Ashleys must-read classic fiction
Explore Ashley's must-read classic fiction books with this curated list of timeless literary masterpieces. Discover beloved novels and essential reads for every classic literature lover.
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The Epic of Gilgamesh
A great king, strong as the stars in Heaven. Enkidu, a wild and mighty hero, is created by the gods to challenge the arrogant King …
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The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night
In the late 1920s, the art publisher H. Piazza produced a twelve volume version of The 1001 Noghts that was one of the most beautiful …
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The Pilgrim's Progress
by John Bunyan
"Spirituality involves taking our personal experience seriously as raw material for redemption and holiness, examining the material of our daily lives with as much rigor …
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The Man who was Thursday
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Perhaps best-known for his "Father Brown" detective series, G. K. Chesterton was renowned for his wit, rhetorical brilliance, and talent for ingenious paradox. Those qualities …
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Fanny Hill
by John Cleland
First published in London in 1749, the story of a country orphan's initiation into the urban world of prostitution offers a remarkably frank portrait of …
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The Moonstone
by Wilkie Collins
This clear print title is set in Tiresias 13pt font for easy reading
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Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
Exam board: EdexcelLevel & Subject: AS and A Level English LiteratureFirst teaching: September 2015First examination: June 2017
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Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
On a desolate tropical island, a shipwrecked British seaman tries to master his hostile environment and remain civilized.
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Our Mutual Friend
by Charles Dickens
A satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money, Our Mutual Friend revolves around the inheritance of a dust-heap where the rich throw their …
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The History of Tom Jones
by Henry Fielding
The protagonist, Tom Jones, is introduced to the reader as a ward of a liberal Somerset squire, appearing a generous but slightly wild and reckless …
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Howards End
by Edward Morgan Forster
A chance acquaintance brings together the prosperous bourgeois Wilcox family and the clever, cultured, and idealistic Schlegel sisters. As clear-eyed Margaret develops a friendship with …
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North and South
by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Set in the mid-19th century, and written from the author's first-hand experience, North and South follows the story of the heroine's movement from the tranquil …
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The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings
by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
This classic selection of writings by Goethe reflects the author's philosophy of love and death. This new, updated package includes a new Introduction. Reissue.
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The Vicar of Wakefield
by Oliver Goldsmith
'He loved all mankind; for fortune prevented him from knowing there were rascals.' Oliver Goldsmith's hugely successful novel of 1766 remained for generations one of …
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The Power and the Glory
by Graham Greene
A tormented, alcoholic priest is pursued by an idealistic lieutenant during an anti-clerical persecution in Mexico.
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King Solomon's Mines
by H. Rider Haggard
Touted by its 1885 publisher as “the most amazing story ever written,” King Solomon’s Mines was one of the bestselling novels of the nineteenth century. …
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Jude the Obscure
by Thomas Hardy
There's a tale that goes around even now regarding Thomas Hardy -- that is, that the reaction of readers to one of his novels was …
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The Portrait of a Lady
by Henry James
When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But …
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Three Men in a Boat
by Jerome K. Jerome
Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a …
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Bliss and Other Stories
by Katherine Mansfield
This is a collection of work from Katherine Mansfield, a writer of short fiction. In the title story, we meet Bertha, a young married woman, …
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Utopia
by Thomas More
Revised introduction; new chronology and further reading Translated with an Introduction by Paul Turner.
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In Search of Lost Time
by Marcel Proust
The first installment of the French author's multivolume autobiographical novel, originally published in 1913, in which he recalls his childhood and first infatuation.
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A Sicilian Romance
by Ann Ward Radcliffe
Ann Ward Radcliffe was a nineteenth English century author and pioneer of the Gothic novel. Her novels involve innocent young woman who find themselves in …
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Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady
by Samuel Richardson
Written entirely in letters, this novel conveys the nuances and tensions only present in personal epistolary form. This novel is considered a keystone of modern …
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Waverley
by Walter Scott
Romantic young English captain in Scotland during the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745 strives for love, harmony, and peace.
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The Red and the Black
by Stendhal
Charts the rise and fall of an ambitious young social climber in a cruel, monarchical society Handsome, ambitious Julien Sorel is determined to rise above …
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Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
A wickedly clever satire uses comic inversions to offer telling insights into the nature of man and society. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels …
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War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Tolstoy's great Russian epic. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Set against …
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Barchester Towers
by Anthony Trollope
Barchester Towers (1857) by Anthony Trollope is one of the charming series of loosely connected novels set in Barsetshire. This is the second book to …
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Candide, Or Optimism
by Voltaire
Are evil and tragedy part of a larger cosmic plan? Should we accept our fate that everything happens for a good reason? Voltaire's Candide is …
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The Castle of Otranto
by Horace Walpole
First published pseudonymously in 1764, The Castle of Otranto purported to be a translation of an Italian story of the time of the crusades. In …
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The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton
Social and romantic misfortunes of a socially prominent woman in New York.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
The handsome appearance of dissolute young Dorian Gray remains unchanged while the features in his portrait become distorted as his degeneration progresses.
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To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf
An English family's complex lives are followed and picked up again after a 10 year hiatus in order to explore the effects of time.