AP Reading List: Classics

Annotated Bibliography and Summary

Adams, Richard, Watership Down. New York: Macmillan, 1974.

Summary: Chronicles the adventures of a group of rabbits searching for a safe place to establish a new warren where they can live in peace.

Agee, James. A Death in the Family. New York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1957.

Summary: On a sultry summer night in 1915, Jay Follet leaves his house in Knoxville, Tennessee, to tend to his father, whom he believes is dying. The summons turns out to be a false alarm, but on his way back to his family, Jay has a car accident and is killed instantly. Dancing back and forth in time and braiding the viewpoints of Jay's wife, brother, and young son, Rufus, Agee creates an overwhelmingly powerful novel of innocence, tenderness and loss that should be read aloud for the sheer music of its prose.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1961.

Summary: Emma Woodhouse imagines that she dominates those around her in the small town of Highbury, but her inept matchmaking creates problems for herself and others.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Modern Library, 1995.

Summary: Mr. Bennet is an English gentleman living in Hartfordshire with his overbearing wife and 5 daughters. There is the beautiful Jane, the clever Elizabeth, the bookish Mary, the immature Kitty and the wild Lydia. Unfortunately, if Mr. Bennet dies a distant cousin whom they have never met will inherit their house. The family's future happiness and security is dependent on the daughters making good marriages. Life is uneventful until the arrival in the neighborhood of the rich gentleman Mr. Bingley, who rents a large house so he can spend the summer in the country. Mr. Bingley brings with him his sister and the dashing, rich, but proud Mr. Darcy. Love soon buds for one of the Bennet sisters, while another sister may have jumped to a hasty prejudgment. For the Bennet sisters many trials and tribulations stand between them and their happiness.

Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the Mountain. New York: Dial Press, 1963.

Summary: Story of John Grimes, a young man living in Harlem in the 1930s. His relationship with his strict preacher-father, Gabriel, who had moved from the South to escape his past, is the central focus of this compelling drama.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

Summary: Set in the 24th century, Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of the protagonist, Guy Montag. At first, Montag takes pleasure in his profession as a fireman, burning illegally owned books and the homes of their owners. However, Montag soon begins to question the value of his profession and, in turn, his life.

Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958.

Summary: The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction book by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by refugee humans from a troubled Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists.

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Random House, 1943. 

Summary: In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret.

Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York: Random House, 1943.

Summary: Brontë's novel tells the tale of Catherine and Heathcliff, their all-encompassing love for one another, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them both. Social tensions prevent their union, leading Heathcliff to shun and abuse society.

Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim's Progress. New York: Airmont Books, 1969.

Summary: The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory told by a dreamer. The dreamer sees a man, Christian, clothed in rags, with a burden on his back, leaving his house behind in the knowledge that it will burn down. The book he holds in his hands has told him so. He has to flee his family who think he has gone mad and escape the City of Destruction. On the advice of Evangelist he begins a journey through a series of allegorical places. Each character and place in the dream is given an appropriate name: so Christian meets the goodly Hopeful and Faithful, the cheating Mr Legality and the evil Giant Despair.

Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland. New York: North-South Books, 1999.

Summary: A little girl falls down a rabbit hole and discovers a world of nonsensical and amusing characters.

Cather, Willa. My Ántonia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954.

Summary: A New York lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with a pioneer Bohemian girl.

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Don Quixote. New York : Ecco, 2003.

Summary: Alonso Quixano, a middle-aged gentleman from La Mancha, Spain, loves books about knighthood and chivalry. He loves his books so much that he cannot separate them from reality. In his boyhood, this was no problem: he could play at killing giants and magicians until called to bed. But now, at the end of his life, he still clings to the old stories that his books tell him; he believes that they offer him one last chance at glory.

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: Avon, 1972.

Summary: Edna Pontellier is an upper-middle class white woman who has married into the Creole elite of New Orleans. She (and sometimes her husband) and her two boys are vacationing in Grand Isle when she begins to realize that there must be more to life. She is brought to this idea by a desire to live more fully, to love as she has never loved, and to solve her nagging dissatisfaction with material things and marriage.

Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. New York: Knopf, Mead, 1992.

