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Victor Frankenstein, a young man from Geneva with a passion for science, succeeds in giving life to a being made of dead matter. Horrified by what he has created, he flees, and the creature, abandoned, has to find its own way in a world whose people reject it. This is the novel that gave birth to the most famous of all monsters. It asks a question that is still with us: what responsibility do we have towards what we create? A great novel to discover in the language you are learning, with the translation always in view.

Sorting through the papers of his great-uncle, who died suddenly, a man discovers strange notes, accounts of nightmares and a monstrous statuette. He gathers testimony from the four corners of the world, and follows the trail of a very ancient cult devoted to Cthulhu, a creature asleep at the bottom of the ocean. In this short tale, fear comes not from a monster you see, but from everything you sense. It is this story that created the Cthulhu myth, taken up since in games and novels. You can read it in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In London, the lawyer Mr Utterson is worried about his old friend Dr Jekyll, a respected physician. In his will, Jekyll leaves everything he owns to a certain Mr Hyde, a brutal man whom everyone fears. Utterson investigates to understand what binds these two men. This short novel is about the dark side everyone carries within, and leads to one of the most famous revelations in literature. Its fast pace makes it an ideal classic to read in the language you are learning.

An English inventor explains to his friends that time is a dimension like any other, then sets off in a machine he has built himself. On his return, exhausted, he describes a very distant future in which the Eloi, a frail and carefree people, live among gardens, while other creatures hide underground. It was with this book that time travel became a great subject for fiction. H. G. Wells imagines what would become of humanity if the gap between rich and poor kept widening for thousands of years. Told like a story among friends, this short novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

At the end of the nineteenth century, a strange cylinder from space crashes near London. Martians emerge from it, armed with giant machines and a burning ray, and the narrator has to flee across an English countryside plunged into chaos. It is one of the very first stories of alien invasion. Faced with the Martians, a civilisation that thought itself invincible discovers how fragile it is. The narrator tells the events day by day, like an eyewitness account, and the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In London in 1872, Phileas Fogg, a very methodical English gentleman, bets a fortune that he can travel around the world in eighty days. He leaves that very evening with Passepartout, his new manservant, a resourceful Frenchman. Inspector Fix sets off after them, convinced he is dealing with a thief. By steamer, by train and even on the back of an elephant, Fogg races against the clock, and one surprise follows another right up to the very last page. Full of pace and humour, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In Providence, in the United States, an old abandoned house has a sinister reputation: for more than a century, the people who have lived there have fallen ill and died one after another. The narrator and his uncle, an old doctor, search the town's archives. Then they decide to spend the night in the cellar, where a strange mould traces a human shape on the floor. Lovecraft set this short tale in a real street of his home town, and the fear grows little by little, from what you sense more than from what you see. You can read it in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In 1930, a scientific expedition sets out to explore Antarctica. Beyond mountains higher than the Himalayas, two men fly over a vast stone city, abandoned for millions of years. On its walls, carvings tell the story of its builders, who came from the stars long before mankind. The narrator is writing to stop a new expedition from leaving, and one question drives the whole story: what did they see out there? With the translation always in front of you, you can follow this expedition in the language you are learning.

In 1866, an unknown sea monster is reported on every ocean. Professor Aronnax sets out to hunt it down, with his servant Conseil and the harpooner Ned Land. Thrown into the sea, they are taken aboard the Nautilus, an extraordinary submarine commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo. Prisoners of this man who has broken with the world, they travel the oceans of the globe with him and discover the wonders of an undersea world then unknown. But who is Nemo really, and why does he flee dry land? Full of adventure and discovery, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In Hamburg, Professor Lidenbrock, a hot-tempered scientist, deciphers an old parchment with his nephew Axel. In it, an Icelandic alchemist claims to have gone down to the centre of the Earth through the crater of a volcano. The professor sets off at once for Iceland with Axel, who is not at all reassured, and there hires Hans, a guide as calm as he is sturdy. Underground, they discover endless tunnels, a vast sea and creatures long extinct. Jules Verne blends science and imagination so well that you believe in every stage of the journey. Told by Axel, with humour and suspense, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

A forbidden play is circulating under the title “The King in Yellow”. The first act seems innocent, but whoever reads the second falls into madness. In this collection of stories, a man believes he is destined to rule America, a sculptor discovers a liquid that turns living things into marble, and a painter is haunted by the watchman of a nearby church. Here we discover Carcosa and the Yellow Sign, mysteries that fascinated H. P. Lovecraft and many writers after him. The fear comes from what is never quite said. The stories can be read one by one, at your own pace, in the language you are learning.

John Carter, a former officer from Virginia, takes refuge in a cave in Arizona and suddenly finds himself on Mars. Because gravity there is weaker, he makes huge leaps and becomes astonishingly strong. Captured by giant green warriors, he wins their respect, then meets Dejah Thoris, a princess who is a prisoner like him. This novel, the first in a long series of adventures on Mars, has inspired generations of science fiction writers. Fights, friendship and love follow one another without a dull moment. Told by John Carter himself, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In the One State, surrounded by a wall, people no longer have names but numbers. They all live by the same timetable, in glass houses where everyone sees everything. D-503, the engineer of a spaceship meant to carry this perfect happiness to other planets, keeps a diary for the people of those planets. Then he meets I-330, a woman who does not follow the rules. Banned in the Soviet Union, this novel is one of the very first great stories about a totalitarian society, and George Orwell read it before writing “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. Written as a diary, in short entries, the novel can be read with the translation always in front of you, in the language you are learning.

