Tragedy Books

Of Human Bondage

W. Somerset Maugham

Of Human Bondage is W. Somerset Maugham's 1915 masterpiece featuring the young Philip Carey. The work is considered autobiographical, though Maugham claims that most was "pure invention." The novel is..

Sophocles' Oedipus Trilogy

Sophocles

Oedipus Rex ie the first in the trilogy is one of the most powerful dramas I've had the chance to read. It defines the term 'epic' both in scale and emotion; its narrative is grand and gripping, and t..

The Idiot

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Idiot is Dostoevsky's brilliant 1869 novel about a poor nobelman, Prince Myshkin, who has recently been released from a Swiss sanatorium where he was treated for epilepsy. Despite his destitution,..

Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a history play and tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It is one of several plays written by Shakespeare based on true events from Ro..

Macbeth

William Shakespeare

Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare; it is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatizes the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek p..

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans..

The Mill on the Floss

George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss is a novel by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), first published in three volumes in 1860 by William Blackwood. The first American edition was published by Harper & Brothers, Pub..

The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter (1850) is Nathaniel Hawthorne's romantic novel set in 17th-century Puritan Boston. It is the story of Hester Prynne, an adulteress who struggles to create a new life of dignity and ..