Explore

Choose any page on the shelf, or let chance choose for you.

• Frankenstein; Or, The Modern PrometheusMary Wollstonecraft ShelleyChapter IVlife and death · light and darkness
• PersuasionJane AustenChapter IVprudence and romance · youth and age
• Jane Eyre: An AutobiographyCharlotte BrontëChapter Xrules and freedom · hope and fear
• MiddlemarchGeorge EliotBook II, Chapter XXordinary life · attention
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American SlaveFrederick DouglassChapter VIreading and freedom · hope and purpose
• Moby Dick; Or, The WhaleHerman MelvilleChapter 1, Loomingsidentity · melancholy
• The Picture of Dorian GrayOscar WildeThe Prefaceart and artist · revelation and concealment
• Alice's Adventures in WonderlandLewis CarrollChapter I, Down the Rabbit-Holeboredom and curiosity · books and pictures
• Great ExpectationsCharles DickensChapter IXmemory and change · chance
• The Yellow WallpaperCharlotte Perkins GilmanUnnumbered textlight and change · pattern and confinement
• Mrs. DallowayVirginia WoolfOpeningflowers and morning · memory
• American Indian StoriesZitkala-SaImpressions of an Indian Childhood: My Motherwild freedom · movement
• My ÁntoniaWilla CatherBook I, Chapter VIprairie and light · fire
• DublinersJames JoyceEvelineevening · home and change
• North and SouthElizabeth GaskellChapter VII: New Scenes and Facesindustry and nature · smoke and frost
• The Time MachineH. G. WellsChapter IV: Time Travellingtime and speed · night and day
• Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeRobert Louis StevensonHenry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Caseduality · identity
• The Age of InnocenceEdith WhartonChapter XIItruth and pretence · loneliness
• The AwakeningKate ChopinChapter VIbeginnings · sea and voice
• The Country of the Pointed FirsSarah Orne JewettChapter I: The Returnvillage and sea · houses and eyes

Five pages, one path

Follow a literary path

Take five pages in sequence and notice what changes from one to the next.

• Thresholds and departures

  Five pages poised between staying and going, from a riverbank and a school to an industrial city, a remembered home and time itself.

  Begin this 5-page path

• Light and hidden worlds

  Five pages where morning, prairie sun, coastal windows, moonlight and impossible attention alter what can be seen.

  Begin this 5-page path

• Divided and becoming

  Five pages of changing knowledge: a choice reconsidered, literacy pursued, life imagined, consciousness stirring and a self divided.

  Begin this 5-page path