Classic Fiction

Some of our favorite classic stories, modern classics, and classic stories reimagined.

Updated September 11, 2025
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
Things fall apart
Achebe, Chinua
CD
With over eight million copies in print world wide, Achebe's work is a definitive novel in African literature. Filled with powerful language and finely drawn characters, Things Fall Apart also shimmers with the sounds and sights of village life. Okonkwo is born into poverty, with a wastrel for a...
Watership Down : A Novel
Adams, Richard
Paper Book
Now with a new introduction by Madeline Miller, the New York Times bestselling author of The Song of Achilles and Circe. The 50th anniversary edition of Richard Adam's timeless classic, the tale of a band of wild rabbits struggling to hold onto their place...
Little women
Alcott, Louisa May
Persuasion
Austen, Jane
Paper Book
The silence of the girls
Barker, Pat
Paper Book
Shorlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Costa Novel Award Booker-winning novelist Pat Barker imagines the untold story of the women at the heart of history's greatest epic 'Magnificent... You are in the hands of a writer at the height of her...
Fahrenheit 451 : a novel
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
Nearly seventy years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before. Guy Montag is a fireman....
Jane Eyre
Bronte, Charlotte
Paper Book
The good earth
Buck, Pearl S.
CD
This Pulitzer Prize-winning classic tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the...
A clockwork orange
Burgess, Anthony
Paper Book
'What we were after was lashings of ultraviolence' In this nightmare vision of youth in revolt, fifteen-year-old Alex and his friends set out on a diabolical orgy of robbery, rape, torture and murder. Alex is jailed for his teenage delinquency and the State tries to reform him -...
O pioneers!
Cather, Willa
Paper Book
The novel that first made Willa Cather famous--a powerfully mythic tale of the American frontier told through the life of one extraordinary woman--in a handsome hardcover volume. No other work of fiction so vividly evokes the harsh beauty and epic sweep of the Nebraska prairies...
Don Quixote
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de
Paper Book
Edith Grossman's definitive English translation of the Spanish masterpiece, in an expanded P.S. edition Widely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his...
The awakening
Chopin, Kate
Paper Book
Over one long, languid summer Edna Pontellier, fettered by marriage and motherhood, becomes acquainted with Robert Lebrun. As the days shorten and the temperature drops Edna succumbs to Robert's devotion. But as her desire grows so too does her discontentment - with the role society has forced her...
The woman in white
Collins, Wilkie
Paper Book
Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.
The last of the Mohicans
Mann, Michael
DVD
Robinson Crusoe
Johnson, Dan.
Paper Book
Robinson Crusoe is not content with his life in England. He is bored and wants to see more of the world. His curiosity convinces him to leave his homeland and travel abroad. Without telling his parents, young Robinson sets off on a voyage of discovery. During the years that follow he...
Great expectations
Dickens, Charles
CD
One of the most revered works in English literature, Great Expectations traces the coming-of-age of a young orphan, Pip, from a boy of shallow aspirations into a man of maturity. From the chilling opening confrontation with an escaped convict to the grand but eerily disheveled estate of bitter...
Crime and punishment
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Paper Book
Invisible man
Ellison, Ralph.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * In this deeply compelling novel and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator tells his story from the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. One of The Atlantic<...
James : a novel
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. From the "literary icon" (Oprah Daily), Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and one of the most decorated writers of our...
The sound and the fury : the corrected text
Faulkner, William
Paper Book
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER * One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century is the story of a family of Southern aristocrats on the brink of personal and financial ruin.  *  The definitive corrected text, including Faulkner's Appendix One of The Atlantic...
The great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Paper Book
The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.
One hundred years of solitude
Garca? Mr?quez, Gabriel
Paper Book
Now a Netflix original series! "One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race. . . . García Márquez has done nothing less than to create in the reader a sense of all that is profound,...
