Anna Karenina is the classic story of love gone terribly wrong. It has been called one of the greatest novels ever written. The story follows the adventures of a young member of the Russian aristocracy, whose life takes an unexpected turn when she breaks her marriage vows and begins a love affair with a debonair. Set in 19th century Russia, this is an epic tale filled with passion, adventure, betrayal, danger, controversy, and just about everything in between. Additionally to the main storyline, Leo Tolstoy also gives readers a peak inside the world of Russian aristocrats, which faced many of the same problems faced by English aristocrats of the period – there was a servant problem, they were constrained by social norms that were out of sync with the times, they had to walk a tightrope when dealing with those in power above them while trying not to alienate those beneath them. Tolstoy interweaves the social ills of the period, and the innate hypocrisies of aristocratic society into this masterpiece, while at the same time offering up a page turning story that will resonate with readers from every walk of life. As such, Anna Karenina is one of the finest examples of realist fiction.

Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel, for all of its modern sense of honesty and power, could have been written just yesterday. Here we have one of literature’s tragic heroines—the beautiful Emma Bovary—and the dark temptations that draw her down a fatal path. Emma is besieged by boredom as she yawns away her days as a country doctor’s wife in a town where nothing seems to happen. Seeking change and excitement, Emma comes up with a desperate and dangerous solution: the pursuit of excess. She embarks on tumultuous affairs with two different lovers, making extravagant purchases and living a lie more reckless than any of her neighbors would ever dare. Emma’s husband is clueless to her sins, but when an unpaid bill for one of Emma’s shopping trips arrives at home, he begins to understand what has happened. Emma’s crimes of passion are swift to catch up with her, bringing her glamorous lifestyle to a screeching halt and tearing her life to pieces in a terrifying finale.

Perhaps the most famous opening lines from any novel are the opening lines to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” These words are spoken by Mrs. Bennet to Mr. Bennet on the news that a gentleman of fortune has just moved to Netherfield Park, a nearby estate.The Bennets begin this story with a peculiar problem: they have five unmarried daughters and no sons. Their estate is entailed, or restricted in inheritance, to Mr. Collins, a family cousin. Upon Mr. Bennet’s death, Mr. Collins will inherit the family lands, which will leave the Bennet daughters without a home or money. It becomes vital, therefore, that at least one of the daughters marries well in order to support and house their sisters (and mother if she is still alive) should they not be able to marry …

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel written by Mark Twain and published in 1884. It is commonly regarded as one of the Great American Novels, and is one of the first major American novels written in the vernacular, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels. The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. By satirizing a Southern antebellum society that was already anachronistic at the time, the book is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. The drifting journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature. The book has been popular with young readers since its publication and is taken as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It has also been the continued object of study by serious literary critics. The book was criticized upon release because of its coarse language, and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slur, “nigger.”

Structured in a frame tale, the Decameron played a part in the history of the novel. It was finished by Giovanni Boccaccio in 1353. This work opens with a description of the Black Death and leads into an introduction of a group of seven young women and three young men who fled from Plague ridden Florence for a villa outside of town. To pass the time, each member of the party tells one story for every one of the ten nights spent at the villa. The Decameron is a distinctive work, in that it describes in detail the physical, psychological and social effects that the Bubonic Plague had on that part of Europe. It is also interesting to note that a number of the stories contained within the Decameron would later appear in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. However, it is unclear as to whether or not Chaucer had known of the Decameron. One woman, Pampinea, is elected Queen for the first day. Each day the company’s previous king/queen elects who shall succeed them and nominates the theme for the current days storytelling. Each day has a new theme assigned to it except for days 1 and 9: misfortunes that bring a person to a state of unexpected happiness; people who have achieved an object they greatly desired, or recovered a thing previously lost; love stories that ended unhappily; love that survived disaster; those who have avoided danger; tricks women have played on their husbands; tricks both men and women play on each other; those who have given very generously whether for love or another endeavor.