Classic Literature

Below is a list of books generally considered to be classics in English literature. All are originally published before 1960, and are recognized by many of the most respected public and private schools throughout the United States and abroad.

These books have entertained and educated young and old for generations, and offer insight into the the most basic tools and tenets of Western civilization, often revealing essential truths about human nature.

How many have you read??   The titles in red are available at the Ferris High School Library

1984   -- George Orwell

Absalom, Absalom!   -- William Faulkner

Adam Bede   -- George Eliot

Aeneid, The   -- Vergil

Age of Innocence   -- Edith Wharton

All the King's Men   -- Robert Penn Warren

All Quiet on the Western Front   -- Erich Remarque

American, The   -- Henry James

American Tragedy, An   -- Theodore Dreiser

Animal Farm   -- George Orwell

Antigone   -- Sophocles

Anna Karenina   -- Leo Tolstoy

Arms and the Man   -- George Bernard Shaw
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Seven plays: with prefaces and notes /by Bernard Shaw. (822 SHA)
• Classics of the modern theater, realism and after, edited by Alvin B. Kernan. (808.82 KER)

Arrowsmith   -- Sinclair Lewis

As I Lay Dying   -- William Faulkner

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The   -- Benjamin Franklin

Awakening, The   -- Kate Chopin

Babbitt   -- Sinclair Lewis

Barchester Towers   -- Anthony Trollope

Black Boy   -- Richard Wright

Billy Budd   -- Herman Melville

Bleak House   -- Charles Dickens

Brave New World   -- Aldous Huxley

Brideshead Revisited   -- Evelyn Waugh

Brothers Karamazov   -- Fyodor Dostoevski

Buddenbrooks   -- Thomas Mann

Caine Mutiny, The   -- Herman Wouk

Candide   -- Voltaire

Canterbury Tales, The   -- Geoffrey Chaucer

Castle, The   -- Franz Kafka

Catcher in the Rye, The   -- J.D. Salinger

Cherry Orchard, The   -- Anton Chekhov
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Classics of the modern theater, realism and after, edited by Alvin B. Kernan. (808.82 KER)

Crime and Punishment   -- Fyodor Dostoevski

Crucible, The   -- Arthur Miller

Cruel Sea, The   -- Nicholas Monsarrat

Cyrano de Bergerac   -- Edmond Rostand

Daisy Miller   -- Henry James

Darkness at Noon   -- Arthur Koestler

David Copperfield   -- Charles Dickens

Death Comes for the Archbishop   -- Willa Cather

Death in the Family, A   -- James Agee

Death of a Salesman   -- Arthur Miller

Demian   -- Hermann Hesse

Divine Comedy, The   -- Dante

Doctor Zhivago   -- Boris Pasternak

Doll's House, A   -- Henrik Ibsen

Don Quixote   -- Miguel Cervantes

Dr. Faustus   -- Christopher Marlowe

Dubliners   -- James Joyce

East of Eden   -- John Steinbeck

Emma   -- Jane Austen

Emperor Jones, The   -- Eugene O'Neill
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Nine plays, by Eugene O’Neill, selected by the author; introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch. (812 ONE)
• Patterns in modern drama [ed. by] Lodwick Hartley [and] Arthur Ladu.
(808.82 HAR)
• The plays of Eugene O'Neill (812 ONE)
• Selected plays of Eugene O'Neill. (812.52 ONE)

Enemy of the People, An   -- Henrik Ibsen
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Eleven plays of Henrik Ibsen; introduction by H. L. Mencken. (839.8 IBS)
• Four great plays / by Henrik Ibsen ; translated by R. Farquharson Sharp ; with an introduction and prefaces to each play by John Gassner. (839.8 IBS)
• Patterns in modern drama [ed. by] Lodwick Hartley [and] Arthur Ladu.
(808.82 HAR)
• Plays of Henrik Ibsen (839.8 IBS)
• Works of Henrik Ibsen (839.8 IBS)

Essays   -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Far From the Madding Crowd   -- Thomas Hardy

