw's play has been adapted numerous times, most notably as the musical My Fair Lady and its film version.
Animal Farm
George Orwell- According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union.[3] Orwell, a democratic socialist,[4] was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War.[5] The Soviet Union, he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship, built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin ("un conte satirique contre Staline"),[6] and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole".
1984
George Orwell- Winston Smith, Julia
Decameron
Giovanni Boccaccio
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe- Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly,[1][2] is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War".[3] Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary and an active abolitionist, featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings.
A Doll's House
Henrik (Johan) Ibsen- The play is significant for the way it deals with the fate of a married woman, who at the time in Norway lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated world. It aroused a great sensation at the time,[2] and caused a "storm of outraged controversy" that went beyond the theatre to the world newspapers and society.[3]
Moby Dick
Herman Mehlville, captain ahab, Ishmael, Queequeg, captain boomer, starbuck, stubb, elijah
Billy Budd: Foretopman
Herman Mehlville- his last novel, also made into a play. Billy Budd is a seaman impressed into service aboard HMS Bellipotent in the year 1797, when the Royal Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by the Revolutionary French Republic's military ambitions. He is impressed to this large warship from another, smaller, merchant ship, The Rights of Man (named after the book by Thomas Paine). As his former ship moves off, Budd shouts, "Good-bye to you too, old Rights-of-Man." Billy, a foundling from Bristol, has an innocence, good looks and a natural charisma that make him popular with the crew. His only physical defect is a stutter which grows worse when under intense emotion. He arouses the antagonism of the ship's master-at-arms, John Claggart. Claggart, while not unattractive, seems somehow "defective or abnormal in the constitution", possessing a "natural depravity." Envy is Claggart's explicitly stated emotion toward Budd, foremost because of his "significant personal beauty," and also for his innocence and general popularity. (Melville further opines that envy is "universally felt to be more shameful than even felonious crime.") This leads Claggart to falsely charge Billy with conspiracy to mutiny. When the captain, Edward Fairfax "Starry" Vere, is presented with Claggart's charges, he summons Claggart and Billy to his cabin for a private meeting. Claggart makes his case and Billy, astounded, is unable to respond, due to his stutter. In his extreme frustration he strikes out at Claggart, killing him instantly.
Iliad
Homer- Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.
Odyssey
Homer- is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The Odyssey is fundamental to the modern Western canon; it is the second-oldest extant work of Western literature, while the Iliad is the oldest. Scholars believe the Odyssey was composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia.[2] The poem mainly focuses on the Greek hero Odysseus (known as Ulysses in Roman myths), king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War.[3] In his absence, it is assumed Odysseus has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres (Greek: Μνηστῆρες) or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage.
The Catcher in the Rye
JD Salinger- Holden Caulfield
The Call of the Wild
Jack London- set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named Buck. The story opens at a ranch in Santa Clara Valley, California, when Buck is stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. He becomes progressively feral in the harsh environment, where he is forced to fight to survive and dominate other dogs. By the end, he sheds the veneer of civilization, and relies on primordial instinct and learned experience to emerge as a leader in the wild. London spent almost a year in the Yukon, and his observations form much of the material for the book. The story was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in the summer of 1903 and was published a month later in book form. The book's great popularity and success made a reputation for London. As early as 1923, the story was adapted to film, and it has since seen several more cinematic adaptations.
Ulysees
James (Augustine Aloysius) Joyce- chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. It's an allusion to the Odyssey and is considered the most important modernist novel
Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen- It charts the emotional development of protagonist Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential. The comedy of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money during the British Regency period. Mr. Bennet of the Longbourn estate has five daughters, but his property is entailed, meaning that none of the girls can inherit it. His wife has no fortune, so it is imperative that at least one of the girls marry well in order to support the others upon his death. Jane Austen's opening line, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife", is a sentence filled with irony and playfulness. The novel revolves around the importance of marrying for love, not simply for money, despite the social pressures to make a good (i.e., wealthy) match.
Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Gothe- Although rarely staged in its entirety, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages. Faust is considered by many to be Goethe's magnum opus and the greatest work of German literature.[1] The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages.
