O. Henry was an American short-story writer.  He is remembered as a master of surprise endings.  A twist of plot, which turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance, is typical of O. Henry's stories.

Another excerpt from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, this one "The Beautiful and the damned".[Read More]

Another excerpt from Thomas Hardy.  This one from "The Trumpet Major".

Yet another Dickens excerpt, this one from Martin Chuzzlewit.[Read More]

Anton Chekhov, born in the Ukraine, is remembered as one of the masters of the modern short story.[Read More]

Another excerpt from D. H. Lawrence.[Read More]

Romeo's famous speech to Juliet from Shakespeare's play of the same name.[Read More]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German poet, playwright, and novelist, is best known for his two-part poetic drama Faust, which took nearly a lifetime to write. He is one of the greatest figures of the German Romantic period.

An excerpt from Fenimore Cooper's most famous novel, "The Last of the Mohicans".[Read More]

A second excerpt from "Justine" by Lawrence Durrell.[Read More]

Kate Douglas Wiggin was American author and educator who wrote Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm in 1903.

Le Père Goriot or Father Goriot is an 1835 by Honore De Balzac.  Set in Paris of the early 1800’s, it follows the lives of three characters: the elderly Goriot; a mysterious criminal-in-hiding and an innocent law student.

“The Way of All Flesh” is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler which attacked Victorian-era hypocrisy. It represents a relaxation from the traditional religious outlook and was accepted as part of the general revolution against Victorianism. 

An excerpt from what many consider one of Freud's more important works, "Civilization and its Discontents".[Read More]

Another excerpt from Hawthorne; this one from "The Marble Faun".[Read More]