Jonathan Harker, a young solicitor, travels to Transylvania to complete the sale of a property near London to Count Dracula. In the isolated castle, he notices that his host never eats, never appears by day and has no reflection in the mirror. Soon Jonathan realises that he is a prisoner. This is the novel that created the most famous of all vampires, and fixed his image for ever: the castle, the night, the fangs and the fear that lurks. Told through diaries and letters, it reads like a thriller in the language you are learning.

In a future where humans live on Earth, Mars and Venus, Buck Kendall patrols the outer edges of the solar system. Near Pluto, a giant ship attacks him, then flees faster than light. His superiors believe it is pirates. Kendall, who is also a physicist, understands that the enemy comes from another star, and that a whole fleet is advancing on the solar system. This science fiction classic from the 1930s is a race against time to save humanity. To win, Kendall will have to invent a weapon no one has yet imagined. Fast-paced from start to finish, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Hank Morgan, a foreman in a Connecticut arms factory, gets a blow on the head and wakes up in King Arthur's England, in the sixth century. Sentenced to be burnt at the stake, he saves himself by announcing an eclipse of the sun whose date he knows, and is at once taken for a magician more powerful than Merlin. Now known as “the Boss”, he brings the telegraph, newspapers and schools to the Knights of the Round Table. Mark Twain has fun with this clash between two eras, in one of the very first time-travel novels. Full of humour and lively dialogue, the novel is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

Saved from a shipwreck, Edward Prendick is put ashore on a remote island in the Pacific, home to a banished scientist, Dr Moreau, and his assistant. At night, screams come from the laboratory. The island's strange inhabitants recite a Law like a prayer: “Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law.” H. G. Wells asks a question that is still with us: how far does science have the right to go, and what separates man from animal? Full of suspense, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

On Mars, Thuvia, Princess of Ptarth, is kidnapped, and Carthoris, the son of John Carter, is accused. To find her and clear his name, he crosses the deserts to Lothar, a forgotten city whose inhabitants can summon armies of phantom bowmen by the power of thought. This fourth novel in the Mars series hands over to a new generation of heroes, amid battles, jealous rivals and strange cities. Fast-paced from start to finish, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

On the liner bringing him back from New York, Arthur Marcel, a well-off Englishman, meets Herbert Brande, a brilliant scientist who believes the universe is a mistake. Arthur is fascinated by Natalie, the scientist's sister. To stay close to her, he joins the secret society that Brande leads, and discovers that its members communicate by thought. They want to destroy the Earth with the energy locked inside atoms. Written in 1895, long before the atomic bomb, this strange novel already imagines science becoming a threat to the whole world. Told in the first person, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In New York at the start of the twentieth century, William Destyn, a penniless young man, makes a living from magic tricks with mice dyed every colour. One of them, a green one, escapes into the flat of his neighbour, Ethelinda, a young painter. Now her husband, William invents a device that picks up “psychic currents” and links two people made for each other. With Ethelinda and her sister-in-law Sacharissa, he sets up a company called The Green Mouse to make his fortune. But every test leads to unexpected and comic encounters, in a light fantasy that has fun with science and love. Its lively dialogue makes it an enjoyable read in the language you are learning.

In a future where humans have colonised Mars, young Lieutenant David Corriston sets off for a huge space station orbiting the Earth, through which every ship passes. During the journey, the bodyguard of Helen Ramsey, daughter of a powerful Martian magnate, is killed before his eyes. Then the young woman disappears. On the station, nobody believes Corriston: they think the journey has disturbed his mind. But he discovers that impostors are hiding behind masks, and he investigates, in a story that is part detective novel, part space adventure. Fast-paced from start to finish, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

James diGriz, known as “Slippery Jim”, is a former master swindler, forcibly recruited by the Special Corps, a secret police force that operates among the stars. He is bored filing records when he discovers that a small, peaceful planet, Cittanuvo, is secretly building a giant battleship of a type that vanished a thousand years ago. Disguised as an admiral, he sets off to investigate alone. A humorous science fiction adventure, told by a hero who is as clever as he is cheeky. Lively and ironic, this short story can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

For an article judged too frank, Stephen Silk, a young diplomat, is sent as ambassador to New Texas, a planet peopled by descendants of Texans, which supplies meat to the whole galaxy. His predecessor has just been assassinated there. Silk soon discovers that, on New Texas, killing a politician is not necessarily a crime: a court only decides whether the victim had it coming. A political comedy full of humour, in which the young ambassador must also foil an invasion being prepared by a neighbouring alien people. Fast-paced, this short novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

On 5 November 1900, in the middle of the Atlantic, a flying ship of metal and glass draws alongside an American liner. Its owner, Lord Redgrave, a wealthy Englishman, takes on board Zaidie Rennick, a young American who was on her way to Europe to marry a man she does not love. They marry, and set off on their honeymoon to the Moon, Mars, Venus and the great planets. There they discover strange peoples and a dead world covered in ruins. This lively and often funny tale shows how people imagined the solar system before the aeroplane was even invented. Written with gusto, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.