The Grapes of Wrath
John (Ernst) Steinbeck
Pilgrim's Progress
John Bunyan- christian allegory, Bunyan began his work while in the Bedfordshire county prison for violations of the Conventicle Act of 1664, which prohibited the holding of religious services outside the auspices of the established Church of England. Early Bunyan scholars such as John Brown believed The Pilgrim's Progress was begun in Bunyan's second, shorter imprisonment for six months in 1675,[8] but more recent scholars such as Roger Sharrock believe that it was begun during Bunyan's initial, more lengthy imprisonment from 1660 to 1672 right after he had written his spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.[9] The English text comprises 108,260 words and is divided into two parts, each reading as a continuous narrative with no chapter divisions. The first part was completed in 1677 and entered into the Stationers' Register on 22 December 1677. It was licensed and entered in the "Term Catalogue" on 18 February 1678, which is looked upon as the date of first publication.[10] After the first edition of the first part in 1678, an expanded edition, with additions written after Bunyan was freed, appeared in 1679. The Second Part appeared in 1684. There were eleven editions of the first part in John Bunyan's lifetime, published in successive years from 1678 to 1685 and in 1688, and there were two editions of the second part, published in 1684 and 1686.
Paradise Lost
John Milton- long narrative poem about Adam and Eve/ Genesis
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad- novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the so-called heart of Africa.[1] Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and Africa as places of darkness.[2] Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between so-called civilised people and those described as savages; Heart of Darkness raises questions about imperialism and racism.[3] Originally issued as a three-part serial story in Blackwood's Magazine to celebrate the thousandth edition of the magazine,[4] Heart of Darkness has been widely re-published and translated into many languages. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Heart of Darkness 67th on their list of the 100 best novels in English of the twentieth century.[5]
Catch-22
Joseph Heller
Slaughterhouse Five
Kurt Vonnegut Jr- science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut about the World War II experiences and journeys through time of Billy Pilgrim, from his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant, to postwar and early years. It is generally recognized as Vonnegut's most influential and popular work.[2] A central event is Pilgrim's surviving the Allies' firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner-of-war. This was an event in Vonnegut's own life, and the novel is considered semi-autobiographical.
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy- A complex novel in eight parts, with more than a dozen major characters, it is spread over more than 800 pages (depending on the translation), typically contained in two volumes. It deals with themes of betrayal, faith, family, marriage, Imperial Russian society, desire, and rural vs. city life. The plot centers on an extramarital affair between Anna and dashing cavalry officer Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky that scandalizes the social circles of Saint Petersburg and forces the young lovers to flee for Italy in a futile search for happiness. Returning to Russia, their lives further unravel. A second major plot line follows Levin, a character loosely based on Tolstoy himself, who rejects glitzy city life and those same social circles for his rural farm, but struggles with both his love for Kitty, who has rejected him, and with his Christian faith. Trains are a recurring motif throughout the novel, which takes place against the backdrop of rapid transformations as a result of the liberal reforms initiated by Emperor Alexander II of Russia, with several major plot points taking place either on passenger trains or at stations in Saint Petersburg or elsewhere in Russia.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy- Andrei, Natasha, Pierre, Anatole, Anna Pavlovna, Rostovs, The novel chronicles the history of the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society through the stories of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions of an earlier version, titled The Year 1805,[4] were serialized in The Russian Messenger from 1865 to 1867. The novel was first published in its entirety in 186
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll- (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), tale first told on a boat to a little girl
A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry- The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred"[2]) by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a black family's experiences in the Washington Park Subdivision of Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood as they attempt to "better" themselves with an insurance payout following the death of the father
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn opens by familiarizing us with the events of the novel that preceded it, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Both novels are set in the town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, which lies on the banks of the Mississippi River. At the end of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, a poor boy with a drunken bum for a father, and his friend Tom Sawyer, a middle-class boy with an imagination too active for his own good, found a robber's stash of gold. As a result of his adventure, Huck gained quite a bit of money, which the bank held for him in trust. Huck was adopted by the Widow Douglas, a kind but stifling woman who lives with her sister, the self-righteous Miss Watson.
