Born a free man in New York State in 1808, Solomon Northup was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841. He spent the next 12 years as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation, during this time he was frequently abused and often afraid for his life.

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?Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside?

Joyce’s classic depiction of Stephen Dedalus’s boyhood and coming of age in Ireland at the turn of the century, his childhood, sexual awakening, intellectual development and revolt against Catholicism, remains one of the key works of modern literature.

The Call of the Wild is a short adventure novel by Jack London, published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named Buck. The story opens at a ranch in Santa Clara Valley, California, when Buck is stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. He becomes progressively more primitive and wild in the harsh environment, where he is forced to fight to survive and dominate other dogs. By the end, he sheds the veneer of civilization, and relies on primordial instinct and learned experience to emerge as a leader in the wild.

This excellent prose translation of Homer’s epic poem of the 9th century BC recounts one of Western civilization’s most glorious tales, a treasury of Greek folklore and myth that maintains an ageless appeal for modern readers. 

Kate Chopin (1850–1904) was an American author of short stories and novels for both adults and children. She is now considered by many to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century.

The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s twelfth novel, initially serialized in four parts in the Pictorial Review magazine in 1920, and later released by D. Appleton and Company as a book in New York and in London. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making it the first novel written by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and thus Wharton the first woman to win the prize.The story is set in upper-class New York City in the 1870s.

Polish-born Joseph Conrad is regarded as a highly influential author, and his works are seen as a precursor to modernist literature. His often tragic insight into the human condition in novels such as Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent is unrivalled by his contemporaries.