Readability levels for passages on Lit2Go are reported as Flesch-Kincaid grade levels which are roughly equivalent to U.S. grade levels.
Around the World in 80 Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) 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.
In the Wilds of Florida is a tale of an Irish schoolboy who leaves school and his struggling family in Ireland to come to America. He experiences a Florida where fighting still erupts between Cherokee and Seminole Indians, where white people are under threat of Indian attack, and the landscape is mostly swamp or plains of dense brush.
Logic: Deductive and Inductive is a math treatise by the British logician and mathematician Carveth Read.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens's final novel was left unfinished before his death in 1871. Edwin Drood’s uncle, John Jasper, a choirmaster, is in love with his pupil and Drood’s fiancee Rosa Bud. She has also caught the eye of high-spirited and ill-tempered Neville Landless (who came from Ceylon with his twin sister Helena). When Drood is murdered, the killer must be found...that is if Drood is really dead.
Oliver Twist is Charles Dickens' second novel. It is about a boy named Oliver Twist, who escapes from a workhouse and meets a gang of pickpockets in London. The novel is one of Dickens's most well-known works, and has been the subject of numerous film and television adaptations.
Great Expectations follows Pip's life expectations as he attempts to fit in with upper class society, while pining for the affection of Estella.
Main Street is a satirical novel about small-town life, and is notable for the presence of a strong female protagonist.
The Number Concept is an examination of the different cultural representations of numbers by the American mathematician Levi Leonard Conant, Ph.D.
The Time Machine is a book by H. G. Wells, first published in 1895
The book’s protagonist is an amateur inventor or scientist living in London identified simply as The Time Traveller. Having demonstrated to friends using a miniature model that time is a fourth dimension, and that a suitable apparatus can move back and forth in this fourth dimension, he completes the building of a larger machine capable of carrying himself. He then immediately sets off on a journey into the future.
The Time Traveller details the experience of time travel and the evolution of his surroundings as he moves through time. While travelling through time, his machine allows him to observe the changes of the outside world in fast motion. He observes the sun and moon traversing the sky and the changes to the buildings and landscape around him as he travels through time. His machine produces a sense of disorientation to its occupant, and a blurring or faintness of the surroundings outside the machine.
Clotel; or, The President's Daughter is a novel by William Wells Brown (1815 – 1884), a fugitive from slavery and abolitionist and was published in London, England in December 1853. It gained notoriety amid the unconfirmed rumors regarding Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. Brown was still considered someone else's legal property within the borders of the United States at the time of its publication. It is considered to be the first novel written by an African American. The book follows the experiences of three generations of women during slavery.
Brown used the injustices of slavery to demonstrate the destructive effects it had on the African American family, most significantly the so–called tragic mulatto. Brown had escaped from slavery in Kentucky while still in his youth, and became active on the anti–slavery circuit.
Ethan Frome is a tragic novel about the unrequited love between Ethan Frome and his wife's cousin, Mattie Silver.
This novel has elements in common with gothic fiction, realism, modernism, romance, and tragedy.
Jane Eyre is a classic novel by Charlotte Brontë which was published in 1847. Jane Eyre, an orphan, must find her own way in the world while learning about friendship, family, love, trust, societal roles--and how to deal with dark secrets.
The Jungle is a novel by American author and socialist Upton Sinclair. It describes the life of a family of Lithuanian immigrants working in Chicago’s Union Stock Yards at the beginning of the 20th century. The novel depicts in harsh tones the poverty, complete absence of social security, scandalous living and working conditions, and generally utter hopelessness prevalent among the have-nots, which is contrasted with the deeply-rooted corruption on the part of the haves. The sad state of turn-of-the-century labor is placed front and center for the American public to see suggesting that something needed to be changed to get rid of American “wage slavery”. The novel is also an important example of the “muckraking” tradition begun by journalists such as Jacob Riis. Sinclair wanted to show how the mainstream parties of American politics, already being tied into the industrial-capitalist machine, offered little means for progressive change. As such the book is deeply supportive of values and criticisms held by Communism, a movement still in its infancy at the time.
A shepherd boy falsely cries “wolf” twice just to get excitement from the villiage people, but when a real wolf comes and he cries “wolf” again, no one comes to his rescue. moral: no one believes a liar even when he tells the truth.
Following the birth of her child, the narrator is cared for by her physician husband at a country estate.
Excerpt from Frederick Douglass' speech outlining the hypocritical nature of slavery in the United States of America.
The author shares some of his Christmas experiences and memories regarding the meaning of the Christmas tree.
The poet celebrates spring, as nature recovers from the harshness of winter.