The Adventure of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain- boy growing up in St. Petersburg, Missouri with his friend Huck. One such adventure, Tom's whitewashing of a fence, has been adapted into paintings and referenced in other pieces of popular culture. Becky Thatcher is his "fiancee". Huck and Tom witness a murder committed my Injun Joe but don't speak out until the trial. They live in fear of Injun Joe getting his revenge. The book ends my Joe starving to death and the boys finding his treasure.
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes, sancho panza
The House of Seven Gables
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter opens with a long preamble about how the book came to be written. The nameless narrator was the surveyor of the customhouse in Salem, Massachusetts. In the customhouse's attic, he discovered a number of documents, among them a manuscript that was bundled with a scarlet, gold-embroidered patch of cloth in the shape of an "A." The manuscript, the work of a past surveyor, detailed events that occurred some two hundred years before the narrator's time. When the narrator lost his customs post, he decided to write a fictional account of the events recorded in the manuscript. The Scarlet Letter is the final product-- CHillingworth, Dimsdale, woman who committed adultery wears an A
The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde- Jack Worthing (Ernest), a young gentleman from the country, in love with Gwendolen Fairfax. Algernon Moncrieff, a young gentleman from London, the nephew of Lady Bracknell, in love with Cecily Cardew. Gwendolen Fairfax, a young lady, loved by Jack Worthing. Lady Bracknell, a society lady, Gwendolen's mother. Cecily Cardew, a young lady, the ward of Jack Worthing. Miss Prism, Cecily's governess. The Reverend Canon Chasuble, the priest of Jack's parish. Lane, Algernon's butler. Merriman, Jack's servant. The play repeatedly mocks Victorian traditions and social customs, marriage and the pursuit of love in particular.[65] In Victorian times earnestness was considered to be the over-riding societal value, originating in religious attempts to reform the lower classes, it spread to the upper ones too throughout the century.[66] The play's very title, with its mocking paradox (serious people are so because they do not see trivial comedies), introduces the theme, it continues in the drawing room discussion, "Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them," says Algernon in Act 1; allusions are quick and from multiple angles
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison
All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren- Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. All the King's Men portrays the dramatic, and theatrical political rise and governorship of Willie Stark, a cynical, liberal populist in the American South during the 1930s. The novel is narrated by Jack Burden, a political reporter who comes to work as Governor Stark's right-hand man. The trajectory of Stark's career is interwoven with Jack Burden's life story and philosophical reflections: "the story of Willie Stark and the story of Jack Burden are, in one sense, one story."[3] The novel evolved from a verse play that Warren began writing in 1936 entitled Proud Flesh. One of the characters in Proud Flesh was named Willie Talos, in reference to the brutal character Talus in Edmund Spenser's late 16th century work The Faerie Queene.[
Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett- two characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), wait for the arrival of someone named Godot who never arrives, and while waiting they engage in a variety of discussions and encounter three other characters.[2]
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Tayler Coleridge- the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797-98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Some modern editions use a revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss.[citation needed] Along with other poems in Lyrical Ballads, it is often considered a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature.[citation needed] The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1800 edition) MENU0:00 Problems playing this file? See media help. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner relates the experiences of a sailor who has returned from a long sea voyage. The mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The wedding-guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience to fear to fascination as the mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the language style: Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create a sense of danger, the supernatural, or serenity, depending on the mood in different parts of the poem.
Ivanhoe
Sir Walter Scott
Oedipus Rex
Sophocles, 429 bc, Prior to the start of Oedipus Rex, Oedipus has become the king of Thebes while unwittingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father, Laius (the previous king), and marry his mother, Jocasta (whom Oedipus took as his queen after solving the riddle of the Sphinx). The action of Sophocles' play concerns Oedipus' search for the murderer of Laius in order to end a plague ravaging Thebes, unaware that the killer he is looking for is none other than himself. At the end of the play, after the truth finally comes to light, Jocasta hangs herself while Oedipus, horrified at his patricide and incest, proceeds to gouge out his own eyes in despair.
