Fiction : Classics

This edition, the famous Constance Garnett translation, has been revised throughout by Leonard J. Kent and Nina Berberova. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."  So begins Anna Karenina , Leo Tolstoy's great modern novel of an adulterous affair set against the backdrop of Moscow and St. more...

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"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Anna Karenina, also Anglicised as Anna Karenin , is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger . Tolstoy clashed with its editor Mikhail Katkov over issues that arose in the final installment; therefore, the novel's first complete appearance was in book form. Widely regarded as a pinnacle in realist fiction, Tolstoy considered Anna Karenina his first true novel. The character of Anna was likely inspired, in part, by Maria Hartung (1832–1919), the elder daughter of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. Soon after meeting her at dinner, Tolstoy began reading Pushkin's prose and once had a fleeting daydream of "a bare exquisite aristocratic elbow", which proved to be the first intimation of Anna's character. Although most Russian critics panned the novel on its publication as a "trifling romance of high life", Fyodor Dostoevsky declared it to be "flawless as a work of art." His opinion was seconded by Vladimir Nabokov, who especially admired "the flawless magic of Tolstoy's style" and the motif of the moving train, subtly introduced in the first chapters (the children playing with a toy train) and inexorably developed in subsequent chapters (Anna's nightmare), heralding the novel's majestic finale. According to a recent poll of 125 contemporary authors, published in a book entitled The Top Ten , Anna Karenina is the greatest novel ever written. [Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina] more...

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"Anne Of Geierstein, or The Maiden Of The Mist" by Sir Walter Scott is a classic work of literature that can be enjoyed by all. Download "Anne Of Geierstein, or The Maiden Of The Mist" and enjoy another quality Digireads.com publication. more...

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With a signature style that is at once bawdy and delicate, as well as a fearless penchant for lampooning the rich and powerful, Aristophanes remains arguably the finest satirist of all time. Collected here are all 11 of his surviving plays-newly translated by the distinguished poet and translator Paul Roche. more...

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Around the World in Eighty Days is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the Reform Club. The story starts in London October 2, 1872. Phileas Fogg is a wealthy British gentleman who lives unmarried in solitude at 24 Saville Row. Despite his wealth, which is of unknown origin, Mr. Fogg lives a modest life with habits carried out with mathematically precisely. As is noted in the first chapter, very little can be said about Mr. Fogg's social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club. Having dismissed his former valet, James Foster, for bringing him shaving water at 84 degrees Fahrenheit rather than the regular 86, Mr. Fogg hires the Frenchman Passepartout, of around 30 years of age, as a replacement. Later that day in the Reform Club, he gets involved in an argument over an article in The Daily Telegraph , stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. This calculation does not take into account practical matters like trouble finding transportation, but Fogg is sure that with his superbly calculative mind he can actually do it. He accepts a wager for £20,000 [equal to £2,500,000 today] from his fellow club members, which he will receive if he makes it around the world in 80 days. Accompanied by his manservant Passepartout, he leaves London by train at 8.45 P.M. on October 2, 1872, and thus is due back at the Reform Club at the same time 80 days later, on December 21. [Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_in_Eighty_Days_%28book%29] more...

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