2023 Reading Schedule Builder

Create your reading list to tackle the best classic books in the new year, setting aside just 20 minutes a day! More info & examples →
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Most Popular Genres Collections

Genres › 18th Century

The Castle of Otranto
Horace Walpole
15 days
1764 • One of the first gothic novels, Walpole tells the tale of Manfred and his growing obsession with saving his family line by marrying the much younger Isabella.
Clarissa
Samuel Richardson
294 days
1748 • An epistolary novel of Clarissa's quest for virtue in spite of her family's machinations and the dangerous Robert Lovelace.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon
300 days
1776 • The monumental six volume history of Rome, from its peak through the fall first of Western Rome and then of Byzantium.
Evelina
Frances Burney
51 days
1778 • Following the heroine Evelina's journey through 18th century London society, Burney critiques the snobbery, consumerism, and aggression towards women found in fashionable upperclass life.
Fantomina
Eliza Haywood
4 days
1725 • A "lady of distinguished birth, beauty, wit, and spirit" disguises herself to repeatedly manipulate and seduce the same man.
Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
Mary Wollstonecraft
17 days
1796 • A travel memoir and record of Wollstonecraft’s strained relationship with Gilbert Imlay, as well as the last publication of her life.
Manon Lescaut
Abbé Prévost
22 days
1731 • Banned after its original publication in France, this is the scandalous story of Chevalier des Grieux who turns his back on his family and noble background for Manon Lescaut.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
William Blake
4 days
1790 • A collection of poetry satirizing religion, following the author’s descent to hell.
The Monk
Matthew Lewis
58 days
1796 • A struggle between personal ambition and religious vows leads to violence and darkness in this classic sinister Gothic novel.
Persian Letters
Montesquieu
28 days
1721 • Journey with Persian nobles Usbek and Rica as they travel through France, seek to understand Western culture, and deal with turmoil at home.
The Romance of the Forest
Ann Radcliffe
53 days
1791 • Placed under the protection of a family fleeing paris, Adeline finds herself in a sinister ruined abbey filled with horrors of the past. A suspenseful Gothic novel.
A Sicilian Romance
Ann Radcliffe
21 days
1790 • Murder, secret tunnels, haunted castles, and miraculous discoveries await Julia as she tries to escape an unwanted marriage in this Gothic classic.
The Social Contract
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
14 days
1762 • Rousseau explores the possibility that a "contract" between people be the source of sovereign power, not systems such as monarchies. His ideas would help inspire political revolt through Europe.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
William Blake
7 days
1789 • A collection of poetry by the "pre-romantic" William Blake, who was thought mad by his contemporaries.
Tom Jones
Henry Fielding
113 days
1749 • Tom Jones, a foundling with a mysterious past, is banished to London to find love, adventure, danger, and more in this classic comic novel of 18th century life.
A Treatise of Human Nature
David Hume
72 days
1738 • A foundational work in philosophy, Hume seeks to introduce a scientific mindset to the study of human psychology.
Vathek
William Beckford
16 days
1782 • The chronicle of Caliph Vathek, who seeks supernatural powers and stops at nothing to attain them.
The Vicar of Wakefield
Oliver Goldsmith
20 days
1766 • Follow the ups and downs of a virtuous vicar's family, navigating challenges with humor and resilience in 18th-century England.
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