Antigone
Sophocles- is a tragedy by Sophocles written in or before 441 BC. Of the three Theban plays Antigone is the third in order of the events depicted in the plays, but it is the first that was written.[1] The play expands on the Theban legend that predates it, and it picks up where Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes ends. Antigone Ismene Creon Eurydice Haemon Tiresias Sentry Leader of the Chorus First Messenger Second Messenger
The Red Badge of Courage
Stephen Crane- Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a "red badge of courage," to counteract his cowardice. When his regiment once again faces the enemy, Henry acts as standard-bearer, who carries a flag.
The Waste Land
T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot- Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month", "I will show you fear in a handful of dust", and the mantra in the Sanskrit language "Shantih shantih shantih".[C] Eliot's poem loosely follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. Eliot employs many literary and cultural allusions from the Western canon, Buddhism and the Hindu Upanishads. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy featuring abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location, and time and conjuring a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures. The poem's structure is divided into five sections. The first section, "The Burial of the Dead," introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. The second, "A Game of Chess," employs vignettes of several characters—alternating narrations—that address those themes experientially. "The Fire Sermon," the third section, offers a philosophical meditation in relation to the imagery of death and views of self-denial in juxtaposition influenced by Augustine of Hippo and eastern religions. After a fourth section, "Death by Water," which includes a brief lyrical petition, the culminating fifth section, "What the Thunder Said," concludes with an image of judgment.
A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams- Blanche Kowalski moves in with her sister Stella in New Orleans. Blanche dates a man named Mitch who claims he cannot marry her after discovering her past. Stella's husband, Stanley, hates Blanche but eventually rapes her. Stella puts Blanche in an insane asylum because of the assertions. Blanche eventually loses her grip on reality.
The Glass Menagiere
Tennessee Williams- The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on its author, his histrionic mother, and his mentally fragile sister Laura. In writing the play, Williams drew on an earlier short story, as well as a screenplay he had written under the title of The Gentleman Caller. Amanda Wingfield, a faded Southern belle of middle age, shares a dingy St. Louis apartment with her son Tom, in his early twenties, and his slightly older sister, Laura. Although she is a survivor and a pragmatist, Amanda yearns for the comforts and admiration she remembers from her days as a fêted debutante. She worries especially about the future of her daughter Laura, a young woman with a limp (an after-effect of a bout of polio) and a tremulous insecurity about the outside world. Tom works in a shoe warehouse doing his best to support the family. He chafes under the banality and boredom of everyday life and struggles to write, while spending much of his spare time going to the movies — or so he says — at all hours of the night. Amanda is obsessed with finding a suitor (or, as she puts it, a "gentleman caller") for Laura, her daughter, whose crippling shyness has led her to drop out of both high school and a subsequent secretarial course, and who spends much of her time polishing and arranging her collection of little glass animals. Pressured by his mother to help find a caller for Laura, Tom invites Jim, an acquaintance from work, home for dinner. As the evening progresses, Jim recognizes Laura's feelings of inferiority and encourages her to think better of herself. He and Laura share a quiet dance, in which he accidentally brushes against her glass menagerie, knocking a glass unicorn to the floor and breaking off its horn. Jim then compliments Laura and kisses her. After Jim tells Laura that he is engaged to be married, Laura asks him to take the broken unicorn as a gift and he then leaves. When Amanda learns that Jim is to be married, she turns her anger upon Tom and cruelly lashes out at him, although Tom did not know that Jim was engaged. In fact, Tom seems quite surprised by this, and it is possible that Jim was only making up the story of the engagement as he felt that the family was trying to set him up with Laura, and he had no romantic interest in her. The play concludes with Tom saying that he left home soon afterward and never returned. He then bids farewell to his mother and sister, and asks Laura to blow out the candles.
