Books: What to Know
Classic Stories Without the Homework
The plot, the people, the point and the ending — then the Boovie film, where there is one.
The library
1,001 classics
The story in one page
Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
A Jewish prince seeks vengeance against Rome, only to find a bigger revolution in Bethlehem.
Lew Wallace · novel
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Beowulf
Francis Barton Gummere · poetry
The story in one page
Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem
A monster terrorizes a royal mead-hall for twelve years; a visitor from across the sea decides to fix it.
J. Lesslie Hall · myth
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Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn
R. W. Chambers · poetry
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Bibliographic Notes on One Hundred Books Famous in English Literature
Henry Watson Kent · reference
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Billy Budd
Herman Melville · novel
The story in one page
Black Beauty
A horse recounts his life of service, stable politics, and why humans should definitely avoid tight reins.
Anna Sewell · novel
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Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition
Anna Sewell · novel
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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845
periodical
The story in one page
Bleak House
The courts debate a fortune for generations while everyone involved turns to dust.
Charles Dickens · novel
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Book of illustrations : Ancient Tragedy
Richard G. Moulton · play
The story in one page
Boswell's Life of Johnson
A man follows his idol around London for twenty years taking notes. The idol survives.
James Boswell · biography
The story in one page
Candide
A young man learns that his tutor’s philosophy of optimism is basically a death trap.
Voltaire · novel
The story in one page
Carmilla
A stranger moves in, refuses to leave, and treats the host like a midnight buffet.
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu · novel
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Cato: A Tragedy, in Five Acts
Joseph Addison · play
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Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1
Ebenezer Cobham Brewer · reference
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Charmides
Plato · ideas
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Chaucer's Translation of Boethius's "De Consolatione Philosophiae"
Boethius · ideas
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Chaucer's Works, Volume 1 — Romaunt of the Rose; Minor Poems
Geoffrey Chaucer · poetry
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Chaucer's Works, Volume 2 — Boethius and Troilus
Geoffrey Chaucer · poetry
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Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer · poetry
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Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer · collection
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Chaucer's Works, Volume 6 — Introduction, Glossary, and Indexes
Geoffrey Chaucer · reference
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Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
George Gordon Byron Baron Byron · poetry
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Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader
Benj. N. Martin · general
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Chronicle and Romance: Froissart, Malory, Holinshed
Jean Froissart · history
The story in one page
Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
A statesman and his friend debate whether virtue can actually outrun a really bad week.
Marcus Tullius Cicero · ideas
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Clarissa
Samuel Richardson · novel
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Classic French Course in English
William Cleaver Wilkinson · novel
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Codex Junius 11
poetry
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Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems
Samuel Taylor Coleridge · poetry
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Comfort Found in Good Old Books
George Hamlin Fitch · ideas
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Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies
Plutarch · collection
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Confessio Amantis; Or, Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins
John Gower · poetry
The story in one page
Coriolanus
A general insults the public, gets fired, and decides to burn his hometown to the ground.
William Shakespeare · play
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Courtship of Miles Standish
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · poetry
The story in one page
Cratylus
Are names nature’s own labels, or just a noise we decided meant something?
Plato · dialogue
The story in one page
Crime and Punishment
A student kills a pawnbroker to prove he is a superman, then discovers he lacks the stomach for the aftermath.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky · novel
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Critias
A philosopher describes a perfect prehistoric Athens and the wealthy island empire that collapsed after losing its divine spark.
Plato · dialogue
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Crito
Plato · dialogue
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Cymbeline
A princess survives a murder plot, a trunk-based home invasion, and twenty years of family kidnapping in ancient Britain.
William Shakespeare · play
The story in one page
Cyropaedia: The Education of Cyrus
A prince turns a classroom of peers into a global superpower, one tactical decision at a time.
Xenophon · novel
The story in one page
Daisy Miller: A Study
An American girl ignores every European rule, and the locals have a collective meltdown.
Henry James · novel
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Dalziels' Illustrated Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith · play
The story in one page
David Copperfield
A boy gets sent away, works in a bottle factory, and grows up eventually.
Charles Dickens · novel
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De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream
Marcus Tullius Cicero · ideas
The story in one page
Death in Venice
A fifty-year-old novelist goes on vacation and decides that following a teenager is his new job.
Thomas Mann · novel
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Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation
Thomas Saint More · ideas