5 Must-Read Classics

Beginning with Hawthorne’s great coming-of-age tale, which springs from near the headwaters of the modern short story, and moving through the modern decades with Auden’s unrivaled essay on reading, Jean Stafford’s famous roman à clef involving characters based on Robert Lowell and other well-known figures, to Gina Berriault’s masterpiece of a short short—six devastating scenes in three pages—and finally to V. S. Pritchett’s story of love awakened between an embittered blind man and a willful, disfigured woman, these five pieces are among the all-time lasting works. They entertain, enlighten, and arouse human sympathy.

Nathaniel Hawthorne
My Kinsman, Major Molineux
There, in tar-and-feather dignity, sat his kinsman, Major Molineux!
W. H. Auden
Reading
Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.
Jean Stafford
An Influx of Poets
Be careful what you wish for, be wary of the predicates of your fantasies and lies.
Gina Berriault
The Woman in the Rose-Colored Dress
She was no longer the fearful woman in awe of my father.
V. S. Pritchett
Blind Love
In three years he had made her forget that blindness meant not seeing.

5 Must-Read Classics

There, in tar-and-feather dignity, sat his kinsman, Major Molineux!

Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.

Be careful what you wish for, be wary of the predicates of your fantasies and lies.

She was no longer the fearful woman in awe of my father.

In three years he had made her forget that blindness meant not seeing.