Summary: The Moonstone was published in 1868 and concerns the huge yellow diamond of the title that was once stolen from an Indian shrine. Rachel Verrinder receives the stone as a gift and does not realize that John Herncastle who, it transpires, acquired the moonstone by means of murder and theft has passed it to her in a sinister form of revenge. The jewel also brings bad luck. The stone disappears on the very night it is given to Rachel, though, and the tale concerns the unveiling of the culprit after the intervention of Sergeant Cuff, a famous London detective. A maid who is under suspicion commits suicide and Rachel herself seems reticent when it comes to aiding the investigation. Mysterious Indians appear frequently and there is an air of confusion and the unknown until the mystery is eventually solved.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Knopf, 1993.

Summary: In Conrad's haunting tale, Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts his physical and psychological journey in search of the enigmatic Kurtz. Traveling to the heart of the African continent, he discovers how Kurtz has gained his position of power and influence over the local people. Marlow's struggle to fathom his experience involves him in a radical questioning of not only his own nature and values but the nature and values of his society.

Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim. New York: Modern Library, 1931.

Summary: Lord Jim is the story of one man’s fight against his own past and his attempt to prove himself to the world after he has made one terrible error. Put on trial, the young idealistic Jim’s tale is told by Marlow, who also narrates Heart of Darkness. Jim is stripped of his papers and is left to follow an existence avoiding his own identity and seeking anonymity as he travels the world. Marlow organizes a meeting through which Jim goes to Patusan, a remote and in Conrad’s terms primitive region. Jim brings order and stability to the area with his strength of character and leadership. The arrival of the treacherous Gentleman Brown shakes the peace Jim has created and his value systems are called into question before the horror of the ending.

Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1951.

Summary: The tale of a Mohican brave's struggle to protect two English girls from an evil Huron.

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

Summary: The story of Henry Fleming and his initiation into manhood as a Union Army recruit during the Civil War.

Craven, Margaret. I Heard the Owl Call My Name. New York: Dell, 1980.

Summary: A terminally ill Anglican priest and his assignment in a coastal Indian community in British Columbia. The nonfiction story behind this book is told in Again Calls the Owl (1984). Best Books for Young Teen Readers. A young minister who has two years to live learns about the meaning of life when he is sent to an Indian parish in British Columbia.

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. New York: DK Publishers, 1998.

Summary: During one of his several adventurous voyages in the 1600s, an Englishman becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives for nearly thirty years on a deserted island. Illustrated notes throughout the text explain the historical background of the story.

Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

Summary: The most autobiographical of Dickens' works, David Copperfield often echoes the writer's own life. It tells a moving story of David's journey from birth to maturity, a journey that inextricably links his life with some of Dickens' most colorful and extraordinary families.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. New York: Knopf, 1992.

Summary: In the gloom of a country graveyard, a young boy encounters an escaped convict; a chance meeting that years later leads the boy to tragedy, mystery and wealth.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

Summary: Recounts the author's famous tale set against the background of the French Revolution, which focuses on a doctor, his devoted daughter, and a young French aristocrat whom the daughter loves. When the aristocrat is condemned to die, a family friend offers his own life out of love for the daughter and her father.

Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1941.

Summary: Deals with the adventures of a young orphan boy trying to survive amid greed adn poverty in 19th-century London.

Dreiser, Theodore. An American Tragedy. Cleveland: World Pub. Co., 1948.

Summary: The harrowing story of a weak-willed young man who destroys himself, a villain who is also victim of the values of a deceptive, materialistic society. Dreiser patterned the story of Clyde Griffiths on a real-life murder that took place in 1906, a charming young social climber who killed his pregnant young girlfriend in order to romance a rich girl who had begun to notice him.

Dumas, Alexandre. The Three Musketeers. [S.l.]: International Collectors Library, 1994.

Summary: The young Gascon D'Artagnan arrives in Paris, his heart set on joining the king's Musketeers. He is taken under the wings of three of the most respected and feared Musketeers, Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Together they fight to save France and the honor of a lady from the machinations of the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.

Eliot, George. Adam Bede. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1947.

