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In the English countryside, Mrs Bennet has only one idea: to marry off her five daughters. The arrival of Mr Bingley, a rich young man, in the neighbourhood delights her, but his friend Mr Darcy is cold and proud from the very first ball. Elizabeth, the second of the sisters, lively and teasing, takes an instant dislike to him. Its witty exchanges and amused eye on families and marriages make it one of the best loved comedies in literature. With the translation always in front of you, Jane Austen's elegant, ironic style is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

A gentleman of La Mancha has read so many tales of chivalry that he loses his mind. Calling himself Don Quixote, he takes to the road on a thin old horse, with Sancho Panza, a talkative peasant full of common sense, to whom he has promised an island. The knight mistakes inns for castles and windmills for giants. Funny and moving at once, this novel gave the whole world a famous image: tilting at windmills. It is often called the first modern novel. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this great classic in the language you are learning.

An American family buys an old English castle, haunted for three centuries by the ghost of Sir Simon. But the newcomers are afraid of nothing: they scrub away the bloodstain he makes reappear every night, and offer him oil for his noisy chains. A ghost story turned upside down, in which it is the ghost who ends up terrified, full of humour and, little by little, of tenderness. You can read this short story by Oscar Wilde in one sitting in the language you are learning.

To escape their obligations, two young men from London society lie with great aplomb. Jack invents a brother called Ernest, and goes by that name whenever he goes off to enjoy himself in town. Algernon invents a sick friend to escape boring dinners. Things get complicated when two young women declare that they will only marry a man named Ernest. It is Oscar Wilde's funniest comedy, in which every line sparkles with wit. Written in short, lively dialogue, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In this collection of twelve stories, Rudyard Kipling explains to a child he calls “Best Beloved” how the whale got his throat, the camel his hump, the leopard his spots and the elephant his trunk. We also learn how the first letter and the alphabet were invented. Full of sound games, refrains and made-up words, these funny, mischievous tales are made to be read aloud, to children and grown-ups alike. Short and rhythmic, these stories can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

Brought up in a castle in Westphalia, young Candide learns from his tutor Pangloss that “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”. Thrown out for kissing the lovely Cunégonde, he makes his way through war, the Inquisition, the Lisbon earthquake and the American colonies. At every disaster, Candide repeats his master's lesson, and Voltaire mocks, with fierce humour, those who want to explain everything. His phrase about “the best of all possible worlds” has stayed in everyone's memory. Its very short chapters and biting irony make it a tale that is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Born on the banks of the Tormes into a wretched family, little Lázaro becomes the guide of a blind beggar, his first master. So as not to starve, he learns to steal from him: he drinks his wine through a straw and makes off with his sausage. He then serves a miserly priest, then a ruined squire who hides his poverty behind his fine clothes. Published without the author's name in 1554, then banned by the Inquisition, this short tale full of cunning and dark humour is the very first picaresque novel. Lázaro tells his own adventures mischievously, and the short chapters are easy to read in the language you are learning.

Harpagon, a rich bourgeois obsessed with his box full of gold, wants to marry his children to wealthy matches so as to spend nothing, and to marry young Mariane himself. But his son Cléante happens to love Mariane, his daughter Élise loves Valère, and a crafty valet has spotted the box. It is one of Molière's most famous comedies. Its hero has become a common noun in French, “un harpagon”, and his cry “Without a dowry!” has been making people laugh for more than three centuries. Written in lively dialogue and full of mix-ups, this play is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In an English village, Emma Woodhouse, young, beautiful, rich and sure of herself, amuses herself by arranging other people's marriages. She takes under her wing Harriet, a young woman with no fortune, and decides to find her a husband in her own way. But Emma reads hearts badly, starting with her own. A comedy full of misunderstandings, in which Jane Austen gently mocks her heroine, and we laugh at her mistakes before recognising ourselves in them. Its witty dialogue is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