The Magic Mountain
Thomas Mann- Mountain scenery at Davos, the novel's Alpine setting The narrative opens in the decade before World War I. It introduces the protagonist, Hans Castorp, the only child of a Hamburg merchant family. Following the early death of his parents, Castorp has been brought up by his grandfather and later, by a maternal uncle named James Tienappel. Castorp is in his early 20s, about to take up a shipbuilding career in Hamburg, his home town. Before beginning work, he undertakes a journey to visit his tubercular cousin, Joachim Ziemssen, who is seeking a cure in a sanatorium in Davos, high up in the Swiss Alps. In the opening chapter, Castorp leaves his familiar life and obligations, in what he later learns to call "the flatlands", to visit the rarefied mountain air and introspective small world of the sanatorium. Castorp's departure from the sanatorium is repeatedly delayed by his failing health. What at first appears to be a minor bronchial infection with slight fever is diagnosed by the sanatorium's chief doctor and director, Hofrat[nb 1] Behrens, as symptoms of tuberculosis. Castorp is persuaded by Behrens to stay until his health improves. During his extended stay, Castorp meets a variety of characters, who represent a microcosm of pre-war Europe. These include Lodovico Settembrini (an Italian secular humanist and encyclopedist, a student of Giosuè Carducci); Leo Naphta, Jew-turned-Jesuit who favors totalitarianism; Mynheer Peeperkorn, a dionysian Dutchman; and his romantic interest, Madame Clawdia Chauchat. Castorp eventually resides at the sanatorium for seven years. At the conclusion of the novel, the war begins, and Castorp volunteers for the military. His possible, or probable, demise upon the battlefield is portended.
Our Town
Thornton (Niven) Wilder- Grover's Corners, Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Webb, Si Crowell, Joe Crowell, Sam Craig, Howie Newsome
The Jungle
Upton (Beall) Sinclair- follows the Rudkus's, Jurgis, Teta Elzibeta, Stanislovas, meat packing industry in Chicago
Les Misérables
Victor (-Marie) Hugo- The novel contains various subplots, but the main thread is the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean, who becomes a force for good in the world but cannot escape his criminal past. The novel is divided into five volumes, each volume divided into several books, and subdivided into chapters, for a total of 48 books and 365 chapters. Each chapter is relatively short, commonly no longer than a few pages. The novel as a whole is one of the longest ever written,[5] with approximately 1,500 pages in unabridged English-language editions,[6] and 1,900 pages in French.[7][8][9] Hugo explained his ambitions for the novel to his Italian publisher:[10]
Aeneid
Virgil- Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC,[1] that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter.[2] The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas's wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned the Aeneid into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy.
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
Candide
Voltaire- Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment.[5] The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: Optimism (1947).[6] It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss.[7] The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow and painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not rejecting Leibnizian optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds". The Monadology is Leibniz' book.
Rip van Winkle
Washington Irving- short story by the American author Washington Irving first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later, having missed the American Revolution. Irving wrote it while living in Birmingham, England as part of the collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains, but Irving later admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills."
My Ánatonia
Willa Cather
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner
Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray- follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848, carrying the subtitle Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society, reflecting both its satirisation of early 19th-century British society and the many illustrations drawn by Thackeray to accompany the text. It was published as a single volume in 1848 with the subtitle A Novel without a Hero, reflecting Thackeray's interest in deconstructing his era's conventions regarding literary heroism.[1] It is sometimes considered the "principal founder" of the Victorian domestic novel.[2] The story is framed as a puppet play and the narrator, despite being an authorial voice, is notoriously unreliable. The serial was a popular and critical success; the novel is now considered a classic and has inspired several film adaptations. In 2003, Vanity Fair was listed at No. 122 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's best-loved books.[3]
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare
The Taming of the Shrew
William Shakespeare
The Tempest
William Shakespeare
Hamlet
William Shakespeare, 1599-1602, Set in Denmark, the play dramatises the revenge Prince Hamlet is called to wreak upon his uncle, Claudius, by the ghost of Hamlet's father, King Hamlet. Claudius had murdered his own brother and seized the throne, also marrying his deceased brother's widow.
Macbeth
William Shakespeare, 1606, A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland, and Thane of Cawdor Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death.
