BePublished - 132 Classic Books, Free to Read & Listen

A married aristocrat begins a passionate affair with a dashing cavalry officer, setting off a chain of events that leads to jealousy, social ruin, and tragic consequences.

classicrussianromance3h

The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett · 1911

A spoiled, lonely girl is sent to live at her uncle's mysterious estate on the Yorkshire moors, where she discovers a hidden garden and the transformative power of nature and friendship.

classicchildrennature2h 30min

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1880

Three brothers grapple with faith, doubt, and morality after their dissolute father is murdered, forcing each to confront the darkest corners of human nature.

classicrussianphilosophy1h 30min

Bleak House

Charles Dickens

Bleak House

Charles Dickens · 1853

A sprawling tale centered on an interminable court case that ruins lives, exposing the injustice and absurdity of the Victorian legal system.

classicbritishsocial2h

Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen · 1817

A naive young woman's love of Gothic novels leads her to misinterpret the world around her during a stay at the mysterious Northanger Abbey.

classicbritishromance3h

Persuasion

Jane Austen

Persuasion

Jane Austen · 1817

A woman who was persuaded to reject a naval officer years earlier gets a second chance at love when he returns successful and still single.

classicbritishromance2h 30min

Mansfield Park

Jane Austen

Mansfield Park

Jane Austen · 1814

A poor young girl taken in by wealthy relatives must navigate the complexities of love, duty, and moral integrity in Regency-era England.

classicbritishromance3h

A Room with a View

E.M. Forster

A Room with a View

E.M. Forster · 1908

A young English woman travels to Italy, where a chance encounter challenges her conventional upbringing and forces her to choose between passion and propriety.

classicbritishromance2h 30min

The Age of Innocence

Edith Wharton

The Age of Innocence

Edith Wharton · 1920

A New York socialite engaged to the perfect woman finds himself drawn to her scandalous cousin, torn between desire and the rigid expectations of 1870s society.

classicamericanromance45min

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe · 1852

The story of enslaved people in the antebellum South, depicting the cruelty of slavery and the humanity of those who endured it.

classicamericansocial-justice3h

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Baroness Orczy

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Baroness Orczy · 1905

A mysterious English nobleman leads a secret double life, rescuing French aristocrats from the guillotine during the Reign of Terror.

classicadventurehistorical3h

Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens · 1838

An orphan boy escapes a workhouse only to fall in with a gang of young pickpockets in the criminal underworld of London.

classicbritishsocial3h

Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift · 1726

A ship's surgeon recounts his voyages to fantastical lands inhabited by tiny people, giants, and intelligent horses, each journey a biting satire of human nature.

classicsatireadventure3h

The Phantom of the Opera

Gaston Leroux

The Phantom of the Opera

Gaston Leroux · 1910

A mysterious masked genius haunts the Paris Opera House, terrorizing its occupants and falling obsessively in love with a young soprano.

classicgothichorror3h

Peter Pan

J.M. Barrie

Peter Pan

J.M. Barrie · 1911

Three children follow a magical boy to Neverland, where they encounter pirates, fairies, and the terror of growing up.

classicchildrenfantasy2h 30min

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum · 1900

A Kansas girl is swept away by a tornado to a magical land, where she must follow the Yellow Brick Road to find a way home.

classicchildrenfantasy2h

The Three Musketeers

Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers

Alexandre Dumas · 1844

A young Gascon journeys to Paris to join the Musketeers and becomes entangled in court intrigue, duels, and a dangerous affair involving the Queen of France.

classicadventurehistorical3h

The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde · 1895

Two gentlemen create fictional alter egos to escape social obligations, leading to a farcical tangle of mistaken identities, romantic misunderstandings, and razor-sharp wit.

classiccomedysatire1h

Middlemarch

George Eliot

Middlemarch

George Eliot · 1871

An ambitious young woman and an idealistic doctor navigate love, politics, and provincial life in a richly detailed portrait of English society.

classicbritishvictorian45min

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy · 1891

A young peasant woman's life is destroyed by the hypocrisy and rigid morality of Victorian society after she is seduced by a wealthy man.

classicbritishtragedy1h 30min

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe · 1719

A shipwrecked sailor survives alone on a deserted island for 28 years, building a life from nothing and grappling with solitude.

classicadventuresurvival3h

Ivanhoe

Walter Scott

Ivanhoe

Walter Scott · 1819

A disinherited Saxon knight returns from the Crusades to a divided England, fighting for justice and love amid Norman tyranny.

classichistoricaladventure3h

Anne of Green Gables

L. M. Montgomery

Anne of Green Gables

L. M. Montgomery · 1908

An orphan girl with a vivid imagination is mistakenly sent to a farm on Prince Edward Island, where she transforms the lives of everyone around her.

classicchildrencanadian3h

Ethan Frome

Edith Wharton

Ethan Frome

Edith Wharton · 1911

A poor farmer in bleak New England is trapped in a loveless marriage and falls for his wife's young cousin, leading to devastating consequences.

