LSC-Montgomery Resource Guides: Virtual Book Display: Classic Literature

Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion.

-Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Featured eBook

eBooks

eResources

The Yellow Wallpaper
In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an ambitious young doctor takes a large house in the country for the summer. His wife is thrilled, but when she sees their bedroom she begins to feel uneasy. It is a light airy attic, pleasant enough, except for the bars on the window and the most sinister patterned wallpaper.
Our Town
Veteran actor-director Paul Newman makes his first Broadway appearance in four decades in this sold-out Westport Country Playhouse production of the play 'Our Town' by Thornton Wilder. Newman plays the Stage Manager, who narrates the immortal tale of Grover's Corners, U.S.A., and its citizens.
Wuthering Heights, Part 1
In this classic and haunting tale, Heathcliff is tormented by his love for Cathy. Will Cathy choose a life of comfort and wealth with Edgar Linton or will she succumb to her love for Heathcliff? Years later the repercussions of this decision lead to the entrapment of Cathy’s daughter, Catherine, at Wuthering Heights.
Wuthering Heights, Part 2
Heathcliff’s return to Gimmerton throws Cathy’s life with Edgar into turmoil while Hindley becomes another victim of Heathcliff’s revenge. Isabella learns that being hated by Heathcliff is better than being loved by him. Will Catherine’s courageous spirit free her from Heathcliff’s grasp and can he ever find peace?
Raymond Carver
On his death in 1988, the American writer Carver was mourned as a national literary figure. Only ten years before he had been a chronic alcoholic, abandoned by his wife and family. From these experiences he produced stories and poems of profound humanity about the downside of the American Dream. This film portrait includes interviews with his second wife, his close friends and members of his family, as well as dramatizations of two of his most famous stories.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper
Touted as one of the first major feminist writers, Charlotte Perkins Gilman spent her life fighting to liberate women from the yoke of domesticity. This is a stunning BBC dramatization of Gilman’s autobiographical account of a woman driven to madness by the repressive mores of Victorian culture.
Raymond Carver: Cathedral
Robert, a blind man and now a widower, has come to visit his friend and her husband. Prompted by a television show, the apprehensive husband asks Robert if he really knows what a cathedral is: his answer is a lesson in how to truly see. This dramatization of Raymond Carver’s classic short story “Cathedral” presents a minimalist exploration of loneliness, vision, and personal spirituality.
Chinua Achebe: Africa's Voice
This program analyzes the impact Chinua Achebe and his writings have had on world literature, as well as his influence as an editor and a spokesman for a generation of African writers.
Sandra Cisneros
Listen to excerpts from "House on Mango Street." Cisneros notes that she was discovering feminism for her students and herself as she wrote.
Oppression and Culture
Cisneros describes her work as a counselor and how it inspired "House on Mango Street."
Confinement: A Modern Retelling of The Yellow Wallpaper
In this retelling of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Kathy, deemed “too sensitive for her own good” and told to control herself, is confined to a child’s bedroom with barred windows and garish décor by her well-meaning husband. As the enforced idleness of a rest cure begins to drive her mad, Kathy imagines there is someone imprisoned within the wallpaper, and she works to set the shadowy figure—and herself—free. Gilman’s short story was a commentary on the passive, infantilized role that women of her era were urged to adopt and is now considered a classic of feminist fiction.

Richard Gunderman, "What Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Teaches Us About the Need for Mothers," 5/8/2018
Motherhood is getting considerable attention, even if much of the news is concerning. Fertility rates are falling in America as millennials decide not to have children. This should hardly come as a surprise.
Kathryn Hughes, "House of horror: The Poisonous Power of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper'," 2/7/2020
Kathryn Hughes strips back the layers of this classic tale to understand its enduring appeal.
Leonie O’Hara, "How Bram Stoker Created Dracula with the Aid of Irish Folklore," 10/4/2020
Perhaps Irish author Bram Stoker wasn't inspired by Romanian legends.
Hari Kunzru, "Dune, 50 years on: How a Science Fiction Novel Changed the World," 7/3/2015
It has sold millions of copies, is perhaps the greatest novel in the science-fiction canon and Star Wars wouldn’t have existed without it. Frank Herbert’s Dune should endure as a politically relevant fantasy from the Age of Aquarius.
Ellen Silva, "Arthur Comes Alive In 'The Once And Future King'," 9/22/2010
My parents are both English professors, and when I was little they raised me and my brother on a strict diet of literary classics. I think they wanted to turn us into little prodigies...

Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is an online library of free eBooks.
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
British Library: Discovering Literature
Discovering Literature brings to life the social, political and cultural context in which key works of literature were written. Enjoy digitised treasures from our collection, newly commissioned articles, short documentary films and teachers’ notes. Subsections of the website include the 20th Century, the Victorian and Romantic period, the 18th century, and Shakespeare.
Smithsonian Libraries
The network of 21 specialized research libraries that make up the Smithsonian Libraries provides the Institution’s museums and research centers with resources and services that are as diverse and deep as the collections, exhibits, and scholarship they support. The Smithsonian Libraries' online catalog, which provides free access to a collection of about two million items. Smithsonian librarians have been digitizing rare books and scholarly articles that date back to the 15th century since 1996, and about 2 percent of the entire collection or 32,000 items can now be read in full text online. "
World Digital Library
A collaboration between the Library of Congress, UNESCO, and many libraries all over the world to provide a sampling of digital content. The materials collected by the WDL make it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures and significant historical documents including books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings, and films. Books, manuscripts, maps, and other primary materials on the site are presented in their original languages. More than 100 languages are represented in the WDL collection, including many lesser-known and endangered languages.
Harvard Digital Collections
Harvard Digital Collections provides free, public access to more than 6 million objects digitized from our collections - from ancient art to modern manuscripts and audiovisual materials.
Europeana
Europeana works with thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to share cultural heritage for enjoyment, education and research. This website gives you access to millions of books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help you find what you’re looking for. You can register an account today so that you can save liked items and create your own galleries.
Hathi Trust
This is a collection of books digitized by major US research libraries. Although there is significant overlap with Google books, this site has a much more effective and sophisticated search interface. Like Google books, some of the scanned titles are not actually viewable.

CraftLit - Serialized Classic Literature for Busy Book Lovers
This weekly annotated audiobook podcast presents curated classic literature in a serialized format. The host—Heather Ordover—"teaches to the joke" by filling in any relevant tidbits before listening to the next chapter of the book.
The History of Literature
Literature enthusiast Jacke Wilson journeys through the history of literature, from ancient epics to contemporary classics.
Novel Pairings
Welcome to Novel Pairings, a podcast dedicated to making the classics readable, relevant, and fun. As two nerdy bookworms, we appreciate the role of classic lit, but we but we won’t get too academic about it. We’ll talk about the books we love and the books we loath, and help stock your TBR pile with old and new reads for every literary taste.
Hardcore Literature
Welcome to your new favourite book club. If you enjoy deep dives into the greatest books ever written, you will love Hardcore Literature. Provocative poems, evocative epics, and life-changing literary analyses. We don’t just read the great books - we live them. Together we’ll suck the marrow out of Shakespeare, Homer, and Tolstoy. We’ll relish the most moving art ever committed to the page and stage from every age. Join us on the reading adventure of a lifetime.
How To Love Lit Podcast
A look at all of the literature you read in high school and college and wished you had paid more attention to.