1984
by George Orwell · Signet Classics
George Orwell's 1949 novel following Winston Smith, a clerk rewriting history in a one-party state that controls citizens through surveillance, propaganda and Newspeak. Readers can analyse how the novel portrays totalitarian power, language and truth, and why its vocabulary shaped modern political debate.
More resources on British Literature
Poetry Off the Shelf
Producer Helena de Groot talks to poets about language, dreams, love and loss, identity, connection, anger, discomfort, the creative process, the state of the world and the world of the soul. Hard conversations are welcomed—laughter is, too.
Lit Century
Host Catherine Nichols and guests choose one book for each year of the twentieth century (Nella Larsen's Passing, 1936, Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, 1966; Mohandas Gandhi's Indian Home Rule, 1909) and talk about it in its historical and literary context. Tune in to find out what the 20th century was all about.
gutenberg.org
Project Gutenberg is a free digital library of public-domain literature with thousands of classic novels, poems, and essays available to read online or download in formats like EPUB, Kindle, or plain text, making it a great source for Introduction to Literature.
victorianweb.org
Victorian Web is a comprehensive online resource on Victorian literature and culture. It offers author biographies, critical essays, bibliographies, and annotated primary sources, along with historical context, images, and other reference materials.
The British Library
Explore British literature with The British Library's YouTube channel! Discover authors, manuscripts, and literary history.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature
Volume 2 of the standard survey anthology used in university English courses, collecting Romantic through twentieth-century writing with editorial headnotes, glosses and period introductions. Reading it gives you a chronological map of English literary history and its major texts.