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 from Project Gutenberg. Or join the plan and read them in order, with progress tracked for you.
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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·4 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·3 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·5 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·5 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·8 weeks·C1
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Read all twelve in a year
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