Novels
A curated library of major classic novels and long-form works.
Selected classics
Cosmo presents a curated catalog of classic works. Use the links to locate public-domain editions; copyright can vary by country and by translation or edition.
Latest Novels
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago to-day, the Parisians awoke to the sound of all the bells in the triple circuit of the city, the university, and the town ringing a full peal. n The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the […]
Read story →The Count of Monte Cristo
On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples. n As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Château d’If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgiou and Rion island. n Immediately, and according to custom, the ramparts […]
Read story →The Picture of Dorian Gray
The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. n From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on […]
Read story →Dracula
3 May. Bistritz.—Left Munich at 8.35 p.m. on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6.46, but train was an hour late. n Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. n The […]
Read story →The Invisible Man
The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. n He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of […]
Read story →The War of the Worlds
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own. n That men as busy as themselves about their various concerns would scrutinise and study, perhaps almost as narrowly as a […]
Read story →The Time Machine
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. n His pale grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. n The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver […]
Read story →The Wind in the Willows
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. n First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and […]
Read story →The Secret Garden
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. n It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. n Her hair was yellow, and her face was […]
Read story →The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. n Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made […]
Read story →Little Women
"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. n "It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. n "I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured […]
Read story →The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. n That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. n That is […]
Read story →The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
"Tom!" No answer. "TOM!" No answer. "What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!" No answer. n The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. n She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing […]
Read story →Moby-Dick
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. n It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating […]
Read story →The House of the Seven Gables
Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. n The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, […]
Read story →The Scarlet Letter
It is a little remarkable, that—though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends—an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. n The fact is, that this same impulse has become a ruling passion with me, and […]
Read story →Silas Marner
In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses—and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak—there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men. n By the side of the brawny […]
Read story →Middlemarch
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. n Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters. n Her profile as well as her stature […]
Read story →Oliver Twist
Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse. n And in this workhouse was born; on a day and […]
Read story →A Tale of Two Cities
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it […]
Read story →Great Expectations
My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, I called myself with my infant tongue Pip, and came to be called Pip. n So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of my tombstone and my sister—Mrs. Joe […]
Read story →Wuthering Heights
1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. n A perfect misanthropist’s Heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff […]
Read story →Jane Eyre
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question. n I […]
Read story →Pride and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. n However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding […]
Read story →Copyright note: Project Gutenberg states that most of its individual works are public domain in the United States, while its license warns that users outside the U.S. should check local law. Pakistan's Copyright Ordinance generally uses a life-plus-50-year term for published literary works. A translation can have its own copyright, so this page identifies the classic work and a historical translation edition rather than asserting that every modern edition is free to reproduce.