Summary: Adam Bede, a simple carpenter, loves too blindly; Hetty Sorrel, a coquettish beauty, too recklessly; Arthur Donnithorne, a dashing squire, too carelessly. Their innocence, vanity and imprudence lead them into a triangle of seduction, murder and retribution.

 Eliot, George. Silas Marner. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1948.

Summary: Silas Marner is a tale of the mysterious workings of life and how kindness and love can still be found in someone who has been betrayed and suffered at the hands of an unjust society. It is a worthy demonstration of how life can still bring rewards and riches greater than material wealth.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Random House, 1952.

Summary: The novel opens with a Prologue describing the depressed state of the narrator, who remains nameless throughout the novel. He is an invisible man, he proclaims, and has taken to living unknown underground, sucking electricity from the state of New York into his many light bulbs that he has hung in his lair. The novel is to be the story of how he came to be in this position.

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. New York: Random House, 1964.

Summary: The members of a southern family contribute their individual tribulations encompassing impression of rural poverty.

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. New York: Random House, 1956.

Summary: The Sound and the Fury is the story of the fall of the Compson family, a bourgeois Jackson, Mississippi family in the early 1900's. The novel is divided into four sections, each told by a different character. The three Compson sons, Benjy, Quentin, and Jason Compson, and the family's black servant, Dilsey Gibson, each have their own section in which they tell their collective story.

Faulkner, William. Light in August. New York: Modern Library, 1950.

Summary: A young man is accused of trying to pass as white in a Southern town in the 30s.

Flagg, Fannie. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.

Summary: A chance encounter in a nursing home leads to an unexpected friendship between a dowdy housewife and a spry octogenarian who tells her the story of a fiercely independent woman half a century ago, inspiring the housewife to change her life, often with hilarious results.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1992.

Summary: Jay Gatsby had once loved beautiful, spoiled Daisy Buchanan, and then lost her to a rich boy. Now, mysteriously wealthy, he is ready to risk everything to woo her back. This is the definitive, textually accurate edition of a classic of twentieth-century literature, The Great Gatsby. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan has been acclaimed by generations of readers....

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Tender is the Night. New York: Scribner, 1934.

Summary: A psychiatrist, Dick Diver, treats and eventually marries a wealthy patient, Nicole. Eventually, this marriage destroys him.

Forster, E. M. A Passage to India. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1924.

Summary: A young Englishwoman and her friend, travels to India in the late 1920s to visit her fiancé, a British magistrate posted in a small town. They want to meet everyday Indians, but are frustrated by the British community's insistence that relations with the locals are best experienced from a distance. Finally, a friend introduces them to a Muslim doctor whom Mrs. Moore had seen briefly on her visit to a mosque. He takes them on an outing to the nearby caverns but what happens there threatens to destroy any civility between the British and Indian societies.

Forster, E. M. A Room With a View. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1923.

Summary: the story of the coming of age of Lucy Honeychurch. Longing to burst free from the repression of British upper class manners and mores, she must wrestle with her inner romantic longings to choose between the passionate George and the priggish but socially suitable Cecil.

Fowles, John. The French Lieutenant's Woman. Boston: Little, Brown, 1969.

Summary:  Charles Smithson and Ernestina Freeman are engaged to be married. Charles is an upper-class aristocrat and Ernestina is a wealthy heiress. They meet Sarah Woodruff, an unemployed governess and the scarlet woman of Lyme. Charles is struck by this woman who "had been dumped by her French lover and now wandered the shores in the hope that he would return someday."

Gardner, John. Grendel. New York: Knopf, 1971.

Summary: The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great early epic BEOWULF, tells his side of the story.

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962.

Summary: A classic study of human nature, which depicts the degeneration of a group of schoolboys marooned on a desert island.

Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Random House, 1959.

Summary: An award-winning play about a struggling black family living on Chicago's South Side and the impact of an unexpected insurance bequest. Each family member sees the bequest as the means of realizing dreams and of escape from grinding frustrations.

Hardy, Thomas. Far from the Madding Crowd. New York: Harper, 1918.