This poem describes a haunted scene after a battle and how the flow of life has won.
The poem describes the funeral of a Native American chief.
Flowers contain all the beauty, love, hope, death, rebirth that is life, if one but looks closely.
Friendly ghosts cheer the narrator with their nocturnal visits.
The speaker hails and welcomes the coming of Night.
The poet muses upon seeing Mars in the night sky, and contemplates how Mars’s steadfastness reminds him to endure life’s hardships.
The poet ruminates on the coming of winter.
Live fully; get out and do things. The purpose of life is to live it.
Death comes to gather flowers for saints to wear.
A man protects his lady while she sleeps.
The natural world is the source of poetry.
The poet ruminates upon the morning sun shining on the woods and hills. He encourages readers to spend more time in nature to soothe their souls.
This is a poem about life from the focus of a widowed father and a wage earner (smithy) who works hard and steadily, earning from his effort.
The poet sees the differences in nature in winter, but still values winter.
A proud seaman refuses to heed warnings of a storm. As the weather worsens, he ties his daughter to the mast for safety, but soon the father and crew are killed in the icy storm. The ship then wrecks on Norman’s Woe, killing the daughter as well.
A poem admiring the beauty, differences, and changes in seasonal weather.
The speaker anticipates while others dread.
The speaker celebrates the beauty of the bluebell and all it represents.
The speaker describes the effects of death.
An elder tries to pass on knowledge, knowing the attempt is futile.
The speaker offers comfort to her sister regarding their mother’s passing.
A father and child discuss death.
The speaker wrestles with a decision to be true to self vs. others.
The speaker criticizes the idea of hope.
A guitar brings back old memories.
The speaker bids goodbye.
A comparison of love and friendship.
A poem of thanks.
The wind pays visit to the speaker, bringing thoughts of life and death.
The speaker is brave because of the strength of her faith.
The speaker focuses on all that is important.
Philosophy fails to provide the answers he is seeking.
The speaker considers the choices he has made.
The prisoner teaches about the true bonds of imprisonment.
The speaker questions her life’s purpose and accomplishments.
The speaker calls someone back from his journeying.
A reflection on one who is gone.
"Often rebuked, yet always back returning, To those first feelings that were born with me,"
The speaker contrasts night and day.
Words of sympathy are offered.
A sad boy is protected by love.
The speaker waits by her lamp for a visitor.
The speaker talks of her grief.
The speaker questions the fleeting nature of life and beauty, but discovers there is more to consider.
The speaker questions the fleeting nature of life and beauty, but discovers there is more to consider.
The speaker pleads with another to fight death, but is reprimanded for her pleas.
The speaker talks of her homesickness.
The differences between life and death are exposed.
The speaker describes the pleasures of imagination.
"From childhood's hour I have not been"
"It was many and many a year ago,"
"Hear the sledges with the bells—"
"The ring is on my hand"
"Lo! Death has reared himself a throne"
"Once it smiled a silent dell"
"Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary"
"The skies they were ashen and sober;"
"Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,"
"Take this kiss upon the brow!"
"BY a route obscure and lonely,"
The speaker questions science and what she takes away from others by her “dull realities.”
"In visions of the dark night"
"Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!"
"Gaily bedight,"
"Elizabeth, it surely is most fit"
"I dwelt alone"
"'Twas noontide of summer,"
"Dim vales–and shadowy floods–"
"Kind solace in a dying hour!"
"How often we forget all time, when lone"
"Thy soul shall find itself alone"
"The happiest day–the happiest hour"
"IN the greenest of our valleys"
There are some qualities–some incorporate things,
"I saw thee on thy bridal day–"
"At midnight in the month of June,"
"At morn—at noon—at twilight dim—"
"So sweet the hour, so calm the time,"
"Romance, who loves to nod and sing,"
"Ah broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!"
A doctor has a rather unusual conversation with a dying patient.
A princess helps ease a cursed prince’s suffering and is finally rewarded by his curse being lifted. They live happily together thereafter.
A story about a king who remarries after his wife’s death. His new queen kills him and intends to kill his children, but they escape. When the prince of Greece comes for the king’s daughter, the new queen sends her daughter who is expected to weave three robes for the prince. The king’s daughter makes the robes for the mistaken princess, but the prince finds her and they marry instead.
A story about how Tiidu went from lazy to industrious, earning himself a nice fortune through persistence.
The speaker compares the feelings and hopes of youth at Christmastime with the changes that occur with age.
