Classics - Satire and Social Commentary

Volpone (or The Fox) is a comedy in five acts, performed about 1605–1606 and published in 1607, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable....

Animal Farm is a dystopian allegorical novella. It reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II. Orwell, being a dem...

In the delightful social comedy of Pride and Prejudice (1813) Jane Austen delicately handles the problem of love and money in marriage where, in sp...

Oliver Twist, Dickens's critique of the harsh Poor Law of 1834, and a grim picture of the sordid reality the London underworld of Dickens's times, ...

The Importance of Being Earnest is a farcical comedy in three Acts. The protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social oblig...

Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, The Age of Innocence is a social satire, a bitter-sweet romance, bringing to life the grandeur ...

Rated among the most excellent works of American fiction, Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer paints an unforgettable picture of Miss...

Rated among the most excellent works of American fiction, Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn paints an unforgettable picture o...

A great dramatist, literary critic, an eminent showman, intellectual and a satirist, George Bernard Shaw was a leading theatre personality of the 2...

Man and Superman, a four-Act drama, was written in 1903 as a response to those who had questioned Shaw as to why he had never written a play based ...

The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice, or simply Othello, is a tragedy written in approximately 1603. One of Shakespeare's most tightly woven ...

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian fiction portraying a society ruled by an oligarchical dictatorship. The Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a ...

Once considered scandalizingly immoral, Flaubert’s exquisite debut novel unsparingly depicts a woman’s gradual corruption and the human mind in sea...

Joseph Andrews is Fielding's first novel, and although directed against Samuel Richardson's Pamela which was a great success, it is far from being ...

Heart of Darkness is the finest of all Conrad's tales, showing him at the height of his powers as a writer of great vividness, intensity, and sophi...

Candida, a classic comedy, was written in 1894. Set in London’s East End during the Victorian era, the play is about the domestic turmoil that ensu...

Collection of (1) The Mayor of Casterbridge; The Mayor of Casterbridge displays the influence of Hardy's upbringing, rural background, and architec...

The Mayor of Casterbridge displays the influence of Hardy's upbringing, rural background, and architectural studies. His characters are primitive a...

Collection of (1) Oliver Twist : The only token of identity left by Dicken's dying mother to Oliver Twist – born in the workhouse, and orphaned at ...

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, a brilliant tale of seduction, love, betrayal, and murder, is generally regarded as Thomas Hardy’s finest novel. This i...

It is a fantasy novel published in 1928. It traces the career of the androgynous Orlando through four centuries from the late sixteenth century. It...

“Let us strike the keynote, Coketown, before pursuing our tune... It was a town of machines and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents o...

Gulliver's Travels, first published in 1726, was an immediate success and was read 'from the Cabinet - council to the Nursery' (Gay). It continues ...

Northanger Abbey, written during the same period as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, represents Jane Austen's genius at its freshest ...

A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift’s first major and his most masterly work. It presents a satire of religious excess. When it was written, politics a...