English-Language Classics

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy clash over pride, class, and first impressions before discovering they were wrong about nearly everything. Austen's wit is so precise it cuts without drawing blood.

An orphan boy receives a mysterious fortune and goes to London to become a gentleman, only to learn that wealth cannot buy worth. Dickens weaves a gothic mystery around a devastating lesson in humility and love.

On the Yorkshire moors, the fierce bond between Catherine and Heathcliff consumes everyone it touches across two generations. Brontë's only novel is less a love story than a force of nature committed to paper.

A young country woman is exploited by a wealthy predator and punished by a society that calls her the sinner. Hardy's anger at Victorian hypocrisy still burns on every page.

In a provincial English town, idealistic ambitions collide with the stubborn realities of marriage, money, and local politics. Eliot's panoramic novel earns its reputation as the greatest work of English realist fiction.

A beautiful young man stays eternally youthful while his hidden portrait absorbs every sin and excess. Wilde wraps a moral horror story in the most elegant prose the Victorian era produced.

A sailor journeys up the Congo River to find a brilliant ivory trader who has abandoned all restraint. Conrad's dense, unsettling novella asks how thin the line is between civilisation and savagery.