Summary: Far from the Madding Crowd concerns a young woman, Bathsheba Everdene, and the three men in her life: one is a poor sheep farmer who loses his flock in a tragedy and ends up working as an employee on Bathsheba’s farm; one is the respectable, boring owner of a neighboring farm who takes Bathsheba’s flirtations too seriously; and the third is a dashing army sergeant who treats her like just another of his conquests.

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1993.

Summary: On a drunken impulse, Henchard sells his wife and daughter at a country fair. Years later, when he has become a respected and prosperous man, his wife and daughter seek him out in Casterbridge.

Hardy, Thomas. The Return of the Native. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1950.

Summary: Eustacia Vye, a beautiful, sensual nineteen-year-old, has one desire: to be loved to madness by a man who is worthy of her and who will take her to exotic places. Eustacia considers only one man worthy enough to love--Damon Wildeve. However, the sweet, simple Thomasin Yeobright has also caught Wildeve's attentions and is engaged to him. On their wedding day, the marriage license is discovered to be invalid, either by Wildeve's intent or mistake, leaving Thomasin utterly humiliated and Eustacia, who believes that Wildeve loves her more than he loves Thomasin--utterly joyous.

Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the d'Urbervilles. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1960.

Summary: Tess Durbeyfield is a luminous beauty who is violated by one man and forsaken by another, but she refuses to remain a victim. Her struggle to endure despite the abandonment of her true love, and despite her desperate attempt to attain happiness, propels Tess toward a tragic end.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of the Seven Gables. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1950.

Summary: Colonel Pyncheon does well in denouncing Old Matthew: he founds a New England dynasty and builds a remarkable mansion; but on its opening day he is found dead, slaked in his own blood. By 1840, that dynasty is almost spent; amid the dust and decay of the Seven Gables, Clifford and Hepzibah believe in their own continued nobility as much as they believe in the mysterious curse still tracking the Pyncheons.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1948.

Summary: The classic tale of sin and salvation in 17th century Puritan New England.

Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1961.

Summary: Depicts the struggles of a U.S. airman attempting to survive the lunacy and depravity of a World War II base.

Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York, Scribner, 1957.

Summary: Hemingway's novel about romance and desertion during World War I in Italy. An American officer in the Italian ambulance corps is wounded, falls in love with an English Red Cross Nurse, and joins her in Switzerland.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York, Scribner, 1952.

Summary: Santiago is a Cuban fisherman who encounters a giant marlin in the Gulf Stream and the battle for his catch becomes one of survival against a band of marauding sharks.

Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York, Scribner, 1952.

Summary: Robert Jordan, an American demolition expert lends his abilities to the anti-fascist freedom fighters of Spain. Assisting him is a band of warriors that includes the strong-willed Pilar, the dangerously undependable Pablo, and the lovely, innocent Maria.

Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1985.

Summary: John Hersey recorded the stories of Hiroshima residents shortly after the explosion and, in 1946, Hiroshima was published, giving the world first-hand accounts from people who had survived it. The words of Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamara, Father Kleinsorg, Dr. Sasaki, and the Reverend Tanimoto gave a face to the statistics that saturated the media and solicited an overwhelming public response. Whether you believe the bomb made the difference in the war or that it should never have been dropped, "Hiroshima" is a must read for all of us who live in the shadow of armed conflict.

Haley, Alex. Roots. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976.

Summary: Alex Haley traces his family's history from the mid-18th century when one of his ancestors, Kunta Kinte, was captured and sold into slavery. Follows the struggle for freedom that began with the boy's abduction to America and continued throughout the generations that followed.

Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. New York: New Directions, 1951.

Summary: A young man's spiritual odyssey.

Homer. The Illiad. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 1962.

Summary: Homer's Iliad describes the major events that took place during the last year of the Trojan War.

Homer.; Robert Fagles. The Odyssey.  New York: Viking, 1996.

Summary: The wanderings of the hero Odysseus after the Trojan War.

Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1947.

Summary: The tale of the hunchback bell ringer of medieval Notre Dame, Quasimodo, whose love for the gypsy dancer, Esmeralda, had tragic consequences.

Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables. New York: Modern Library, 1992.

Summary: Les Miserables is not only superb adventure but also a powerful social document. The story of how the convict Jean-Valjean struggled to escape his past and reaffirm his humanity, in a world brutalized by poverty and ignorance, became the gospel of the poor and the oppressed.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Perennial Library, 1990.

