The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) is a masterwork of emotional complexity, heartbreak, and redemption by celebrated English author Thomas Hardy.Drunk and outraged, Michael Henchard auctions off his own wife and daughter for five guineas. The following morning, he searches for his family to no avail and, with the clarity of sobriety, swears off liquor for the next 21 years. In that time, he becomes a successful grain merchant and the titular Mayor of Casterb...

"A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism." The Communist Manifesto (1848) is one of the most important pieces of political writing in modern history, sparking outrage, revolution, and controversy since its initial publication in 1848.In the text, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels begin by laying out the different classes of people within society and how those classes interact with one another. They stress the exploitation of the...

Still a staple in history classrooms to this day, The Red Badge of Courage (1895) is at once a portal to a crucible moment in American history and a lyrical investigation into the origins of shame, bravery, and redemption within the human spirit.In the face of unrelenting and senseless brutality, why do some people flee while others stand their ground? This question is at the heart of the novel. The narrative follows Private Henry Fleming, a young soldier full of r...

When man petitions the heavens, is it God or the devil who answers? This question, central to the human experience, is the driving force behind Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s seminal 1806 play, Faust.Based loosely on the facts and dramatized retellings of 15th century alchemist, astrologer, and magician Johann Georg Faust, the play follows Faust’s search for limitless understanding and wisdom through magical means outside the realms of science and religion. The devil, keen t...

On the Origin of Species (1859) is legendary naturalist Charles Darwin's groundbreaking and foundational study that birthed the theory of evolutionary biology.Sparking controversy from the time of its publication to the present day, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, where upon individuals of the same species have a more robust chance of survival thanks to their unique combination of physical characteristics, completely changed how the world viewed huma...

An evergreen science fiction classic, Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatland presents an alternate vision of society rendered completely in two dimensions.In the titular Flatland, women are line segments and men are polygons with various side lengths and angles. Even in such a simple world, social hierarchies and inequality persist. Social status is determined by a man’s regularity of shape and their number of sides. Women, as line segments, are considered dangerous b...

"Of things, some depend upon ourselves, others do not depend upon ourselves." This simple opening line of The Enchiridion (c. 125 CE), the defining handbook on stoicism, contains Epictetus’ entire philosophy boiled down to its most essential: control what you can control and do not concern yourself with what you cannot.A direct influence on legendary thinkers like Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus prescribes constant vigilance for the burgeoning stoic. Vigilance ...

Billy Budd is the final novel from legendary author Herman Melville. Published posthumously almost thirty years after his death, the novel is renowned for its richness of character and its thematic ambiguity.Melville couches his tale of morality inside an exciting nautical adventure set during the tumultuous times of the Napoleonic Wars. The novel follows the titular Billy Budd, a handsome and charismatic sailor conscripted aboard a British Man 'O War name...

In The Confessions of Saint Augustine (c. 400 CE), Saint Augustine reveals in brutally honest details the agonizing process of maturation from a worldly and sinful young man to the great advocate for Christianity and virtue he would become.Saint Augustine of Hippo is now remembered as one of the great Christian philosophers of history, with his many works contributing significantly to concepts like theological anthropology, eschatology, and origin...

The only full-length novel of Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) is a tale that is as strange as it is adventurous, as comical as it is horrifying, and just about as Poe as it gets.Initially intended to be a realistic tale, the adventure of the titular Arthur, a stowaway aboard the whaling ship Grampus, is always turning stranger and harder to define, Poe’s powerful imagination leaking into the cracked hull of the narra...

Daisy Miller is Henry James’ sharpest critique of European high society and a must read for lovers of psychological drama, social deconstruction, and classic literature.The titular Daisy Miller is a woman whose genuine kindness and lust for life is anathema to the rigid and vain culture of 19th Century Europe. For refusing to conform, Daisy is the subject of gossip everywhere she goes and eventually cast out of high society all together, culminating in a m...

Plato’s Republic is structured as a dialogue between Socrates and three different challengers, laying out Plato’s views on justice, utopia, and the attributes of the ideal citizen within such a society.Plato purports that true justice provides meaning for both the individual and the community. As a hammer derives meaning from its true purpose of driving home the nail, so too does every person find meaning in their true purpose of creating and maintaining a just soc...