Silvia is to marry Dorante, whom she has never seen. To observe him without being recognised, she takes the place of her maid Lisette. But Dorante has had exactly the same idea, and arrives disguised as a manservant. Each then falls in love with someone they believe to be a servant, and no longer knows what to do with their heart. It is Marivaux's most famous comedy, a very subtle game of masks and feelings. Its author even gave a word to the French language: marivaudage. Written in short, lively dialogue, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In Naples, while their fathers are away, Octave and Léandre have fallen in love. But these two miserly old men would never accept their sons' choice. The valet Scapin gets them out of trouble by inventing trick after trick to fool the fathers, even shutting one of them in a sack to give him a beating. Farce and wit mix in this comedy, in which Molière wrote one of his most famous lines: “What the devil was he doing in that galley?” Written in short, lively dialogue, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

This collection retells fourteen of Shakespeare's comedies and romances in prose. We meet the exiled magician of The Tempest on his island, the fairies who sow confusion in the wood near Athens, the merchant of Venice facing his moneylender, twins who are forever being mistaken for each other and a young woman disguised as a boy. Written in 1807 by Mary Lamb for young readers, these stories full of mix-ups, disguises and happy endings are a very gentle way into Shakespeare. Short and clear, each tale can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

This collection brings together nineteen comic stories. In the first, in Chelsea, Annette Brougham, a young pianist who is composing a waltz, goes upstairs to complain to her neighbour, a painter who bangs on the floor whenever she plays. The other stories range from English country houses to New York. We meet awkward lovers, a dreaded butler, an outstanding swimmer and even a Knight of the Round Table, from the pen of P. G. Wodehouse, one of the great masters of English humour. You can read each story in one sitting in the language you are learning.

Back from Europe, Dr Simão Bacamarte settles in Itaguaí, a small town in Brazil, and opens an asylum there, the Green House, to study madness methodically. First he locks up a few slightly odd inhabitants, then respected people, then so many that the asylum ends up housing four fifths of the town. With biting irony, Machado de Assis, Brazil's greatest writer, asks a question that makes us smile and think: who decides what is normal? Full of humour, this short story can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

These two St Petersburg stories each follow a minor civil servant. Akaky Akakievich, a copying clerk mocked by his colleagues, goes without for months to have a new overcoat made. Kovalyov, for his part, wakes up one morning without his nose, and soon meets it in the street, in uniform and of a higher rank than his own. Gogol mixes laughter and pity, in a city where the absurd rules. Dostoevsky is credited with a famous line: “We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat.” You can read each of these short stories in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In the little town of Tilling, nothing escapes Miss Mapp. From her window she watches the street, notes her neighbours' comings and goings, and spins a story out of every detail, often a false one. Between games of bridge, tea invitations and petty jealousies, she wages a quiet war to remain queen of the town. E. F. Benson gently mocks these tiny lives, where the smallest trifle becomes an affair of state. Miss Mapp has become a cult figure of British humour. With its sharp dialogue and light tone, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Frank to the point of bluntness, a young man from Tokyo accepts a post as a maths teacher in a small town on Shikoku. On his very first night on duty at the school, his pupils slip grasshoppers into his bed. His colleagues turn out to be even more devious, and he gives them nicknames, such as “Red Shirt”. As incapable of lying as of scheming, he takes sides and makes enemies. It is one of the best loved novels in Japan: its author, Natsume Sōseki, taught in Matsuyama himself, and the town has made the novel's hero its own. Told by the hero himself, with humour and plain speaking, this short novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Settled in an old windmill in Provence, Daudet writes to his Parisian readers with stories from the region. We meet Monsieur Seguin's goat, who dreams of freedom in the mountains, the priest of Cucugnan, who makes his parishioners tremble with a sermon about hell, and Father Gaucher, whose elixir makes his monastery's fortune. Part farce, part legend, part melancholy, these tales are known to generations of children, and you can feel the sun and the mistral on every page. Short and written in a simple, musical style, they can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

Chichikov arrives in a provincial town, charms all of polite society and pays visits to the landowners round about. He offers them a strange deal: to buy their dead serfs. These peasants have died since the last census, but they are still on the registers, and their masters still pay tax on them. From estate to estate come the miser, the boor, the suspicious widow and the dreamer: Gogol draws from them a gallery of irresistible portraits, and one of the funniest novels in Russian literature. With the translation always in front of you, this humorous novel is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.