1. Charles Dickens : A Tale of Two Cities With his sublime parting words, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done..." Sidney Carton joins that exalted group of Dickensian characters who have earned a permanent place in the popular literary imagination. His dramatic story, set against the volcanic fury of the French Revolution and pervaded by the ominous rumble of the death carts trundling toward the guillotine, is the heart-stirring tale of a heroic soul in an age gone mad. A masterful pageant of idealism, love, and adventure — in a Paris bursting with revolutionary frenzy, and a London alive with anxious anticipation.

2. Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works. Written in Wilde's characteristically dazzling manner, full of stinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of Dorian Gray's moral disintegration caused something of a scandal when it first appeared in 1890. Wilde was attacked for his decadence and corrupting influence, and a few years later the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde's homosexual liaisons, trials that resulted in his imprisonment. Of the book's value as autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps."

3. Charlotte Brontë : Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë's most beloved novel describes the passionate love between the courageous orphan Jane Eyre and the brilliant, brooding, and domineering Rochester. The loneliness and cruelty of Jane's childhood strengthens her natural independence and spirit, which prove invaluable when she takes a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall. But after she falls in love with her sardonic employer, her discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a heart- wrenching choice. Ever since its publication in 1847, Jane Eyre has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic. It lives as one of the great triumphs of storytelling and as a moving and unforgettable portrayal of a woman's quest for self-respect.

4. Emily Brontë : Wuthering Heights The archetypal gothic novel. Emily Brontë's only novel is one of the most treasured classics of 19th- century fiction. Intensely passionate and sharply original, it tells the story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff's doomed love and its disastrous consequences. Emily's profound love of her native Yorkshire is displayed in the novel's evocative depiction of the moors. This is a work full of iconic images and of unfailingly compelling narrative.

5. E.M. Forster : A Passage to India Among the greatest novels of the twentieth century and the basis for director David Leans Academy Award-winning film, A Passage to India tells of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century. In exquisite prose, Forster reveals the menace that lurks just beneath the surface of ordinary life, as a mere misunderstanding erupts into a devastating affair.

6. Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D’Urbervilles Etched against the background of a dying rural society, Tess of the d'Urbervilles was Thomas Hardy's 'bestseller,' and Tess Durbeyfield remains his most striking and tragic heroine. Of all the characters he created, she meant the most to him. Hopelessly torn between two men, Alec d'Urberville, a wealthy, dissolute young man who seduces her in a lonely wood, and Angel Clare, her provincial, moralistic, and unforgiving husband, Tess escapes from her vise of passion through a horrible, desperate act. “Like the greatest characters in literature, Tess lives beyond the final pages of the book as a permanent citizen of the imagination,’” said Irving Howe. “In Tess Hardy stakes everything on his sensuous apprehension of a young woman's life, a girl who is at once a simple milkmaid and an archetype of feminine strength.... Tess is that rare creature in literature: goodness made interesting.’”