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Paris, 1482: during the Feast of Fools, the beautiful Esmeralda dances in the Place de Grève. Quasimodo, the cathedral's hunchbacked bell-ringer, and the archdeacon Claude Frollo, who brought him up, are both overwhelmed by her. From the Court of Miracles to the pillory, the young woman becomes the object of dangerous passions. Hugo brings medieval Paris back to life around the cathedral. The novel made Quasimodo one of the most famous characters in literature, and helped to save the cathedral, which was then badly run down. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this great novel by Victor Hugo in the language you are learning.

Descartes tells how, disappointed by everything he learnt at school, he decided to start again from scratch. He sets himself four simple rules for thinking well, and doubts everything, until he finds the one thing he cannot doubt: “I think, therefore I am”. A little book that changed the way we reason. Even today, it helps us think for ourselves, with method and a critical mind. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this founding text in the language you are learning.

Fifteen stories about Dublin around 1900, from childhood to adulthood. A schoolboy dreams of going to a grand bazaar, a young woman hesitates to leave everything behind for a sailor, an office clerk drowns his anger in drink, a family gathers for its annual dance at Christmas time. Joyce portrays ordinary people, caught in routine, at the moment their lives tip slightly. The collection ends with “The Dead”, one of the finest stories ever written. The stories are short and can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

In Cranford, a small country town, almost every house is kept by ladies, often poor, who never talk about money. The narrator, Mary Smith, spends long stays there with Miss Matty, the shy and very kind daughter of the late rector. Along the way we meet a cow dressed in flannel, a love turned down long ago and a fear of burglars that spreads through the whole town. Elizabeth Gaskell tells of these small lives with gentle humour. A funny, touching book about quiet kindness and helping one another. Made up of short scenes, like so many visits, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

One morning, Josef K., a senior bank official, is arrested at home without knowing why. Yet he is left free to go to work. The court trying him sits in suburban attics cluttered with files, and no one can tell him what he is accused of. Kafka had asked his friend Max Brod to burn this novel after his death, along with his other manuscripts. Max Brod refused. The word “Kafkaesque”, for any absurd situation where you get lost in rules and offices, comes largely from this book. With its strange, sometimes almost comic scenes, and the translation always in front of you, the novel reads well in the language you are learning.

In Paris, a ghost haunts the Opera: he demands that Box Five be kept for him and threatens the managers by letter. Christine Daaé, a young Swedish singer, secretly takes lessons from a mysterious voice she calls the Angel of Music. Her childhood friend, the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, wants to find out who is behind this voice. A chandelier that falls in the middle of a performance, a mask, tunnels under the stage: Gaston Leroux created a character famous all over the world, both frightening and touching. Told like an investigation and full of suspense, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In the north of England, Mr Earnshaw one day brings home a child found in the streets of Liverpool: Heathcliff. The boy grows up in the old farmhouse of Wuthering Heights with Catherine, the daughter of the house, who never leaves his side. But Catherine turns to Edgar Linton, the rich neighbour from the valley, and Heathcliff, wounded, does not forgive. Emily Brontë wrote only this novel, and in it she tells one of the most famous loves in literature: a dark, violent love, stronger than reason. Told mostly by the servant Nelly Dean, as if by the fireside, the story is a gripping 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.

In Ireland, young Stephen Dedalus grows up in a Catholic family that is slowly growing poorer. A pupil of the Jesuits, terrified for a time by a sermon on hell, he is even invited to become a priest. But he feels another calling growing inside him: the call of art. Joyce tells, barely disguised, the story of his own youth: how a sensitive boy becomes a writer who wants to think for himself. His hero bears the name of Daedalus, the figure from Greek mythology who made himself wings to escape. With the translation always in front of you, you can discover this great novel by Joyce in the language you are learning.

In Rome, under the Emperor Nero, the young patrician Vinicius falls in love with Lygia, a foreign princess brought up by a Roman family. Used to getting everything he wants, he tries to take her by force, but she escapes him, and he discovers that she is a Christian. When Rome burns and Nero looks for someone to blame, the Christians are thrown to the beasts of the arena. This great novel of love and adventure made its author famous around the world, and Sienkiewicz received the Nobel Prize in 1905. Its title comes from a famous question: “Quo vadis, Domine?”, “Where are you going, Lord?” Full of action and great scenes, the novel is a gripping read in the language you are learning.