Cold Comfort Farm
Gibbons, Stella
Paper Book
"Quite simply one of the funniest satirical novels of the last century." --Nancy Pearl, NPR's Morning Edition The deliriously entertaining Cold Comfort Farm is "very probably the funniest book ever written" (The Sunday Times, London), a...
Lord of the flies
Golding, William
Paper Book
The 50th Anniversary Edition of the Lord of the Flies is the volume that every fan of this classic book will have to own! Lord of the Flies remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954, igniting passionate debate with its startling, brutal...
Far from the madding crowd
Hardy, Thomas
Paper Book
'I shall do one thing in this life - one thing for certain - that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die.'Gabriel Oak is only one of three suitors for the hand of the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene. He must compete with the dashing young soldier Sergeant Troy and...
The scarlet letter : a romance
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Paper Book
Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter Pearl is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl's father. Hester's refusal to name him...
Catch-22 : a novel
Heller, Joseph
Paper Book
Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary. At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save...
The sun also rises
Hemingway, Ernest
Paper Book
The only authorized edition of Ernest Hemingway's first novel. "The ideal companion for troubled times: equal parts Continental escape and serious grappling with the question of what it means to be, and feel, lost." --The Wall Street Journal ...
Their eyes were watching God
Hurston, Zora Neale.
Paper Book
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick "A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don't know how to live properly." --Zadie Smith One of the most important...
Ayesha at last : a novel
Jalaluddin, Uzma.
Paper Book
Pride and Prejudice with a modern twist    AYESHA SHAMSI has a lot going on.  Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is...
Demon Copperhead : a novel
Kingsolver, Barbara
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION New York Times Readers' Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century * An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper.
Paper Book
Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025. Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize...
Moby-Dick, or, The whale
Melville, Herman
Paper Book
Introduction by Elizabeth Hardwick Illustrations by Rockwell Kent Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS'sThe Great American Read First published in 1851, Herman Melville's masterpiece is, in Elizabeth Hardwick's words, "the...
Circe : a novel
Miller, Madeline
Paper Book
This #1 New York Times bestseller is a "bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story" that brilliantly reimagines the life of Circe, formidable sorceress of The Odyssey (Alexandra Alter, TheNew York Times). In the house of Helios,...
Beloved
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison's Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past, presented here in stunning hardcover with an introduction by A. S. Byatt. Named by The Atlantic as one of the Great American...
Lolita
Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich
Paper Book
The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. * With a new introduction by Claire Messud "The conjunction of a sense of...
Hello beautiful : a novel
Napolitano, Ann.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * MORE THAN ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD! From the author of Dear Edward comes a "powerfully affecting" (People) family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole? "Another tender tearjerker...
The things they carried : a work of fiction
O'Brien, Tim
Paper Book
"O'Brien has written a vital, important book--a book that matters not only to the reader interested in Vietnam, but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing...
Cry, the beloved country
Paton, Alan.
Paper Book
"The greatest novel to emerge out of the tragedy of South Africa, and one of the best novels of our time." --The New Republic "A beautiful novel...its writing is so fresh, its projection of character so immediate and full, its events so compelling, and its understanding...
The bell jar
Plath, Sylvia
Paper Book
Wide Sargasso Sea
Rhys, Jean
Paper Book
Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to...
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you...
Frankenstein or The modern Prometheus
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
The epic battle between man and monster reaches its greatest pitch in the famous story of Frankenstein. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor himself to the...
A tree grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Betty
Paper Book
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick A special 75th anniversary edition of the beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century. From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for ...
The grapes of wrath
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized--and sometimes outraged--millions of readers. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read A Penguin Classic First published in 1939...
Dracula
Stoker, Bram
Paper Book
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paper Book
Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva- their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its...
A journey to the center of the earth
Verne, Jules
Paper Book
Slaughterhouse five
Vonnegut, Kurt
CD
The story of Edgar Sawtelle
Wroblewski, David .
Paper Book
A riveting family saga, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle explores the deep and ancient alliance between humans and dogs, and the power of fate through one boy's epic journey into the wild. Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.