Harvard Classics Books

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of 12 short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, the first in a series of 56 stories that essentially launched the genre of crime fiction. Like many works o..

Paradise Lost

John Milton

As with Dante's Inferno - which has its companion "Paradiso" - Milton's Paradise Lost was followed by Paradise Regained: but Lost is his most famous work. This epic poem deals with the Christian story..

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens

The classic opening line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." is familiar to most everyone, but not everyone has braved Dickens' masterpiece A Tale of Two Cities. If you haven't re..

Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet is synonymous with the tragic fate of two young "star-cross'd lovers." The idea wasn't originally Shakespeare's - he borrowed the plot from a few other sources-but his version is the ..

The Phantom of the Opera

Gaston Leroux

The Phantom of the Opera, or Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, is novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published in a serialized form, then was released as a book in 1910. It is the classic story o..

Treasure Island

Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island: the sensationally popular boys' tale by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is narrated by young Jim Hawkins, son of an innkeeper who sets sail on a schooner headed for a remote Caribbean isla..

Around the World in 80 Days

Jules Verne

Perhaps the inspiration for the show the Amazing Race, Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne is the story of the eccentric Englishman Phileas Fogg and his trusty French valet Passepartout, who, o..

Les Miserables

Victor Hugo

Les Miserables is an unforgettable 19th century masterpiece of French literature by Victor Hugo, which was first published in 1862. Les Miserables (or "the Miserable Ones") is a story filled with adve..