Read to Learn! Classics for Teens and Adults

Learn something new by studying the classics and participating in our September SweetBean Challenge on Beanstack!

Updated August 27, 2024
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The call of the wild
London, Jack
Paper Book
Puffin Classics- the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child Join Puffin in celebrating 120 years since Call of the Wild first published with this very special anniversary edition. To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing,...
David Copperfield
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
This is the novel Dickens regarded as his 'favourite child' and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experience from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life. Among the gloriously vivid cast of...
Frankenstein
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
A deluxe edition of Mary Shelley's haunting adventure about ambition and modernity run amok.Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Now a Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with an introduction by Elizabeth Kostova and cover art by...
The great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Paper Book
The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald's family and from his lifelong publisher. This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author's own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book...
The hobbit, or, There and back again
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The stirring adventure that begins The Lord of the Rings, the greatest fantasy epic of all time When Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves embark upon a dangerous quest to reclaim the hoard of gold stolen from them by the evil dragon Smaug, Gandalf the wizard suggests an...
The house of mirth
Wharton, Edith
Paper Book
A bestseller when it was published nearly a century ago, this literary classic established Edith Wharton as one of the most important American writers in the twentieth century--now with a new introduction from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan. Wharton's first literary...
If not, winter : fragments of Sappho
Sappho.
Paper Book
In this "gorgeous translation" (The New York Times), one of our most fearless and original poets provides a tantalizing window onto the genius of a woman whose lyric power spans millennia.  Of the nine books of lyrics the ancient Greek poet Sappho is said to...
Kidnapped
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paper Book
This is the story of sixteen-year-old David Balfour, an orphan, who after being kidnapped by his villainous uncle manages to escape and becomes involved in the struggle of the Scottish highlanders against English rule
Metamorphoses
Ovid
Paper Book
"The Metamorphoses of Ovid offers to the modern world such a key to the literary and religious culture of the ancients that it becomes an important event when at last a good poet comes up with a translation into English verse." --John Crowe Ransom " . . . a charming and expert English...
Pride and prejudice
Austen, Jane
Paper Book
When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister...
Siddhartha : an Indian tale
Hesse, Hermann
Paper Book
A bold translation of Nobel Prize-winner Herman Hesse's most inspirational and beloved work, which was nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadA Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Hesse's famous and influential...
The tale of Genji
Murasaki Shikibu
Paper Book
The first complete new translation for 25 years of the acknowledged masterpiece of Japanese literature. Lady Murasaki's great 11th century novel is a beautifully crafted story of love, betrayal and death at the Imperial Court. At the core of this epic is Prince Genji, the son of an emperor, whose...
The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Shakespeare, William
Paper Book
The authoritative edition of Hamlet from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers. Hamlet is Shakespeare's most popular, and most puzzling, play. It follows the form of a "revenge tragedy," in...

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