classicamericantragedy2h

The Awakening

Kate Chopin

The Awakening

Kate Chopin · 1899

A young wife vacationing on the Gulf Coast awakens to desires beyond her marriage and motherhood, challenging the expectations of Creole society.

classicamericanfeminist2h 30min

Dead Souls

Nikolai Gogol

Dead Souls

Nikolai Gogol · 1842

A charming con man travels through provincial Russia buying the ownership rights to deceased serfs, exposing the corruption and absurdity of the feudal system.

classicrussiansatire3h

Sons and Lovers

D. H. Lawrence

Sons and Lovers

D. H. Lawrence · 1913

A young man struggles to break free from his mother's possessive love while navigating relationships and his artistic ambitions in a mining town.

classicbritishmodernist3h

The Man Who Was Thursday

G. K. Chesterton

The Man Who Was Thursday

G. K. Chesterton · 1908

A poet-turned-detective infiltrates a secret council of anarchists, each named after a day of the week, only to discover nothing is as it seems.

classicmysteryphilosophical3h

Silas Marner

George Eliot

Silas Marner

George Eliot · 1861

A lonely weaver betrayed by his community hoards gold in exile until a golden-haired orphan appears at his door and transforms his life.

classicbritishvictorian2h 30min

Candide

Voltaire

Candide

Voltaire · 1759

A naive young man is cast out of paradise and travels the world, encountering war, disaster, and cruelty, learning that optimism alone cannot explain the world.

classicfrenchsatire2h

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce · 1916

A young Irish man grows from childhood through university, rejecting religion and nationalism to forge his identity as an artist.

classicirishmodernist1h 30min

The Turn of the Screw

Henry James

The Turn of the Screw

Henry James · 1898

A young governess becomes convinced that the children in her care are being haunted by malevolent ghosts, but the truth may be far more disturbing.

classicgothichorror2h

Notes from Underground

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Notes from Underground

Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1864

A bitter, isolated man writes a confession from his underground den, raging against reason, progress, and the smugness of civilization.

classicrussianphilosophy2h 30min

The Jungle

Upton Sinclair

The Jungle

Upton Sinclair · 1906

A Lithuanian immigrant family's struggles in Chicago's brutal meatpacking industry expose the exploitation and corruption of American capitalism.

classicamericansocial-justice3h

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

Hamlet

William Shakespeare · 1603

A Danish prince feigns madness to avenge his murdered father, wrestling with doubt, mortality, and the corruption of the royal court.

classictragedybritish2h

A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare · 1596

Lovers, fairies, and amateur actors collide in an enchanted forest, where magic potions cause hilarious romantic chaos.

classiccomedybritish1h

A Doll's House

Henrik Ibsen

A Doll's House

Henrik Ibsen · 1879

A seemingly happy wife discovers that her marriage is built on deception and dependence, leading to one of theater's most famous door slams.

classicplayfeminist1h 30min

Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw · 1913

A phonetics professor bets he can transform a Cockney flower girl into a lady of high society, but she has ideas of her own.

classiccomedybritish2h

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass · 1845

A formerly enslaved man tells his own story of bondage, brutality, and escape, becoming one of the most powerful arguments against slavery ever written.

classicamericanautobiography2h 30min

Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes

Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes · 1651

A foundational work of political philosophy arguing that a strong sovereign authority is necessary to prevent the "war of all against all."

classicphilosophypolitical3h

The Enchanted April

Elizabeth von Arnim

The Enchanted April

Elizabeth von Arnim · 1922

Four very different London women rent an Italian castle for April, and the Mediterranean sun slowly thaws their frozen lives and marriages.

classicbritishromance3h

The Blue Castle

L. M. Montgomery

The Blue Castle

L. M. Montgomery · 1926

A repressed 29-year-old woman receives a terminal diagnosis and decides to finally live on her own terms, scandalizing her controlling family.

classiccanadianromance3h

The King in Yellow

Robert W. Chambers

The King in Yellow

Robert W. Chambers · 1895

Connected stories revolving around a sinister play that drives all who read it to madness, blending decadence with cosmic dread.

classichorrorweird-fiction3h

Twenty Years After

Alexandre Dumas

Twenty Years After

Alexandre Dumas · 1845

The four musketeers reunite two decades later amid civil war and palace intrigue, proving that age has not dulled their swords or their friendship.

classicadventurehistorical3h

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Mark Twain

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Mark Twain · 1889

A 19th-century American engineer is transported to Arthurian England, where he attempts to modernize the medieval world with hilarious and devastating results.

classicamericansatire3h

Cranford

Elizabeth Gaskell

Cranford

Elizabeth Gaskell · 1853

The ladies of a small English town navigate genteel poverty, social rituals, and quiet dramas with dignity and dry humor.

classicbritishvictorian3h

Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy

Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy · 1895

A working-class man's dreams of attending university are crushed by class barriers, disastrous marriages, and a society that punishes ambition.

classicbritishtragedy2h

Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare · 1602

A shipwrecked woman disguises herself as a man, creating a hilarious love triangle in the household of a mourning countess.

classiccomedybritish1h 30min

Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman · 1855

A revolutionary collection of poems celebrating the self, the body, nature, democracy, and the American spirit in unprecedented free verse.