Farewell to Arms, A   -- Ernest Hemingway

Fathers and Sons   -- Ivan Turgenev

For Whom the Bell Tolls   -- Ernest Hemingway

Forsyte Saga, The   -- John Galsworthy

Ghosts   -- Henrik Ibsen
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Eleven plays of Henrik Ibsen; introduction by H. L. Mencken. (839.8 IBS)
• Four great plays / by Henrik Ibsen ; translated by R. Farquharson Sharp ; with an introduction and prefaces to each play by John Gassner. (839.8 IBS)

Giants in the Earth   -- O.E. Rolvaag

Glass Menagerie, The   -- Tennessee Williams

Go Tell It on the Mountain   -- James Baldwin

Good Earth, The   -- Pearl Buck

Grapes of Wrath, The   -- John Steinbeck

Great Expectations   -- Charles Dickens

Great Gatsby, The   -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Gulliver's Travels   -- Jonathan Swift

Handful of Dust, A   -- Evelyn Waugh

Hard Times   -- Charles Dickens

Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The   -- Carson McCullers

Heart of Darkness   -- Joseph Conrad
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Tales of land and sea / [Joseph Conrad] ; introduction by William McFee ; illustrated by Richard M. Powers. (SC CON)
• A Conrad argosy; introd. by William McFee, with wood cuts by Hans Alexander Mueller. (SC CON)

Heart of the Matter, The   -- Graham Greene

Hedda Gabler   -- Henrik Ibsen

House of the Seven Gables, The   -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

How Green Was My Valley   -- Richard Llewellyn

Human Comedy, The   -- William Saroyan

I, Claudius   -- Robert Graves

Iliad, The   -- Homer

Importance of Being Earnest, The   -- Oscar Wilde

Inherit the Wind   -- Jerome and Robert E. Lee Lawrence

Intruder in the Dust   -- William Faulkner

Invisible Man   -- Ralph Ellison

Jane Eyre   -- Charlotte Bronte

J.B.   -- Archibald MacLeish

Joseph Andrews   -- Henry Fielding

Jude the Obscure   -- Thomas Hardy

Jungle, The   -- Upton Sinclair

Les Miserables   -- Victor Hugo

Light in August   -- William Faulkner

Long Day's Journey into Night, A   -- Eugene O'Neill

Look Homeward, Angel   -- Thomas Wolfe

Lord Jim   -- Joseph Conrad

Lord of the Flies   -- William Golding

Madame Bovary   -- Gustave Flaubert

Magic Mountain, The   -- Thomas Mann

Main Street   -- Sinclair Lewis

Major Barbara   -- George Bernard Shaw

Man for All Seasons, A   -- Robert Bolt

Master Builder, The   -- Henrik Ibsen

Mayor of Casterbridge, The   -- Thomas Hardy

Metamorphosis   -- Franz Kafka

Middlemarch   -- George Eliot

Mill on the Floss   -- George Eliot

Moby-Dick   -- Herman Melville

Moll Flanders   -- Daniel Defoe

Moonstone, The   -- Wilkie Collins

Mourning Becomes Electra   -- Eugene O'Neill

Mrs. Dalloway   -- Virginia Woolf

Murder in the Cathedral   -- T.S. Eliot
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• The complete plays. (822.912 ELI)

My Antonia   -- Willa Cather

Mythology   -- Edith Hamilton

Native Son   -- Richard Wright

New Testament   -- The Bible

Nine Tailors, The   -- Dorothy Sayers

Northanger Abbey   -- Jane Austen

Oedipus Rex   -- Sophocles

Odyssey, The   -- Homer

Of Human Bondage   -- Somerset Maugham

Of Mice and Men   -- John Steinbeck

Old Testament   -- The Bible

Oliver Twist   -- Charles Dickens

On the Beach   -- Nevil Shute

On the Road   -- Jack Kerouac

Once and Future King, The   -- T.H. White

Our Town   -- Thornton Wilder

Out of Africa   -- Isak Dinesen

Passage to India, A   -- E.M. Forster

Pere Goriot   -- Honore de Balzac

Picture of Dorian Gray, The   -- Oscar Wilde

Plague, The   -- Albert Camus

Plays and sonnets   -- William Shakespeare
FERRIS library has many of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets (822.33 SHA)