Summary: A novel about black Americans in Florida that centers on the life of Janie and her 3 marriages.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: London, Harper, 1946.

Summary: Six hundred years into the future, humans are bred by cloning, and "mother" and "father" are forbidden words. Originally published in 1932, Huxley's terrifying vision of a controlled and emotionless future "Utopian" society is truly startling in its prediction of modern scientific and cultural phenomena, including test-tube babies and rampant drug abuse.

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. New York: Dover Publications, 1992.

Summary: Nora, the "model wife," commits forgery and risks destruction in order to save her husband. But after he rejects her, she leaves her husband and children to begin a new life.

Ibsen, Henrik. Hedda Gabler. New York: Dover, 1990.

Summary: Frustrated by the pointlessness of her middle class, married life, the strong-willed Hedda realizes her only satisfaction comes from manipulating others. Casting an insidious net of influence over both her passive husband and a volatile former lover, Hedda is soon overwhelmed by her own cynical schemes as they spiral out of control--with tragic results.

Irving, Washington. Rip Van Winkle and The legend of Sleepy Hollow. New York: Macmillan, 1951.

Summary: Two stories from the Catskill Mountains: one featuring a man who sleeps for twenty years, waking to a much-changed world and the other, a superstitious schoolmaster who encounters a headless horseman.

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Viking Press, 1962.

Summary: The story of a man whose rebelliousness pits him against the head nurse of a mental ward and the full spectrum of institutional repression.

Knowles, John. A Separate Peace. New York, Macmillan, 1960.

Summary: Gene Forrester looks back 15 years to a year at prep school during World War II when jealousy and rivalry with his best friend caused an accident that brought him face to face with his inner nature and its symbolic parallel to men at war.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1960.

Summary: The explosion of racial hate in an Alabama town is viewed by a little girl whose father defends a black man accused of rape.

Lewis, Sinclair. Arrowsmith. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1952.

Summary: After years of work as a small town doctor and a research scientist, Arrowsmith heads for the West Indies with a serum to halt an epidemic. A tragic turn of events forces him to come to terms with his career and his personal life.

Lewis, Sinclair. Babbit. London: Vantage, 1994.

Summary: George Babbit's experiences in America during the 1920's.

Lewis, Sinclair. Main Street. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1920.

Summary: A sophisticated young woman who moves to a small town in the American Midwest in 1912 and struggles against the small-minded culture of the citizens who live there. The town, Gopher Prairie, is closely patterned on Sauk Centre, Minnesota, which is where Sinclair Lewis grew up, although the book makes clear that it could be any of thousands of towns across the heartland. Carol Kennicott loves her husband enough to live in Gopher Prairie with him, yet nearly enters several affairs in her longing for freedom; she hates the town for its gossip and its simplicity but wants nothing more than to make it better. The book touches on eternal American issues, such as women’s rights, business among friends, and the spirit of anti-intellectualism that has always been at the center of small-town America, where sensitivity is often equated with self-absorption.

London, Jack. The Call of the Wild. New York, Macmillan, 1963.

Summary: A dog is kidnapped from his home in California and taken to the Yukon where he is mistreated until a prospector discovers him and relates to his situation.

Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Summary: Niccolo Machiavelli, in dedicating his book to Lorenzo de' Medici, urges the young prince of Florence to read his work and follow its advice. He also asks the prince to consider his bad turn of fortune (his exile from Florentine politics). Having made his case, Machiavelli goes right to the main focus of his work-how principalities can be acquired, governed, and preserved.

Mailer, Norman. The Naked and the Dead. New York: Rinehart, 1948.

Summary: The story of an ill-fated military patrol and the antagonisms which can erupt among men at war.

Malamud, Bernard. The Fixer. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966.

Summary:  In Tsarist Russia, Yakov is accused of a ritual murder he did not commit.

McCullers, Carson. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940.

Summary: John Singer is alone, except for one deaf-mute friend, a drooling, teddy bear clutching man-child. When his friend is institutionalized in a small southern town, Singer moves to be near him. Once he is there, Singer's kindness draws him near to others who are broken in body or spirit.

