Books like Frankenstein

01

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde · Literary fiction

Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man who, on the day his portrait is painted, makes a wish — or perhaps a bargain, though no one is present to take the other side of it — that the portrait should age in his place.

02

The Turn of the Screw

Henry James · Horror

A young governess is sent to an isolated English country house to care for two children, Miles and Flora, whose guardian — a charming, absent man in London — has made clear he does not want to be bothered.

03

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell · Memoir

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's firsthand account of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, which he joined in late 1936 as a volunteer with the POUM militia — a Trotskyist revolutionary organization that was later suppressed by the Soviet-backed Stalinist wing of the Republican forces.

04

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad · Literary fiction

Marlow, a sailor sitting on a boat on the Thames, tells the story of a journey he made up the Congo River to find Kurtz, a brilliant company agent who has gone silent deep in the interior.

05

A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway · Literary fiction

A Farewell to Arms is set during the First World War in northern Italy and follows Frederic Henry, an American serving as a lieutenant in the Italian ambulance corps, who falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse.

06

A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry · Literary fiction

A Fine Balance is set in an unnamed Indian city during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975–1977, a period of suspended democracy, forced sterilization, and slum clearances that is barely taught in the West and barely taught in India.