classicamericanpoetry3h

Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf

Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf · 1925

A day in the life of a London socialite preparing for a party, weaving between present and memory in a revolutionary narrative that changed the novel forever.

classicbritishmodernist4h

The Sun Also Rises

Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises

Ernest Hemingway · 1926

American and British expatriates travel from Paris to Pamplona for the running of the bulls, drinking and loving their way through postwar disillusionment.

classicamericanmodernist3h

A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway · 1929

An American ambulance driver on the Italian front in World War I falls in love with an English nurse, and together they try to escape the war.

classicamericanwar4h

The Sound and the Fury

William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury

William Faulkner · 1929

The decline of a once-proud Southern family told through four narrators, including a mentally disabled man whose fragmented consciousness opens the novel.

classicamericanmodernist4h

As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner

As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner · 1930

A poor Mississippi family hauls their mother's coffin across the countryside to bury her in her hometown, each family member narrating their darkly comic journey.

classicamericanmodernist3h

Manhattan Transfer

John Dos Passos

Manhattan Transfer

John Dos Passos · 1925

A kaleidoscopic portrait of New York City in the early 20th century, following dozens of characters through the chaos, ambition, and heartbreak of the metropolis.

classicamericanmodernist4h

Lady Chatterley's Lover

D. H. Lawrence

Lady Chatterley's Lover

D. H. Lawrence · 1928

A woman married to a paralyzed aristocrat begins a passionate affair with the gamekeeper, in a novel that was banned for decades for its frank depiction of sex and class.

classicbritishromance5h

The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett

The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett · 1930

San Francisco private eye Sam Spade gets tangled in a dangerous hunt for a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette when his partner is murdered.

classicamericannoir3h

Red Harvest

Dashiell Hammett

Red Harvest

Dashiell Hammett · 1929

A detective arrives in a corrupt mining town and proceeds to clean it up by turning the warring factions against each other, with bloody results.

classicamericannoir3h

Bambi, a Life in the Woods

Felix Salten

Bambi, a Life in the Woods

Felix Salten · 1923

A young deer grows up in the forest, learning about life, danger, love, and loss in this surprisingly deep and sometimes dark coming-of-age tale.

classicchildrennature2h 30min

Cane

Jean Toomer

Cane

Jean Toomer · 1923

A groundbreaking blend of poetry, prose, and drama capturing Black life in the rural South and urban North during the early 20th century.

classicamericanharlem-renaissance2h

North of Boston

Robert Frost

North of Boston

Robert Frost · 1914

The poetry collection that made Frost famous, featuring "Mending Wall" and "The Death of the Hired Man" in the voice of rural New England.

classicamericanpoetry1h

The Red House Mystery

A. A. Milne

The Red House Mystery

A. A. Milne · 1922

A guest at an English country house is found shot dead in the study, and an amateur detective and his friend set out to solve the locked-room mystery.

classicbritishmystery3h

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin · 1791

One of America's Founding Fathers tells his own story, from runaway apprentice to world-famous scientist, diplomat, and statesman.

classicamericanautobiography30min

Far from the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy

Far from the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy · 1874

An independent woman farmer juggles the attentions of three very different suitors on the windswept Wessex downs.

classicbritishromance30min

Grimms' Fairy Tales

Brothers Grimm

Grimms' Fairy Tales

Brothers Grimm · 1812

The definitive collection of folk tales including Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, and dozens more stories that have enchanted readers for centuries.

classicgermanfairy-tales30min

The Merchant of Venice

William Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice

William Shakespeare · 1600

A merchant borrows money from a moneylender who demands a pound of flesh as collateral, leading to one of literature's most famous courtroom scenes.

classicbritishplay1h

The Prince and the Pauper

Mark Twain

The Prince and the Pauper

Mark Twain · 1881

Two identical boys, one a prince and one a pauper, swap places in Tudor England, each discovering how the other half lives.

classicamericanadventure30min

The Wind in the Willows

Kenneth Grahame

The Wind in the Willows

Kenneth Grahame · 1908

Mole, Rat, Badger, and the irrepressible Mr. Toad share adventures along the English riverbank in a timeless tale of friendship and home.

classicbritishchildren30min

Ulysses

James Joyce

Ulysses

James Joyce · 1922

A single day in Dublin follows Leopold Bloom through encounters mundane and profound, reimagining Homer's Odyssey in the most revolutionary novel of the 20th century.

classicirishmodernist12h

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque · 1929

A young German soldier and his classmates experience the horror of trench warfare in World War I, watching their youth and humanity stripped away by combat.

classicgermanwar3h

The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer · 1400

A group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury Cathedral pass the time by telling stories that range from bawdy comedy to courtly romance to moral fables.

classicbritishmedieval6h

Aesop's Fables

Aesop

Aesop's Fables

Aesop · 600 BC

The tortoise and the hare, the fox and the grapes, the boy who cried wolf: timeless short tales with sharp moral lessons that have shaped storytelling for 2,600 years.

classicancientfables2h

Short Fiction

Edgar Allan Poe