McCullers, Carson. The Member of the Wedding. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946.

Summary: A 12-year-old girl learns something about life when her sister gets married and a young boy dies.

McCullers, Carson. The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories. New York: Bantam Books, 1971.

Summary: Plain-faced and unhappy, the eccentric Miss Amelia marries and publicly humiliates Marvin Macy, a charming con man who has fallen in love with her, causing him to battle to break her spirit and her heart as an act of revenge.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1942.

Summary: A stirring sea saga of one man's obsession for revenge upon the enormous white whale that has defeated Captain Ahab once before.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Viking Press, 1953.

Summary: A group of teenage girls meets in the woods at midnight for a secret love-conjuring ceremony. When the town minister witnesses their ceremony, the girls suddenly find themselves accused of witchcraft and as the hysteria in the village grows, blameless victims are torn from their homes, leading to a devastating climax.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Viking Press, 1949.

Summary: A social drama about an ageing traveling salesman who recognizes the emptiness of his life and tries unsuccessfully to bring meaning to his life.

Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. New York: Macmillan, 1936.

Summary: The story of Scarlett O'Hara, a Southern belle who enjoys her socialite lifestyle and the attention of many eligible single rich men. This idyllic lifestyle is shattered by the onset of the U.S. Civil War that eventually reduces her home to near ruins. Robbed of the luxuries she loved, she vows to grow strong so she will never be poor again....

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-four. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949.

Summary:  This is the story of impossible love and tragic betrayal set in the twisted, horrific world of "1984."

Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich. Doctor Zhivago. New York: Pantheon, 1958.

Summary: Yuri Zhivago, doctor and poet, lives and loves during the first three decades of 20th-century Russia.

Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country. New York: Scribner's Sons, 1948.

Summary: A black minister and white landowner are united by a tragedy, with the potential for further hatred or healing.

Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Summary: Young and gifted poet, Esther Greenwood, is trapped in a private world of terror. Esther can't seem to harmonize the harsh realities of life with her own perfectionist thinking. From college through early job hunting and singles life in New York, Esther and her friends cope with the pressures of school, sexual relationships and drugs until each reaches the final path for their adult lives.

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House, 1957.

Summary: He said he would stop the motor of the world... and he did.  But who is John Galt?  A destroyer or a liberator?  Why does he fight his battle, not against his enemies, but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves?"

Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1943.

Summary: An idealistic architect clashes with big business over his designs for a housing project.

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Boston: Little, Brown, 1929.

Summary: A group of young World War I German recruits pass from idealism to disillusionment with war.

Rølvaag, O. E. Giants in the Earth. New York: Harper, 1927.

Summary: Peder Hansen, known as Per Hansa, and his wife Beret move with their children and several other Norwegian families to homesteads in South Dakota. Per Hansa is the eternal optimist, while Beret is often depressed by their isolation. The novel leads us through the typical lives of Norwegian settlers in the 1880's. They experience the birth of children, crop failures and successes, blizzards, and locusts.

Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. The Little Prince. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943.

Summary: An aviator, whose plane is forced down in the Sahara Desert, encounters a little man from a small planet who describes his adventures in the universe, seeking the secret of what is really important in life.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951.

Summary: Story of Holden Caufield with his idiosyncrasies, penetrating insight, confusion, sensitivity and negativism. The hero-narrator of "The Catcher in the Rye" is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days....

Saroyan, William. The Human Comedy.  New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943.

Summary: A tale of the Macauley family's experiences during the dark days of World War II, focusing on the coming of age of the teenaged son, Homer, as he comes to understand the meaning of life and love.

Scott, Walter, Sir. Ivanhoe. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1941.

Summary: Set in 12th century England, the story follows one brave man's attempt to restore Richard The Lion-Hearted to the throne stolen by his evil brother, Prince John.

Shakespeare, William. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1871- 1955.

