Classics bestsellers

The first novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series

SOON TO BE AN APPLE TV+ SERIES, COMING 9/24/21 • Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
 
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the... Read more »

• Pride and Prejudice was only half the story •
 
If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.
 
In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing...

In this sequel to the bestselling Mythos, legendary author and actor Stephen Fry moves from the exploits of the Olympian gods to the deeds of mortal heroes.

Perseus. Jason. Atalanta. Theseus. Heracles. Rediscover the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths. Whether recounting a tender love affair or a heroic triumph, Fry deftly... Read more »

Rebecca: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! *
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she... Read more »

“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.” —Zadie Smith

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love...

Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred

One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold...

The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a sprawling epic in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love’s absence. Read more »

Don Quixote is the classic story. Called the first modern novel, this marvelous book has stood the test of time to become irrevocably intertwined with the fabric of society. Sixteenth-century Spanish gentleman Don Quixote, fed by his own delusional fantasies, takes to the road in search of chivalrous adventures. But his quest leads to more... Read more »

John Steinbeck's powerful evocation of the suffering and hardship caused by the Great Depression, and a panoramic vision of the struggle for the American Dream, The Grapes of Wrath includes a critical introduction by Robert DeMott in Penguin Modern Classics. 'I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.'... Read more »

2007 Audie Award Finalist for Classics

The only authorized edition of Ernest Hemingway’s first novel.

“The ideal companion for troubled times: equal parts Continental escape and serious grappling with the question of what it means to be, and feel, lost.” —The Wall Street Journal

The Sun Also Rises is a classic example of Hemingway’s spare but... Read more »

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." This is the famous opening sentence of Tolstoi's epic love story between Anna Arkadyevna Karenina and her Count Vronsky. Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy is a classic story of love and tragedy against the backdrop of pre-revolutionary Russia. The extravagant and... Read more »

A realistic and emotional look at a woman who falls into the grips of insanity written by the iconic American writer Sylvia Plath

“It is this perfectly wrought prose and the freshness of Plath’s voice in The Bell Jar that make this book enduring in its appeal.” — USA Today

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant,...

Foretold he will be king, Macbeth embarks on a path of murderous treason, stopping at nothing to seize the throne...

Recorded at Glamis Castle in Scotland with a full cast, Almost Tangible's multi-award winning Macbeth is a gripping, immersive sound experience that puts the listener at the heart of the action in Shakespeare's epic drama about...

Mitford's most enduringly popular novel, The Pursuit of Love is a classic comedy about growing up and falling in love among the privileged and eccentric.

Mitford modeled her characters on her own famously unconventional family. We are introduced to the Radletts through the eyes of their cousin Fanny, who stays with them at Alconleigh, their... Read more »

A wonderfully narrated version of this classic novel by Jane Austen. Penny Wyatt-Gold has the perfect voice to bring all the author's characters to life in a way that will enthrall and entertain.

A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of the Gormenghast novels which, along with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. Peake has created a world where all is like a dream—lush, fantastical, vivid, and yet symbolic of a dark struggle.

At the center...

Dashing young Edmond Dantes has everything: a fine reputation, an appointment as captain of a ship, and the heart of a beautiful woman. But his perfect life is shattered when three jealous friends conspire to destroy him. Falsely accused of a political crime, Edmond is locked away for life in the infamous prison at the French Chateau d’If. But...

The young poet Stephen has been recalled from Paris to Dublin to be at his mother's deathbed. But he refuses her dying wishes: to kneel and pray for her. Now, holed up in his Martello tower outside the city walls, he has to suffer the taunts of Buck Mulligan by day and, by night, the vision of 'her eyes, shaking out of death to shake and bend my... Read more »

The magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning classic from N. Scott Momaday, with a new preface read by the author

A young Native American, Abel has come home from war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his grandfather’s, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and...

This novel provides a highly charged examination of human suffering and human sacrifice, private experience and public history, during the French Revolution.

A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most exciting novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, it tells the story of a family threatened by the terrible events... Read more »

"John Irving's best novel . . . He is among the very best storytellers." - Philadelphia Inquirer From one of America's most beloved and respected writers comes the classic story of Homer Wells, an orphan, and Wilbur Larch, a doctor without children of his own, who develop an extraordinary bond with one another.   "Entertaining and affecting . .... Read more »

A fiercely beautiful novel about one woman's struggle to reclaim a life shattered by betrayal from the 2018 winner of the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

One night, in the dead of winter, a mysterious stranger arrives in the small Irish town of Cloonoila. Broodingly handsome, worldly, and charismatic, Dr. Vladimir... Read more »

A poignant masterpiece of wrenching personal expression from the author of On the Road and The Dharma Bums

In this 1962 novel, Kerouac's alter ego Jack Duluoz, overwhelmed by success and excess, gravitates back and forth between wild binges in San Francisco and an isolated cabin on the California coast where he attempts to renew his spirit and... Read more »

Originally published in 1854, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, is a vivid account of the time that Henry D. Thoreau lived alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond. It is one of the most influential and compelling books in American literature. This new paperback edition-introduced by noted American writer John Updike-celebrates the 150th... Read more »

Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on a dinner party tip from Mrs. Algernon Stitch, Lord Copper feels convinced that he has... Read more »

A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House. Read more »

Willa Cather’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel tells of the making of a young American soldier.