Poems   -- Robert Browning
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Poems and plays of Robert Browning (821 BRO)

Poems   -- Emily Dickinson
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Final harvest: Emily Dickinson's poems. Selection and introd. by Thomas H. Johnson. (811.4 DIC)
• Poems of Emily Dickinson /selected and edited with a commentary by Louis Untermeyer. (811 DIC)
• Poems of Emily Dickinson /selected by Helen Plotz ; drawings by Robert Kipniss. (811 DIC)

Poems   -- Langston Hughes
FERRIS has 8 books by Langston Hughes, including two volumes of poetry:
• The panther & the lash: poems of our times (811.52 HUG)
• Selected poems of Langston Hughes. (811 HUG)

Poems   -- John Keats
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Poems of John Keats (821.7 KEA)

Portrait of a Lady   -- Henry James

Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man   -- James Joyce

Power and the Glory, The   -- Graham Greene

Pride and Prejudice   -- Jane Austen

Prince, The   -- Machiavelli

Pudd'nhead Wilson   -- Mark Twain

Pygmalion   -- George Bernard Shaw
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Four plays: Candida, Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion [and] Heartbreak house. Introd. by Louis Kronenberger. (822 SHA)

Rabbit Run   -- John Updike

Red Badge of Courage, The   -- Stephen Crane

Return of the Native, The   -- Thomas Hardy

Room with a View, A   -- E.M. Forster

Saint Joan   -- George Bernard Shaw
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Seven plays: with prefaces and notes /by Bernard Shaw. (822 SHA)
• The Theatre guild anthology; with an introduction by the Board of directors of the Theatre guild. (808.82 THE)

Scarlet Letter, The   -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

School for Scandal, The   -- Richard B. Sheridan

Secret Sharer, The   -- Joseph Conrad
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• The book of the short story, ed. by Henry Seidel Canby and Robeson Bailey. (809 CAN)
• Tales of land and sea /[Joseph Conrad] ; introduction by William McFee ; illustrated by Richard M. Powers. (SC CON)
• A Conrad argosy; introd. by William McFee, with wood cuts by Hans Alexander Mueller. (SC CON)

Sense and Sensibility   -- Jane Austen

She Stoops to Conquer   -- Oliver Goldsmith
CAN BE FOUND IN:
• Dramatic comedy. Edited by Harry H. Schanker. (822 SCH)

Short Stories   -- Edgar Allan Poe
FERRIS library has many volumes of Poe’s short stories (SC POE)

Siddhartha   -- Hermann Hesse

Silas Marner   -- George Eliot

Single Pebble, A   -- John Hersey

Sister Carrie   -- Theodore Dreiser

Sons and Lovers   -- D.H. Lawrence

Sound and the Fury, The   -- William Faulkner

Steppenwolf   -- Hermann Hesse

Stories   -- O. Henry
FERRIS library has several volumes. (SC HEN)

Stranger, The   -- Albert Camus

Streetcar Named Desire, A   -- Tennessee Williams

Sun Also Rises, The   -- Ernest Hemingway

Sword in the Stone, The   -- T.H. White

Tale of Two Cities, A   -- Charles Dickens

Tender Is the Night   -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tess of the D'Urbervilles   -- Thomas Hardy

To the Lighthouse   -- Virginia Woolf

Tom Jones   -- Henry Fielding

Trial, The   -- Franz Kafka

Turn of the Screw, The   -- Henry James

Typee   -- Herman Melville

Uncle Tom's Cabin   -- Harriet Beecher Stowe

Vanity Fair   -- William M. Thackeray

Victory   -- Joseph Conrad

Waiting for Godot   -- Samuel Beckett

Walden   -- Henry David Thoreau

War and Peace   -- Leo Tolstoy

Way of All Flesh, The   -- Samuel Butler

Wild Duck, The   -- Henrik Ibsen

Winesburg, Ohio   -- Sherwood Anderson

Wuthering Heights   -- Emily Bronte

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