Summary: 1. Romeo and Juliet. 1871.--v. 2. Macbeth. 1873.--v. 3-4. Hamlet. 1877.--v. 5. King Lear. 1880.--v. 6. Othello. [c1886]--v. 7. The merchant of Venice. 1888.--v. 8. As you like it. 1890.--v. 9. The tempest. 1892.--v. 10. A midsummer night's dreame. 1895.--v. 11. The winter's tale. 1898.--v. 12. Much adoe about nothing. 1899.--v. 13. Twelfe night, or, What you will. 1901.--v. 14. Loues labour's lost. 1904.--[v. 15] The tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra. 1907.--[v. 16] The tragedy of Richard the Third: with the landing of Earle Richmond, and the battell at Bosworth field. 1908.--[v. 17] The tragedie of Ivlivs Cæsar. 1913.--[v. 18] The tragedie of Cymbeline. 1913.--[v. 19] The life and death of King John. 1919.--[v. 20] The tragedie of Coriolanus. 1928.--[v. 21] Henry the Fourth, pt. 1. 1936.--[v. 22] The phoenix and the turtle. A lover's complaint. 1938.--[v. 23] The second part of Henry the Fourth. 1940.--[v. 24-25] The sonnets. 1944.--[v. 26] Troilus and Cressida. 1953.--[v. 27] The life and death of King Richard the Second. 1955.

Shaw, Bernard. Saint Joan. New York: Modern Library, 1956.

Summary: Joan of Arc, the 14th century French woman warrior. From her peasant origins, her career as commander of troops fighting the English, to her death at the stake for heresy.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein. New York: Oxford, 1969.

Summary: Dr. Frankenstein creates a true monster from dead human parts, but it gets out of control and into trouble.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Cambridge, Mass.: R. Bentley, 1971.

Summary: The Jungle details the startling exploitation of laborers in the packing plants, the squalor of the yards, neighborhoods, and the corruption of the Beef Trust. New York, Dutton,

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.  New York: Dutton, 1963.

Summary: Story of Ivan Denisovich, prisoner in a Stalinist work camp in Siberia, and his determination to retain his sanity and his self worth in an oppressive system designed to break the human spirit.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Viking Press, 1939.

Summary: The migration of the Joad family to California from their dust-bowl farm in Oklahoma during the Great Depression.

Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. New York: Viking Press, 1952.

Summary: This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks' and the Hamilton's--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York: Putnam, 1963.

Summary: The story of a radical doctor whose experiments lead him to the discovery of a destructive potion that transforms him into a hideous creature of unbridled emotions.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. New York: DK Pub., 1997.

Summary: After discovering the double identity of the wealthy Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula, a small group of people vow to rid the world of the evil vampire.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. New York: Scribner, 1981.

Summary: While going through the possessions of a deceased guest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her son find a treasure map that leads to a pirate fortune as well as great danger.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1952.

Summary: Story of slavery and redemption in the pre-Civil War South.

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1950.

Summary: The tale of an 18th-century physician who takes eight years to travel through a variety of fantastical lands, only to have everyone but his wife takes him for a madman when he returns home.

Thackeray, William Makepeace. Vanity Fair. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1943.

Summary: Becky is determined to make something of herself. She accepts a job as a nanny for the children of Sir Pitt Crawley. Becky catches the eye of Crawley's son Rawdon. Becky is introduced to London's most exclusive social circle, where she becomes re-acquainted with Amelia. Becky weds Rawdon, but the social and economic stability she dreamed of begins to collapse when he begins drowning his troubles, and soon she turns to the powerful Marquess of Steyne for support....

Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. New York: Penguin Books, 2002.

Summary: Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and family happiness....

Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1955.

Summary: An epic novel featuring the Russian role in the Napoleonic wars and providing a complex panorama of the life of the time.

Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Random House, 1996.

Summary: Huck Finn, a 19th-century boy floating down the Mississippi River on a raft with Jim, a runaway slave, becomes involved with a feuding family, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and Tom Sawyer's aunt, who mistakes him for Tom.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-five. New York: Delacorte Press, 1969.

Summary: The story of Billy Pilgrim who is ordinary in almost every respect but one: he has come unstuck in time and jumps back and forth in his life with no control over where he is going next. In the end Billy learns he must concentrate on the good things and ignore the bad in life.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971.

