Fiction Classics Books

In the Cage is a novella by Henry James, first published as a book in 1898. This long story centers on an unnamed London telegraphist. She deciphers clues to her clients' personal lives from the often cryptic telegrams they submit to her as she sits in the "cage" at the post office. Sensitive and...

Bouvard et Pécuchet is an unfinished satirical work by Gustave Flaubert, published in 1881 after his death in 1880. Although conceived in 1863 as Les Deux Cloportes ("The Two Woodlice"), and partially inspired by a short story of Barthélemy Maurice (Les Deux Greffiers, "The Two Court Clerks"...

The Touchstone is a novella written by Edith Wharton. It was published in 1900 and was her first published novella. Stephen Glennard's career is falling apart and he desperately needs money so that he may marry his beautiful fiancee. He happens upon an advertisement in a London magazine promising...

Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) is a novel by E. M. Forster, originally entitled Monteriano. The title comes from a line in Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism: "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread". In 1991 it was made into a film by Charles Sturridge, starring Rupert Graves...

The Longest Journey (1907) is a bildungsroman by E. M. Forster. Rickie Elliot is a student at early 20th century Cambridge, a university that seems like paradise to him, amongst bright if cynical companions, when he receives a visit from two friends, an engaged young woman, Agnes Pembroke, and her...

Visiting Gilberte at her home in Combray Marcel learns that Swann’s Way and the Guermantes’ Way are not irreconcilable. The war affects everyone: Robert dies a hero at the front, Charlus haunts the male brothels of wartime Paris. M, still an unsuccessful writer, returns to Paris after the war...

Marcel gradually recovers from the departure and subsequent death of Albertine. He rediscovers Gilberte who, with her mother Odette, is now accepted by smart Society while the memory of her father Swann is repressed and destroyed. Marcel visits Venice with his mother and learns by letter of...

Marcel brings Albertine to live with him in Paris where he treats her more like a captive. Obsessively jealous, he discards his social circle and alternately tries to please her or to leave her. Above all he tortures himself thinking about, asking about and neurotically thwarting any possible...

In this fourth volume, Proust’s novel takes up for the first time the theme of homosexual love and examines how destructive sexual jealousy can be for those who suffer it. Sodom and Gomorrah is also an unforgiving analysis of both the decadent high society of Paris and the rise of a philistine...

"Within a Budding Grove" describes the first shoots of an astonishing love affair. When Proust’s adolescent narrator travels from Paris to the sunny seaside town of Balbec he meets an intriguing set of new acquaintances who provide him with both friendship and entertainment. Most significantly...