Claude Wheeler, the sensitive, aspiring protagonist, resembles the youngest son of a peculiarly American fairy tale. His fortune is ready-made for him, but he refuses to settle for it. Alienated from his crass father and pious mother, all but rejected by...

Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering "the cause of generation and life" and "bestowing animation upon lifeless... Read more »

The sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs finds Judy Abbott's best friend Sallie McBride taking total control over the John Grier Home, the orphanage where Judy grew up. Read more »

The final rousing adventures of Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers

Deep inside the dreaded Bastille, a twenty-three-year-old prisoner called merely "Philippe" has languished for eight long, dark years. He does not know his real name or what crime he is supposed to have committed. But Aramis, one of the original Three Musketeers, has bribed his way...

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century.

From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New York demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit....

"Rebecca is a work of immense intelligence and wit, elegantly written, thematically solid, suspenseful.." --Washington Post

"Daphne du Maurier created a scale by which modern women can measure their feelings." --Stephen King

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept... Read more »

For over sixty years, readers of all ages have been enchanted by the magical realms, the epic battles between good and evil, and the unforgettable creatures of Narnia.

This box set includes all seven titles in The Chronicles of Narnia—The Magician's Nephew; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of...

Exquisite prose and wondrous storytelling have helped make Rudolfo Anaya the father of Chicano literature in English. Indeed, Anaya's tales fairly shimmer with the haunting beauty and richness of his culture. The winner of the Pen Center West Award for Fiction for his unforgettable novel Alburquerque, Anaya is perhaps best loved for his classic... Read more »

An undisputed masterpiece of twentieth-century literature, perfect for Fitzgerald lovers and classics collectors alike.

Set against a backdrop of jazz music, bootlegging, and lavish parties, The Great Gatsby is the story of Midwesterner Nick Carraway’s curious introduction to the decadent world of his mysterious, wealthy neighbor Jay Gatsby,...

The second novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series

Led by its founding father, the psychohistorian Hari Seldon, and utilizing science and technology, the Foundation survived the greed and barbarism of its neighboring warrior-planets. Now cleverness and courage may not be enough. For the Empire—the... Read more »

This audiobook contains the complete novels of Jane Austen in the chronological order of their original publication. - Lady Susan (starts at Chapter 1) - Sense and Sensibility (starts at Chapter 44) - Pride and Prejudice (starts at Chapter 96) - Mansfield Park (starts at Chapter 159) - Emma (starts at Chapter 209) - Persuasion (starts at... Read more »

"In classical Greece men called rhapsodes memorized and recited “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” My own rhapsode is the English actor Dan Stevens, whom fans of “Downton Abbey” will know as Matthew Crawley. He’s been performing the Robert Fitzgerald translation, and no Hellene could do it better." — Wall Street Journal

Robert Fitzgerald's...

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching--yet always with... Read more »

Celebrating its 75th anniversary, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men remains one of America's most widely read and beloved novels. Here is Steinbeck’s dramatic adaptation of his novel-as-play, which received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1937-1938 and has featured a number of actors who have played the iconic roles of... Read more »

One of the great classics of world literature and the inspiration for the most beloved stage musical of all time, Les MisErables is legendary author Victor Hugo's masterpiece. This extraordinary English version by renowned translator Julie Rose captures all the majesty and brilliance of Hugo's work. Here is the timeless story of the... Read more »

The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of every man's journey through life. In the myths and legends that are retold here, the energy and poetry of Homer's original is captured in a bold, contemporary idiom, giving us an edition of The Odyssey that is a joy to listen to, worth savoring treasuring for its sheer lyrical mastery. This... Read more »

The fifth novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series

THE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE UPCOMING APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION, COMING 9/24/21

Golan Trevize, former Councilman of the First Foundation, has chosen the future, and it is Gaia. A superorganism, Gaia is a holistic planet with a common consciousness so... Read more »

Awe and exhiliration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of... Read more »

The fourth novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series

THE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE UPCOMING APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION, COMING 9/24/21

At last, the costly and bitter war between the two Foundations has come to an end. The scientists of the First Foundation have proved victorious, and now they return to... Read more »

Blackstone Audio presents a new recording of this immensely popular book.

George Orwell depicts a gray, totalitarian world dominated by Big Brother and its vast network of agents, including the Thought Police, a world in which news is manufactured according to the authorities’ will and people live tepid lives by rote.

Winston Smith, the hero with...