Summary: Economy -- Where I lived, and what I lived for -- Reading -- Sounds -- Solitude -- Visitors -- The bean-field -- The village -- The ponds -- Baker farm -- Higher laws -- Brute neighbors -- House-warming -- Former inhabitants; and winter visitors -- Winter animals -- The pond in winter -- Spring -- Conclusion.

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

Summary: Set in the period between the world wars, this novel tells of two sisters, their trials, and their survival.

Warren, Robert Penn. All the King's Men. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946.

Summary: A dynamic backwoods lawyer batters his way into the governor's mansion, where he uses his unprincipled charm to become a brutal dictator.

Wells, H. G. The Time Machine.  New York: T. Doherty Associates, 1992.

Summary: Desperate to alter the course of time, a visionary scientist invents a revolutionary machine that propels him 800,000 years into the future. There he discovers that humans have evolved into two groups: the hunters and the hunted. Now he must fight to save himself, and all of mankind, in a final, desperate battle.

Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome. New York: Scribner, 1939.

Summary: The story of a man torn between his joyless marriage to one woman and his lustful desire for another.

Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence. New York: Scribner, 1968.

Summary: An elegant portrait of desire and betrayal in Old New York. In the highest circle of New York social life during the 1870's, Newland Archer, a young lawyer, prepares to marry the docile May Welland. Before their engagement is announced, he meets May's cousin, the mysterious, nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned to New York after a long absence.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.

Summary: After viewing a portrait of himself, a young, wealthy man expresses his desire to stay youthful while the portrait grows old. His friend, Lord Henry, points out that his wish was made in the presence of an ancient Egyptian god quite capable of granting his wish. Gradually a sinister plot evolves, fueled by sadism and self-loathing that results in five terrible deaths and a horrifying secret locked behind a schoolroom door.

Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. New York: Avon Books, 1965.

Summary: Algernon is a gentleman from a wealthy family. Algernon's close friend Jack has a ward, Cecily. Both Algernon and Jack have created alter egos to make life more interesting. Algernon arrives for a weekend visit in the country posing as Earnest. Having heard of Earnest's misadventures, Cicely has developed an infatuation with the rogue, and Algernon's impersonation of him works famously on Cicely....

Wilder, Thornton. The Bridge of San Luis Rey. New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1927.

Summary:  In Lima, Peru, Five people are killed in a freak accident when a lofty rope bridge collapses. A priest journeys to discover if there was a divine reason for the bloody disaster.

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. New York: Harper, 1960.

Summary: A study of life, love, and death in a New England town at the turn of the 20th century.

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. New York: New Directions, 1949.

Summary: A strong willed woman attempts to impose her shattered dreams into the life and personality of her shy, reclusive daughter.

Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: New Directions, 1947.

Summary:  An uncensored version of the story of a repressed widow who visits her sister in New Orleans and is raped and driven mad by her brother-in-law.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925.

Summary: As Clarissa Dalloway prepares for an elaborate party, she remembers another summer in the past, when she was a beautiful young woman. Her preparations are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a former suitor from that long-ago summer. As the day of the party unfolds, Mrs. Dalloway's life also becomes strangely intertwined with a young man she never meets, but whose tragic fate strikes a chord of truth, deep in her soul, that she cannot deny.

Wright, Richard. Black Boy. New York: Harper, 1945.

Summary: Life in the pre—civil rights South was intensely alienating for young Richard. At every turn, his desire to communicate was stunted, whether by family members who insisted he "hush!" or by teachers who harassed and mocked him. People he considered contemptibly ignorant, people who willingly allowed their lives to be restricted by tradition and authority no matter how illegitimate or self-destructive surrounded him. Whether they were racist whites or passive, uncompassionate blacks, his fellow southerners viewed Richard’s independence and intelligence with suspicion and scorned and humiliated him for his family's poverty. He lashed out by hitting the streets: He was already drinking by the time he turned six, and he fought constantly.

Wright, Richard. Native Son. New York: Harper & Bros., 1940.

Summary: Bigger Thomas, the black chauffeur for the wealthy Dalton family, is accused of the murder of the Daltons' daughter Mary. The search for Mary's missing body and Thomas' trial shake the family and the city of Chicago, exposing the fears and prejudices of the late 1940's.