Classic American NovelsLike this list

27 items

• The Great Gatsby

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940

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  The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Sun Also Rises

  Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961

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  A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Their Eyes Were Watching God

  Hurston, Zora Neale

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  One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Beloved

  Morrison, Toni, 1931-2019

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  Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

  Smith, Betty, 1896-1972

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  From the moment she entered the world, Francie needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family's erratic and eccentric…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• To Kill a Mockingbird

  Lee, Harper

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  A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Catcher in the Rye

  Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919-

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  The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Invisible Man

  Ellison, Ralph

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  The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood," and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Native Son

  Wright, Richard, 1908-1960

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  Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Native Son is the story of Bigger Thomas, a young Black man caught in a downward spiral after killing a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Written with the distinctive rhythm of a modern crime story, this…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Fahrenheit 451

  Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012

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  Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• On the Road

  Kerouac, Jack, 1922-1969

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  On the Road tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naivete¿¿ and wild ambition and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Chosen

  a Novel

  Potok, Chaim

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  It is the now-classic story of two fathers and two sons and the pressures on all of them to pursue the religion they share in the way that is best suited to each. And as the boys grow into young men, they discover in the other a lost spiritual…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Bell Jar

  Plath, Sylvia

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  Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under--maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• If Beale Street Could Talk

  a Novel

  Baldwin, James, 1924-1987

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  Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Age of Innocence

  Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937

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  The novel follows Newland Archer, a young, aristocratic lawyer engaged to the cloistered, beautiful May Welland. When May's disgraced cousin Ellen arrives from Europe, fleeing her marriage to a Polish Count, her worldly, independent nature intrigues…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Grapes of Wrath

  Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968

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  A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man's fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman's stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes the very nature of equality and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Bless Me, Ultima

  Anaya, Rudolfo A.

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  Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the family ties that bind and rend him, and he will discover himself…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Moby-Dick, Or, The Whale

  Melville, Herman, 1819-1891

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  In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

  McCullers, Carson, 1917-1967

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  Twelve-year-old Frankie is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother's wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her family maid, Berenice, and her six-year-old cousin??--??not to mention her own unbridled…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories

  James, Henry, 1843-1916,

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  A masterpiece in ambivalence and the uncanny, The Turn of the Screw tells the story of a young woman who is hired as governess to two seemingly innocent children in an isolated country house. As the tale progresses she begins to see the ghost of her…Read moreRead more of this annotation