Book 1 · 1925
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
A short, lyrical novel about wealth, longing, and the impossibility of repeating the past. Set on Long Island in the summer of 1922.
180 pages·3 weeks·B2-C1
The reading list · 12 books · 2,640 pages
The twelve classics
Twelve public-domain novels, organised into a year of daily reading at 8 pages a day. Each one is short enough to finish, famous enough to be worth finishing, and chosen so a reader at upper-intermediate English can follow the language.
Click any book for the opening lines, reading time and a free copy. Or join the plan and read them in order, with progress tracked for you.
These classics are the top shelf of the library. If they feel too challenging, start with the shelves below, where stories begin at just 150 words.
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- Book 2 · 1915
The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka
A short novella about a young man who wakes up to discover that something fundamental about him has changed. Strange, dark, sometimes funny. One evening of reading.
60 pages·1 week·B1-B2 - Book 3 · 1843
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
A famous Victorian story about regret, generosity, and second chances. Told over the longest night of the year. Warm despite the cold.
110 pages·2 weeks·B2 - Book 4 · 1892
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A very short, very famous story about a woman, a quiet house, and what she begins to see in the walls. Forty pages. Read in one sitting.
40 pages·1 week·B2 - Book 5 · 1886
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
A short gothic novella that gave the language a phrase for the divided self. Pacy, tightly plotted, modern in its anxieties.
90 pages·2 weeks·B2 - Book 6 · 1899
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad
A dense, troubling novella about a slow journey upriver, and the questions it forces on the traveller. The hardest prose in the plan.
100 pages·2 weeks·C1 - Book 7 · 1818
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
The original modern horror novel, written when its author was nineteen. About creation, responsibility, and what we make.
280 pages·5 weeks·B2 - Book 8 · 1899
The Awakening
Kate Chopin
A short, then-scandalous novel about a woman's interior awakening on the Gulf Coast in the 1890s. Brief chapters, fast pace.
200 pages·4 weeks·B2 - Book 9 · 1890
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
A novel about beauty, vanity, and what they cost. By the master of the perfect sentence.
250 pages·4 weeks·B2-C1 - Book 10 · 1813
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
A Regency novel about misjudgement, manners, and slow revelation. Sharper and funnier than its reputation.
430 pages·8 weeks·B2 - Book 11 · 1856
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert
The great French novel of provincial dissatisfaction. Flaubert was put on trial for it. Translated by Eleanor Marx.
350 pages·6 weeks·B2-C1 - Book 12 · 1866
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky's most read novel. Saved for last because by then you will have the habit and the appetite for it.
550 pages·10 weeks·C1
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