Bookshelf
British Literature
9,907 free books on the British Literature bookshelf, free to read online. Chapter 1 of any book is free, no account needed.
ReadOliver Twist, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Charles Dickens
The second volume of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist continues the grim bildungsroman of an orphan boy thrust…
ReadThe Prince and the Pauper
Mark Twain
Mark Twain’s tale is a sprawling historical fiction set in sixteenth‑century London, where the lives of a…
Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
James Grant
The novel is a Victorian‑era romance set against the backdrop of the Crimean War, though the opening places…
ReadPoirot Investigates
Agatha Christie
Poirot Investigates is a detective story set in inter‑war England, featuring the famed Belgian sleuth Hercule…
The Monk: A Romance
M. G. Lewis
The Monk is a Gothic romance that blends horror, religious intrigue, and a richly detailed Spanish setting.
ReadKing Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
Sir Thomas Malory
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is a collected romance that brings together the chief episodes…
ReadModern English biography, volume 1 (of 4), A-H
Frederic Boase
Frederic Boase’s Modern English Biography, volume 1 (A‑H) is a reference work rather than a narrative…
ReadHenrietta Temple: A Love Story
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
Henrietta Temple is a self‑styled autobiographical romance by Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, that…
ReadOnly a girl's love
Charles Garvice
The novel is a late‑Victorian romance in the vein of the popular dime‑novel love stories that Charles Garvice…
ReadA Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas
Charles Dickens
This work is Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas,” a Victorian…
Robert Orange Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange
John Oliver Hobbes
Robert Orange Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange is a Victorian‑era religious fiction that…
ReadThe Sign of the Four
Arthur Conan Doyle
The opening of this work places the reader squarely in the world of Victorian‑London private investigation,…
De Profundis
Oscar Wilde
De Profundis is Oscar Wilde’s extended letter‑essay, composed in the bleak confines of a Victorian prison…
ReadOne of the Six Hundred: A Novel
James Grant
One of the Six Hundred is a Victorian‑era novel set against the backdrop of the Crimean War, though its…
ReadThe murder of Roger Ackroyd
Agatha Christie
The novel opens with a brisk, first‑person account of a physician‑detective who is summoned to the bedside of…
ReadThe Murder on the Links
Agatha Christie
The opening places you aboard a quiet Calais express, where a weary narrator, recently back from Paris and…
ReadOne Woman: Being the Second Part of a Romance of Sussex
Alfred Ollivant
One Woman is a regional romance set in Sussex, presenting a tangled web of family loyalties, unspoken…
ReadThe Pirate Andrew Lang Edition
Walter Scott
The work is a sprawling historical romance set amid the storm‑tossed islands of Orkney and Zetland in the…
ReadLinnet: A Romance
Grant Allen
Linnet: A Romance unfolds as a light‑hearted travel tale set against the Alpine backdrop of the Tyrol, with a…
The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe
The work is a first‑person adventure narrative that begins with a detailed autobiographical preface.
ReadAdventures of Sherlock Holmes Illustrated
Arthur Conan Doyle
This volume gathers several of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated Sherlock Holmes adventures, presented in…
ReadA Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy of the Elizabethan stage, set in the mythic world of ancient Athens and…
Don Juan
George Gordon Byron
This work is Byron’s poetic re‑imagining of the legendary libertine Don Juan, presented as a sprawling,…
ReadThe strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
The work is a Victorian‑era psychological thriller that blends science‑fiction speculation with gothic…