In a quiet little town in the American West at the start of the twentieth century, two childhood friends have an idea: to make everyone believe that the town is going to become a big city. As long as people believe it, land prices rise. They buy land, lay out a new district and bring in the railway. A humorous satire about easy money, friendship and the fever of speculation. Its lively tone and plentiful dialogue make it an enjoyable read in the language you are learning.

To escape his father, a violent drunkard, and the widow who wants to turn him into a well-behaved boy, Huckleberry Finn fakes his own death. He travels down the Mississippi on a raft with Jim, a runaway slave. Along the river they meet swindlers, feuding families and towns full of danger. In his own boyish words, Huck tells the story of a friendship that overturns everything he has been taught. Hemingway said that all modern American literature comes from this book. With the translation always in front of you, Huck's colourful way of talking and his adventures are a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

At the start of the twentieth century, Emma Goldman, who came from Russia to the United States at sixteen, travels the country defending anarchism, the dream of a society without masters. In these essays she attacks prisons, patriotism, loveless marriage and Puritan hypocrisy, and defends women's right to decide their own lives. Born from her lectures, her writing is direct and hard-hitting. Even today it makes us think about what makes each of us truly free. With the translation always in front of you, you can read these committed texts in the language you are learning.

After a shipwreck, Gulliver, a ship's surgeon, wakes up on a beach, tied to the ground by tiny cords: he is among the Lilliputians, a people six inches tall. On later voyages, he in turn becomes tiny in the land of the giants, then discovers a flying island and a country ruled by horses gifted with reason. Behind its fairy-tale air, it is a humorous satire of mankind and its quarrels. The book even left a word in the dictionary: “Lilliputian”. Gulliver tells of his travels like a ship's log, and this great classic is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

In London, one rainy February, two women who do not know each other read the same small advertisement: a little medieval castle is to let for the month of April, in Italy, by the sea, among the wisteria and the sunshine. To share the cost, they join forces with two strangers, a young aristocrat and an old lady. Far from London and their habits, each of them slowly changes in the Italian light. A radiant novel full of humour, which makes you want to travel. Written in a light, lively style, it is a pleasure 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.

After eighteen years in the Bastille, Doctor Manette is released and reunited with his daughter Lucie, who thought he was dead. In London, Lucie meets two men who look strangely alike: Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who has given up his name, and Sydney Carton, a brilliant but disillusioned barrister. Soon the Revolution breaks out and draws them all to Paris. Its opening line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, is one of the most famous in literature, and its ending still moves readers deeply. Full of suspense and dramatic twists, the novel is a gripping read in the language you are learning.

One morning in London, a modest architect finds in his bath the body of a stranger, wearing nothing but a gold pince-nez. On the same day, a rich financier vanishes without a trace. Lord Peter Wimsey, an elegant aristocrat and amateur detective, takes up the case with the help of Bunter, his faithful manservant. It is the first case for Lord Peter, a hero as funny as he is brilliant, whose light-hearted manner hides a formidable nose for the truth. With its humorous dialogue, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In Paris at the end of the nineteenth century, Georges Duroy, a penniless former soldier, runs into an old comrade who has become a journalist and gets him a job on his newspaper. Handsome, with neither talent nor scruples, Duroy soon realises that women can open every door for him. Maupassant paints the portrait of a seducer who will stop at nothing to succeed, and shows plainly what goes on behind the scenes of the press, politics and money. With its lively chapters and clear style, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Ivan Ilyich is a respected judge who has built himself a comfortable, honourable and well-ordered life. One day, after an ordinary fall, a strange pain appears in his side, and never leaves him. Little by little he realises that his illness is serious, and that his family would rather pretend to see nothing. Facing death, he wonders whether he has really lived. This short story by Tolstoy has lost none of its force: it asks the question everyone ends up asking, about what really matters. Written in a simple, direct style, it 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.

Albert Einstein himself explains relativity to the general public. To make himself understood, he uses everyday examples: a train running along a platform, two flashes of lightning striking at the same moment, a stone dropped from the window of a railway carriage. You do not need advanced mathematics to follow him, from the speed of light to the curvature of space. At last you understand why time and space are not what we thought, and it is Einstein himself who explains it. Written in a clear style, with short chapters, the book is easy to read in the language you are learning.

After years in Paris, Lyubov Ranevskaya returns to her country estate, which is riddled with debt. A decision must be made about the cherry orchard, the garden of her childhood. Around her gather her brother, her daughters, the old manservant, an eternal student and a merchant whose father was a serf of the family. It is Chekhov's last play, which he himself called a comedy: it blends laughter and melancholy in a gentle farewell to a world that is fading away. Written entirely in dialogue, this short play is 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.