Great Reads: Full Text of Classics in Western Literature

-- by David Swink, FCTA, 06/16/2021 (Updated 05/24/2026)

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.

U.S. copyright laws effectively restrict "public domain" postings to books copyrighted no later than 96 years ago. So the whole middle of the last century is off limits after 1930. However, one can readily find on the internet the full text of books by the likes of Bradbury, Friedman, Harper Lee, Hayek, Heinlein, Hemingway, Huxley, Orwell, C.S. Lewis, Pasternak, Ayn Rand, Steinbeck, Tolkien, and E.B. White. (Better yet, buy their hardcopy.)

  1. Fic:Aeso(Aes)> Aesop's Fables, -- 146 Short Kid Stories
  2. Fic:AgeI(Wha)> The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton (1920) -- 365pp
  3. Fic:Alic(Car)> Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (1865) -- 70pp
  4. Fic:AllQ(Rem)> All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque (1929) -- 280pp
  5. Fic:Anna(Tol)> Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (1878) -- 864pp (CliffsNotes)
  6. Fic:AnGr(Mon)> Anne Of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908) -- 158pp
  7. Fic:BlaB(Sew)> Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell (1877) -- 140pp
  8. Fic:Blea(Dic)> Bleak House, by Charles Dickens (1853) -- 926pp
  9. Fic:BluL(Sta)> The Blue Lagoon: A Romance, by H. de Vere Stacpoole (1908) -- 220pp
  10. Fic:Brid(Wil)> The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder (1927) -- 138pp
  11. Fic:CaWi(Lon)> The Call of the Wild, by Jack London (1903) -- 232pp
  12. Fic:ChrC(Dic)> A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens (1843) -- 112pp
  13. Fic:Crim(Dos)> Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866) -- 624pp
  14. Fic:Emma(Aus)> Emma, by Jane Austen (1815) -- 440pp
  15. Fic:Emer(Eme)> Literary Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, (1849) -- (American Transcendentalism Web)
  16. Fic:Fare(Hem)> A Farewell to Arms, by Earnest Hemingway (1929) -- 304pp
  17. Fic:Fran(She)> Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley (1818) -- 280pp
  18. Fic:GrEx(Dic)> Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1867) -- 544pp
  19. Fic:Grim(Gri)> Grimms' Fairy Tales, -- 62 Short Kid Stories
  20. Fic:Huck(Twa)> The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1884) -- 293pp
  21. Fic:Ilia(Hom)> The Iliad, by Homer (800BC), translated by Samuel Butler -- 560pp
  22. Fic:Jane(Bro)> Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (1847) -- 450pp
  23. Fic:Last(Coo)> The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper (1826) -- 558pp
  24. Fic:LeGr(Whi)> Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (1855-1892) -- 160pp
  25. Fic:LiPr(Bur)> A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905) -- 122pp
  26. Fic:LiWo(Alc)> Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott (1868) -- 759pp
  27. Fic:Moby(Mel)> Moby Dick, by Herman Melville (1851) -- 378pp
  28. Fic:Odys(Hom)> The Odyssey, by Homer (800BC), translated by Samuel Butler -- 541pp
  29. Fic:OfHu(Mau)> Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maughn (1915) -- 648pp
  30. Fic:Pers(Aus)> Persuasion, by Jane Austen (1818) -- 272pp
  31. Fic:PetP(Bar)> Peter Pan [Peter and Wendy], by J. M. Barrie (1911) -- 118pp
  32. Fic:PoeE(Poe)> Popular Works of Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
  33. Fic:Prid(Aus)> Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (1813) -- 305pp
  34. Fic:Prin(Wri)> That Printer of Udell's, by Harold Bell Wright (1903) -- 320pp
  35. Fic:RedB(Cra)> The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane (1894) -- 112pp
  36. Fic:RobC(Def)> Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe (1719) -- 290pp
  37. Fic:RobH(Pyl)> The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle (1883) -- 320pp
  38. Fic:ScLe(Haw)> The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) -- 272pp
  39. Fic:SeGa(Mon)> The Secret Garden, by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1911) -- 192pp
  40. Fic:Shak(Lam)> Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb (1807) -- 192pp
  41. Fic:Sher(Doy)> The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle (1892) -- 321pp
  42. Fic:Sila(Eli)> Silas Marner, by George Eliot (1861) -- 128pp
  43. Fic:SunA(Hem)> The Sun Also Rises, by Earnest Hemingway (1926) -- 247pp
  44. Fic:SwFa(Wys)> The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss (1812) -- 232pp
  45. Fic:Tale(Dic)> A Tale Of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens (1859) -- 304pp
  46. Fic:Tarz(Bur)> Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912) -- 152pp
  47. Fic:TiMa(Wel)> The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells (1895) -- 84pp
  48. Fic:TomS(Twa)> The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain (1876) -- 225pp
  49. Fic:Tres(Ste)> Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883) -- 286pp
  50. Fic:Tria(Kaf)> The Trial, by Franz Kafka (1925) -- 160pp
  51. Fic:Twen(Ver)> 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne (1870) -- 212pp
  52. Fic:Uncl(Sto)> Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) -- 576pp
  53. Fic:WaWo(Wel)> The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells (1898) -- 138pp
  54. Fic:WhiF(Lon)> White Fang, by Jack London (1906) -- 128pp
  55. Fic:Wind(Gra)> The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame (1908) -- 220pp
  56. Fic:Wuth(Bro)> Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte (1847) -- 463pp

  57. Non:AmHi(Bla)> American History for Elementary Schools, by Albert F. Blaisdell (1902) -- 232pp
  58. Non:ArtW(Tzu)> The Art of War, by Sun Tzu (506 BC) -- 42pp
  59. Non:Bea2(Fas)> The Beacon Second Reader, by James H. Fasset (1914) -- 202pp
  60. Non:Bibl(God)> The Bible, King James Version -- 776pp
  61. Non:CoMa(Mar)> The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels (1848) -- 35pp
  62. Non:FedP(HJM)> The Federalist Papers, by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison (1787-1788) -- 559pp
  63. Non:FedX(Bru)> The AntiFederalist Papers, by Agrippa, Brutus, Cato, et al (1787-1788) -- 266pp
  64. Non:LawT(Bas)> The Law, by Frederic Bastiat (1850) -- 76pp
  65. Non:MagC(Eng)> The Magna Carta (1215) -- 6pp
  66. Non:McGu(McG)> McGuffey Readers: Primer, R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, Speller
  67. Non:Medi(Aur)> The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180) -- 88pp
  68. Non:Prin(Mac)> The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli (1513) -- 80pp
  69. Non:USCo(Mad)> The U.S. Constitution, et al -- 58pp

  70. Mix:Gutn(Gut)> Gutenberg Books: Links to digitized works, numbered 1-2000.

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.)