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One morning, Gregor Samsa, a humble travelling salesman, wakes up transformed into an enormous insect. Shut in his room, he can no longer work, and his family, who depended on his wages, have to learn to live with him. This short story, unsettling and shot through with dark humour, shows what is left of a man when his family sees him only as a burden. Kafka writes in simple, precise sentences: an ideal text for a first read in the language you are learning.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In London, a painter makes a portrait of Dorian Gray, a young man of extraordinary beauty. In front of the picture, Dorian makes a wish: to stay young for ever, and for the portrait to grow old in his place. Under the influence of the cynical Lord Henry, he throws himself into a life of pleasure, and each of his sins leaves a mark on the canvas. Dorian then hides the picture from everyone. A fascinating story about beauty, evil and the price of eternal youth, sparkling with Oscar Wilde's wit. Its witty dialogue makes it a captivating read in the language you are learning.

Marlow, an English sailor, agrees to take a steamboat up a great river in Africa, for a company that trades in ivory. All the way upriver, he hears about Kurtz, the company's most brilliant agent. Kurtz, who has settled in the depths of the forest, sends back more ivory on his own than all the others put together. But no one really knows what has become of him out there. This short tale takes the reader on a fascinating journey into the heart of colonisation, where power no longer has any limits. With the translation always in front of you, you can discover this story 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.

An old legend says that a monstrous hound haunts the Baskerville family on the Devon moor. One evening, Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead, his face frozen in terror. Near him are the footprints of a gigantic hound. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are called in to protect his heir. It is Sherlock Holmes's most famous case, amid fog, bogs and fear of the supernatural. Full of suspense, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In a small village in the Hudson Valley, people say that a headless horseman gallops along the roads at night. Ichabod Crane, a thin and very superstitious schoolmaster, courts the daughter of a rich local farmer, under the eye of a rival far brawnier than he is. Both funny and eerie, this short tale is one of America's most famous ghost stories, perfect for an autumn evening. You can read it in one sitting in the language you are learning.

A young woman, worn out after the birth of her baby, is taken by her husband, a doctor, to an old house rented for the summer. She is forbidden to write or work, and she spends her days in a room covered in hideous yellow wallpaper. She keeps a secret diary, and comes to believe that a figure is moving behind the pattern on the wall. Charlotte Perkins Gilman had been through such a rest cure herself, and this short story creates an unease that grows with every page. 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.

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.

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.

In St Petersburg, Hermann, a young officer, watches his fellow officers play cards every night without ever placing a bet himself. He learns that an old countess is said to know the secret of three cards that always win. To get close to her, he courts Lizaveta, the poor young woman who lives with the countess, and one night he slips into the house. This short story by Pushkin builds the tension right to the end, and leaves a doubt hanging: chance, madness or the supernatural? You can read it in one sitting in the language you are learning.

A young governess goes to look after two children, Miles and Flora, in an isolated manor house in the English countryside. The children are charming, almost too charming. Soon she glimpses, on a tower and then near a pond, two figures who should not be there. Real ghosts, or the governess's madness? Henry James leaves the question open to the very last line, and it is this doubt that makes the tale one of the most famous ghost stories. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this classic 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.

Twelve new cases of Sherlock Holmes, told by his friend Dr Watson. Holmes finds a famous missing racehorse, tells Watson about his very first case, and introduces him to his brother Mycroft, who is even better at observation than he is. The collection ends with his confrontation with Professor Moriarty, “the Napoleon of crime”, one of the most famous episodes in detective fiction. You can read each case in one sitting, and the lively dialogue makes them an ideal read in the language you are learning.

In the autumn of 1918, the Heredith family are entertaining guests in their old moated manor house in Sussex. During dinner, a scream and then a shot ring out upstairs. In her room they find Violet, the young wife of the son of the house, shot dead. There is no weapon and no trace, and the open window is six metres above the ground. A Scotland Yard detective, then a famous private investigator, try to work out how the killer got in and out. A true English country-house puzzle, carefully built right up to the last page. Full of suspense, this detective novel is easy to read 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 the Spain of old legends, a hunter finds a woman with green eyes beside a hidden spring. A young poet runs through the night after an unknown woman who may be nothing but a moonbeam. Elsewhere, a blind organist plays music that lives on after death. This collection brings together six of these tales, somewhere between dream and shiver. Bécquer, a great poet of Spanish Romanticism, tells them as if by the fireside, in a simple, musical style. Each tale is short and can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In his laboratory, Dr Raymond operates on the brain of a young girl, Mary, so that she can see the world hidden behind our own, what the ancients called “seeing the god Pan”. Years later, in London, men from good society take their own lives one after another, and each time the same woman seems to have crossed their path. Told in fragments, like an investigation, this short tale builds fear touch by touch. Lovecraft admired it, and it is one of the great classics of supernatural fiction. With the translation always in front of you, you can enjoy the shivers in the language you are learning.