A Japanese warrior defends the Dragon King by killing his enemy, the monster centipede. In gratitude the Dragon King gives the warrior several presents, including a bag of rice that never runs out, and he comes to be known as My Lord Bag of Rice.
A youth steals a magic ring from a witch-maiden in order to slay a dragon, but suffers her punishment for the theft.
A man is stranded on an island because of a trick his friend played on him out of jealousy. He meets another woman and they live a magical life.
Avenant is sent to win over The Fair One with the Golden Locks for the king in his land. He is set to a number of tasks and because of his good nature he is able to complete them. The princess falls in love with Avenant instead of the king, but is only able to marry him after the king’s death.
The brothers The Happy Hunter and The Skillful Fisherman change occupational places one day. The Hunter does not know how to fish, and loses his brother’s hook. The Skillful Fisherman is very angry and demands his hook back. The Hunter searches and searches to no avail, until an old man appears and tells him to travel to the Sea King’s realm to find the hook. He does so, and finds the hook and makes many new friends. He stays in the Sea King’s realm for three years, and then he returns to land. He gives the hook to his brother, and the brother is angry that he no longer has an excuse to steal his brother’s wealth and title. The Skillful Fisherman then plots to kill his brother, but the Happy Hunter thwarts his plan by using talismans given to him by the Sea King. The Skillful Fisherman is thus impressed by his brother’s power and vows to be obedient to him from then on.
How Sentaro was taught not to covet unending life.
A sing-song poem that focuses on three sisters dancing and then two mourning for the third.
Two celestial beings discuss the inquisitive nature of man.
Rosald, the son of a poor knight, and Geirald, the son of a rich man, head on a quest commissioned by Geirald’s father. In return for taking care of Rosald’s expenses, Geirald requests that Rosald give all credit of their quest to him. Rosald agrees and his ability to keep his promise proves to change his luck.
A fairy tale about a king who tries to change the fate of his daughter and instead insures the fate that has been assigned to her.
How a prince overcomes an evil magician and wins a princess.
The author marvels at the natural beauty of the Florida Landscape.
The Author describes the scenery in St. Augustine, Florida.
A beautiful youth overcomes his wicked brothers’ plans to get rid of him.
A short story about raindrops who fall from the sky and form pools of water that get bigger and flow into the oceans. There, they help form a rainbow showing that even the smallest of things can help to make something beautiful.
A Horse and Stag quarreled. The Horse asked a Hunter to help him catch the Stag. The Horse agreed to wear a bridle and saddle to help the Hunter help him. After catching the Stag the Hunter would not take the bridle and saddle off.
The author uses the example of two faulty clocks to make a point.
Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, during his inauguration at the start of his second term as President of the United States.
A story written in the form of a personal diary that investigates the strange disappearances of sheep into the Blue John Gap.
A raven tries to be something he is not.
An old man saves his money and does not know what to do with it. He buys a beautiful bracelet and gives it to a princess who sends him an extravagant gift that he then immediately sends to a prince. There is a constant exchange of gifts between the three until the old man is transformed into a man of great wealth and the prince and princess find each other.
The colony of cats take in an abused daughter, Lizina, and give her the fair treatment she deserves.
A bamboo cutter finds a small, luminescent girl, and raises her as Princess Moonlight. She refuses all suitors, befriends the Emperor, and eventually returns to her rightful home, the Moon.
How elephants got trunks, and how the Elephant’s Child learned to like his new feature.
Abraham Lincoln enjoyed telling stories of his youth and early manhood, but he wrote very little about himself. The following is the longest statement he has set down anywhere about his own life. And he did this only at the earnest request of a fellow citizen in Illinois, Mr. Fell.
A prince travels to the Land of Souls to see his just-deceased bride.
The difficult lives and unhappy end of the snow-daughter and fire-son.
An idle villager experiences some strange events while taking a walk in the mountains.
A story about a group of youths that steal the child of a Bunyip and turn the town into swans.
Extreme itching wrinkles the rhino’s skin.
Eiros and Charmion discuss the events that led to the end of life on Earth.
Columbus seeks a new route to the Indies and discovers America. His frightened sailors continually want to turn back and even threaten him. After about 10 weeks they do find land and natives.
How the Prince of the Air found his way to the Golden Isle.
This is a greatly abridged children's version of Dickens' 1844 Christmas novella. An old fellow named Trotty thinks the church bells are talking to him when they chime each quarter hour. When he visits the church to see why they are saying things to him he has a dream in which the bells really do speak to him, and the dream changes Trotty’s life.
Monos and Una discuss the destructive nature of man.
"Lo! 'tis a gala night"
How a nixy helps a miller regain happiness.