The Merchant of Venice
William Shakespeare- A young Venetian, Bassanio, needs a loan of three thousand ducats so that he can woo Portia, a wealthy Venetian heiress. He approaches his friend Antonio, a merchant. Antonio is short of money because all his wealth is invested in his fleet, which is currently at sea. He goes to a Jewish money lender, Shylock, who hates Antonio because of Antonio's anti-semitic behaviour towards him. Shylock nevertheless agrees to make the short-term loan, but, in a moment of dark humour, he makes a condition - the loan must be repaid in three months or Shylock will exact a pound of flesh from Antonio. Antonio agrees, confident that his ships will return in time. Because of the terms of Portia's father's will, all suitors must choose from among three caskets, one of which contains a portrait of her. If he chooses that he may marry Portia, but if doesn't he must vow never to marry or court another woman. The Princes of Morocco and Arragon fail the test and are rejected. As Bassanio prepares to travel to Belmont for the test, his friend Lorenzo elopes with Shylock's daughter, Jessica. Bassanio chooses the lead casket, which contains her picture, and Portia happily agrees to marry him immediately. Meanwhile, two of Antonio's ships have been wrecked and Antonio's creditors are pressurising him for repayment. Word comes to Bassanio about Antonio's predicament, and he hurries back to Venice, leaving Portia behind. Portia follows him, accompanied by her maid, Nerissa. They are disguised as a male lawyer and his clerk. When Bassanio arrives the date for the repayment to Shylock has passed and Shylock is demanding his pound of flesh. Even when Bassanio offers much more than the amount in repayment, Shylock, now infuriated by the loss of his daughter, is intent on seeking revenge on the Christians. The Duke refuses to intervene. Portia arrives in her disguise to defend Antonio. Given the authority of judgment by the Duke, Portia decides that Shylock can have the pound of flesh as long as he doesn't draw blood, as it is against the law to shed a Christian's blood. Since it is obvious that to draw a pound of flesh would kill Antonio, Shylock is denied his suit. Moreover, for conspiring to murder a Venetian citizen, Portia orders that he should forfeit all his wealth. Half is to go to Venice, and half to Antonio. Antonio gives his half back to Shylock on the condition that Shylock bequeath it to his disinherited daughter, Jessica. Shylock must also convert to Christianity. A broken Shylock accepts. News arrives that Antonio's remaining ships have returned safely. With the exception of Shylock, all celebrate a happy ending to the affair.
King Lear
William Shakespeare- Aging King Lear decides to step down from the throne and split it among his three daughters: Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. Cordelia is disowned after saying no kind words about her father. The daughters begin to undermine their father and Lear slowly goes insane. Cordelia tries to save her father, but ends up being put in prison and executed. General potions Regan out of jealousy over Edmund then kills herself, and Lear dies of grief for Cordelia.
As You Like It
William Shakespeare- As You Like It follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden. In the forest, they encounter a variety of memorable characters, notably the melancholy traveller Jaques who speaks many of Shakespeare's most famous speeches (such as "All the world's a stage", "too much of a good thing" and "A fool! A fool! I met a fool in the forest"). Jaques provides a sharp contrast to the other characters in the play, always observing and disputing the hardships of life in the country.
Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare- Brutus kills Caesar for what he sees as the good of Rome. "the ideas of March" , Cassius and Brutus v. Mark Antony , Caesar, Octavius
Much Ado about Nothing
William Shakespeare- By means of "noting" (which, in Shakespeare's day, sounded similar to "nothing" as in the play's title,[1][2] and which means gossip, rumor, and overhearing), Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, and Claudio is tricked into rejecting Hero at the altar on the erroneous belief that she has been unfaithful. At the end, Benedick and Beatrice join forces to set things right, and the others join in a dance celebrating the marriages of the two couples.
Othello
William Shakespeare- Iago conspires to get revenge on his Commander Othello for replacing him with Cassio by manipulating the relationship between Desdemona and Othello and by causing Cassio to get into fights. He even makes Othello think his wife is unfaithful with Cassio. Othello kills his wife then kills himself when he realizes what Iago has done. Iago is seized.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
William Shakespeare- The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. Though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV, the play makes no pretense to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. It has been adapted for the opera on several occasions. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics.
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare- Twelfth Night, or What You Will[notes 1] is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601-1602 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is disguised as Cesario) falls in love with Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with the Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare- comedy, It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, the former queen of the Amazons. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors (the mechanicals) who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.
Beowulf
unknown- Old English epic story consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It may be the oldest surviving long story in Old English and is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating pertains to the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025.[3] The author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, referred to by scholars as the "Beowulf author".[4] The story is set in Scandinavia. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then also defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland (Götaland in modern Sweden) and later becomes king of the Geats. After a period of fifty years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headland in his memory.