Good Reads: Full Text of Classics in Western Literature

-- by David Swink, FCTA, 06/13/2021 (Updated 11/17/2024)

These works teach us life's lessons and provide valuable perspective from human history in Western civilization. Your wisdom will be greatly enhanced after having consumed (with sometimes considerable effort) these classic reads -- listed in order by type (fiction or non-) and title name.

  1. Fic:1984(Dys)> 1984, by George Orwell (1949) -- 328pp
  2. Fic:Aeso(Kid)> Aesop's Fables, -- 146 Short Kid Stories
  3. Fic:Alic(Kid)> Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (1865) -- 70pp
  4. Fic:AllQ(War)> All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque (1930) -- 280pp
  5. Fic:Anna(Rus)> Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (1878) -- 864pp (CliffsNotes)
  6. Fic:Anim(Sch)> Animal Farm, by George Orwell (1944) -- 112pp
  7. Fic:AnGr(Kid)> Anne Of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908) -- 158pp
  8. Fic:Atla(Dys)> Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (1957) -- 1169pp ( CliffsNotes)
  9. Fic:BluL(Kid)> The Blue Lagoon: A Romance, by H. de Vere Stacpoole (1908) -- 220pp
  10. Fic:Brav(Dys)> Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley (1932) -- 288pp
  11. Fic:CaWi(Kid)> The Call of the Wild, by Jack London (1903) -- 232pp
  12. Fic:ChWe(Kid)> Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White (1952) -- 184pp
  13. Fic:DrZh(Rus)> Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak (1957) -- 496pp
  14. Fic:Emer(Usa)> Literary Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, (1849) -- (American Transcendentalism Web)
  15. Fic:Fahr(Dys)> Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (1953) -- 256pp
  16. Fic:Fare(War)> A Farewell to Arms, by Earnest Hemingway (1940) -- 304pp
  17. Fic:FlIn(War)> Flight of the Intruder, by Stephen Coontz (1987) -- 329pp
  18. Fic:ForW(War)> For Whom The Bell Tolls, by Earnest Hemingway (1940) -- 471pp
  19. Fic:Fran(Eng)> Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley (1818) -- 280pp
  20. Fic:GrWr(Sch)> The Grapes Of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (1939) -- 464pp
  21. Fic:GrEx(Sch)> Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1867) -- 544pp
  22. Fic:Grim(Kid)> Grimms' Fairy Tales, -- 62 Short Kid Stories
  23. Fic:Hobb(Kid)> The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937) -- 330pp
  24. Fic:Huck(Kid)> The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1884) -- 293pp
  25. Fic:Ilia(Sch)> The Iliad, by Homer (800BC), translated by Samuel Butler -- 560pp
  26. Fic:Jane(Eng)> Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (1847) -- 450pp
  27. Fic:Kill(Sch)> To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (1960) -- 281pp
  28. Fic:LeGr(Usa)> Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (1855-1892) -- 160pp
  29. Fic:LiHo(Kid)> Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1932) -- 176pp
  30. Fic:LiPr(Kid)> A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905) -- 122pp
  31. Fic:LiWo(Usa)> Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott (1868) -- 759pp
  32. Fic:Lord(Sch)> Lord Of The Flies, by William Golding (1954) -- 224pp
  33. Fic:Moby(Sch)> Moby Dick, by Herman Melville (1851) -- 378pp
  34. Fic:Odys(Sch)> The Odyssey, by Homer (800BC), translated by Samuel Butler -- 541pp
  35. Fic:OfHu(Sch)> Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maughn (1915) -- 648pp
  36. Fic:OfMi(Sch)> Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck (1937) -- 107pp
  37. Fic:OlMa(Sch)> The Old Man And The Sea, by Earnest Hemingway (1952) -- 112pp
  38. Fic:OnBe(Aus)> On The Beach, by Nevil Shute (1957) -- 320pp
  39. Fic:PoeE(Usa)> Popular Works of Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
  40. Fic:Prid(Eng)> Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (1813) -- 305pp
  41. Fic:RedB(Sch)> The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane (1894) -- 112pp
  42. Fic:RedF(Kid)> Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls (1961) -- 245pp
  43. Fic:RobC(Kid)> Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe (1719) -- 290pp
  44. Fic:RobH(Kid)> The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle (1883) -- 320pp
  45. Fic:ScLe(Sch)> The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) -- 272pp
  46. Fic:SeGa(Kid)> The Secret Garden, by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1911) -- 192pp
  47. Fic:Sila(Sch)> Silas Marner, by George Eliot (1861) -- 128pp
  48. Fic:StLi(Kid)> Stuart Little, by E. B. White (1945) -- 52pp
  49. Fic:SwFa(Kid)> The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss (1812) -- 232pp
  50. Fic:Tale(Sch)> A Tale Of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens (1859) -- 304pp
  51. Fic:TiMa(Eng)> The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells (1895) -- 84pp
  52. Fic:TomS(Kid)> The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , by Mark Twain (1876) -- 225pp
  53. Fic:Tres(Kid)> Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883) -- 286pp
  54. Fic:Tria(Rus)> The Trial, by Franz Kafka (1925) -- 160pp
  55. Fic:Twen(Eng)> 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , by Jules Verne (1870) -- 212pp
  56. Fic:Uncl(Usa)> Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) -- 576pp (Project Gutenberg)
  57. Fic:WaWo(Eng)> The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells (1898) -- 138pp
  58. Fic:Wuth(Eng)> Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte (1847) -- 463pp

