English Language Fiction Classics

Biographer Michael Shelden called Orwell’s Politics and the English Language “his most important essay on style”. First published in 1946, the essay exploded the language trends of the time and served as an inflection point in the debate about communication in the 20th century. This collection of essays published 1946-48 provides a comprehensive critique of the status of politics and speech in the mid-century.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Two months after the king's sudden death, his widow has married his brother. The court celebrates while the dead king's son—Prince Hamlet—drowns in grief and suspicion. Then guards report an impossible sighting: the dead king's ghost, walking the battlements in full armor. When Hamlet confronts the apparition, he learns a terrible truth: his father was murdered. Poisoned by his own brother. And the ghost demands revenge. But how do you kill a king? How do you trust a ghost? How do you act when your mother has betrayed your father's memory, ...

Robert Louis Stevenson's psychological thriller—minus the part where Victorian politeness buries the actual horror. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete, unabridged original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the Gothic suspense, zero Victorian torture. Mr. Utterson is a respectable London lawyer who notices something deeply wrong: his friend Dr. Jekyll has become obsessed with a violent, repulsive man named Mr. Hyde. Jekyll has even ...

Lewis Carroll's surreal fantasy masterpiece—minus the part where you're not sure if any of this is supposed to make sense. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete, unabridged original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the absurdist wonder, zero Victorian torture. Alice is having the most boring afternoon of her life when she spots a talking white rabbit in a waistcoat sprinting past her, panicking about being late. Being a curious kid with...

“Bewitching … Tokarczuk is an excellent storyteller.” —The New York Times A novel about the rich stories of small places, from the Nobel Prize–winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Books of Jacob and Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead A woman settles in a remote...

All effective debaters, whether they know it or not, employ Aristotle's 3 basic principles of effective argument that form the spine of Rhetoric. In Poetics, Aristotle draws a dramatic distinction between poetry and history. This collection also includes Aristotle's body of work that has come to be identified as Logic.

In the dead gray cold of Starkfield, Massachusetts, farmer Ethan Frome is struggling to scrape out a living. His duties are to his wife, Zeena - an ungrateful, soul-sick hypochondriac as frigid as the New England winter. When Zeena’s cousin Mattie arrives to help with the farm, the ethereal, gentle-natured beauty brings a light and a fugitive affection into Ethan’s life. Yet for Ethan and Mattie, daring to be happy - and together - will have its consequences.

The international bestselling novel sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected “wind” phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the...

Unlock the Wisdom of Sun Tzu—While Mastering Mandarin Chinese! Step into the world of ancient Chinese strategy with The Art of War for Language Learners—a unique bilingual Chinese-English audiobook that blends timeless wisdom with modern Mandarin Chinese language learning. Narrated by the authors themselves, LingLing and Huw, this edition brings Sun Tzu’s legendary classic to life with clear, line-by-line narration—first in Chinese, then in English—designed to sharpen your listening and speaking skills in both languages.

In search of an ideal civilization, Socrates leads Glaucon, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and others in debates about various subjects, including justice, truth, class, and art. For without righteousness, tyranny and injustice give rise to oligarchy. The influential dialogues of The Republic helped shape all of Western literature and philosophical thought. It is as much a doctrine of ethics and politics now as it was for the ancient Greeks, and its dilemma remains: how to create a perfect society populated by very imperfect human beings.

Herman Melville's epic tale of obsession and revenge—minus the 80-page detour about whale taxonomy. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the high-seas drama, zero Victorian torture. Ishmael's having a rough time on land, so he decides to sign up for a whaling voyage because apparently getting on a boat with a bunch of strangers to hunt massive ocean predators is excellent therapy. Everything ...

Gothic romance at its most unhinged—now without the Victorian sentence structure from hell. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the moors, revenge, and toxic romance, zero Victorian torture. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff are obsessed with each other in the most destructive way possible—think soulmates if soulmates were also each other's worst enemies. They grew up together on the ...

Mary Shelley's groundbreaking horror masterpiece—minus the part where you need a PhD to follow the nested flashbacks. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the gothic horror, zero Victorian torture. Victor Frankenstein is a genius scientist with a terrible idea: what if he could reanimate dead tissue and create life from nothing? Spoiler alert: he succeeds. Double spoiler alert: this is the ...

The prescient feminist fable and international classic described as “The Handmaid’s Tale for our age” (The Economist), from the Booker-shortlisted author of Stone Yard Devotional When the women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the...

In the treasured follow-up to Little Women, Jo March returns as a mother of two sons and schoolmaster to twelve orphans. Now Jo Bhaer, literature’s beloved heroine has transformed Plumfield, the decorous New England estate of the March sisters’ youth, into a progressive school. During the coming year, newcomer Nat Blake joins the other restless, rascally seedlings as they grow under the tutelage of an equally spirited woman who extols the virtues of self-expression.

In From Ritual to Romance, medievalist Jessie L. Weston proposes a radical understanding of the Holy Grail legends. She argues that ancient pagan rituals, brought to England by the Romans, were secretly kept alive through the tales of King Arthur and his Knights.

Jane Austen's legendary romance—minus the part where you have to Google every third word. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the Regency drama, zero Victorian torture. Elizabeth Bennet has ninety-nine problems and they're all related to her mother's unhinged obsession with marrying off five daughters before they die penniless and alone. Enter: Mr. Darcy, the new rich guy in town who's so ...

Bequeathed a rare diamond by her late uncle, heiress Rachel Verinder has no idea it was stolen from an Indian temple or that it has a cursed history. When the diamond disappears on her eighteenth birthday, multiple suspects - including Rachel’s suitor, Franklin Blake - are implicated in its theft. Determined to prove his innocence, Franklin begins his own investigation. Did one of his fellow Englishmen steal the jewel? Or was it whisked back to India? The case, which unfolds through multiple narratives, takes startling twists and turns in pursuit of the truth.

Wild Cards now in development for TV! Dead Man's Hand combines the writing talents of George R. R. Martin & John Jos. Miller Chrysalis, the glass-skinned queen of the Joker underworld, has been found brutally murdered in her popular restaurant, the Crystal Palace. Now two men are out to find...

Ten years ago, Mary Morstan’s father, an officer in an Indian regiment, vanished. Four years later, elegant pearls began to arrive, six in total, and now she holds an invitation to meet her mysterious anonymous benefactor. As Miss Morstan shares this peculiar tale with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, she urges the detectives to accompany her. Her only clues to her father’s disappearance: a map of a fortress with the names of four strangers and an assertion that she’s been dreadfully wronged.