Diary of a Madman

A blacksmith's apprentice gets unexpected money from an unknown benefactor and becomes a gentleman. Dickens' most personal novel.

Charles Dickens

A St. Petersburg student murders an old pawnbroker to prove a theory and spends 500 pages dealing with what he did.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A workhouse orphan asks for more food, escapes to London, and falls in with a gang of child pickpockets. Dickens' second novel and his angriest.

Charles Dickens

An aging Spanish gentleman reads too many chivalric novels and decides to become a knight. The first modern novel, written in 1605.

Miguel de Cervantes

A miser is visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve. Short enough to read in one evening, which is the point.

Charles Dickens