  59. Non:AmHi(Edu)> American History for Elementary Schools, by Albert F. Blaisdell (1902) -- 440pp (Project Gutenberg)
  60. Non:Bea2(Edu)> The Beacon Second Reader, by James H. Fasset (1914) -- 202pp
  61. Non:Bibl(Rel)> The Bible, King James Version -- 776pp
  62. Non:CapS(Pol)> Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, by Joseph A. Schumpeter (1942) -- 406pp
  63. Non:ClAm(Pol)> The Closing of the American Mind , by Allan Bloom (1987) -- 382pp (Summary)
  64. Non:CoMa(Pol)> The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels (1848) -- 35pp
  65. Non:Diar(Soc)> The Diary of Anne Frank, English translation (1947) -- 238pp
  66. Non:EcOn(Ecn)> Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt (1946) -- 150pp
  67. Non:FedP(Civ)> The Federalist Papers, by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison (1787-1788) -- 559pp
  68. Non:FrCh(Ecn)> Free to Choose, by Milton and Rose Friedman (1980) -- 310pp
  69. Non:FuSh(Soc)> Future Shock, by Alvin Toffler (1970) -- 480pp
  70. Non:Gula(Pol)> The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1973) -- 620pp
  71. Non:HiAm(Civ)> A History of the American People [1580-1997], by Paul Johnson (1997) -- 976pp
  72. Non:McGu(Edu)> McGuffey Readers: Primer, R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, Speller
  73. Non:Medi(Soc)> The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180) -- 88pp
  74. Non:RoaS(Pol)> The Road To Serfdom, by Friedrich A. Hayek (1944) -- 178pp
  75. Non:USCo(Civ)> The U.S. Constitution, et al -- 58pp
  76. Non:WarB(Edu)> The War Against Boys, by Christina Hoff Sommers (2013) -- 205pp
  77. Non:WhyJ(Edu)> Why Johnny Can't Read, by Rudolf Flesch (1955) -- 222pp

Most of the bold-text links to the works above are to local site-independent plain-text copies of those works posted elsewhere. Those original postings are hot-linked in the title of FCTA's copy, so you can choose which version you like better. (FCTA's local copies are also quite readable as 'View Source' monospaced text.) Each local HTML book contains a hot-linked table of contents, so you can see your reading progress 'bookmarked' by the previously-read purple chapter links.

Note that few of us actually enjoy reading an entire book from a computer; buy the paperback! This site merely serves as a convenient list of the available Western classics, as encouragement to explore these great works, and for post-read reference material.

(If you like, feel free to dispense multiple copies of the QR Code for this page.)