Improve your typing speed by retyping classic literature

Read the works of Charles Dickens

Dickens' work has long been in the public domain, meaning it's freely available to readers. Project Gutenberg's collection of Dickens' novels allows you to read classic novels like "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale of Two Cities," as well as early works like "Sketches by Boz," at no cost.

Check out cheap, mass-market, and often trashy editions of classic books from Ralph Ellison, James Joyce, Jane Austen, and many more.

Explore a list of the best novels of all time, including works by Jane Austen, Cormac McCarthy, and many others.

Twain read (and lampooned) classic literature

Ever the ironist, Twain claimed to have “ no liking for novels or stories.” Obviously, that was untrue: He read widely, devouring books by Charles Dickens, slave narratives, and texts on astronomy. He also loved John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” which he called “something everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”

The Library of America, a reissue series that began in 1982, repackaged classic works of American writers at a low cost to encourage readers to engage with what it considered the American literary canon.

Read the works of Mark Twain

Twain's books are in the public domain, meaning they can be freely distributed. Digital versions of his classic novels—including "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"—as well as many of his short stories and satirical essays can be accessed through Project Gutenberg.

14 famous authors trash-talking classic books

Just because something's considered a "classic" doesn't mean it's universally loved. Even the world's most respected writers don't agree on what defines great literature. Look no further than this list of writers criticizing canonical texts, like Charlotte Brontë deriding Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" or Virginia Woolf on James Joyce's "Ulysses." The most succinct might be Aldous Huxley on Jack Kerouac's "On the Road": "I got a little bored after a time. I mean, the road seemed to be awfully long."

Audit a Yale course on great American novels after 1945

Wish you'd paid more attention back in college? There's good news: You can still pop into some college classes, without having to pay tuition (or write term papers). This course from one-time Yale professor Amy Hungerford walks through the great American novels after World War II, including works from Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, and more.

Science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury couldn't afford college, but he spent several days a week in his local library, teaching himself how to become a writer.

Read the works of Henry David Thoreau, including 'Walden' and 'Civil Disobedience,' for free.

A computational analysis of Jane Austen's writing

Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln translated Austen's novels into code to analyze her diction, then published their findings in a searchable database. Users can explore all six of her novels, analyzing the unique words used by her characters and the narrative techniques she employs.

Circulating libraries helped the novel's popularity surge

As literacy rates began to rise in the 19th century, so did the demand for reading materials. The only problem? Newspapers and books weren’t cheap, and newly literate middle-class families struggled to afford literature. That changed when booksellers began offering small fees for patrons who decided to borrow rather than purchase books. This was eventually called a circulating library, an innovation that would satisfy the burgeoning readership of novels and increase literacy rates further.

Get lost in these historical libraries

The internet has changed a lot about how we learn, explore new ideas, and conduct research, particularly when it comes to the spaces we learn in. While few of us would trade our smartphones for a walk in a historical library, a walk through some of the beautifully designed cathedrals of learning could remind us to put them down sometimes. Explore 10 of the world's magnificent libraries with this quick video survey.

Check out a list of 50 great novels under 200 pages, including works by Albert Camus, Shirley Jackson, James Baldwin, and more.

The printing press spread novels widely

Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1440 changed how writing was reproduced. It allowed multiple manuscripts to be copied via movable type rather than by hand, making more literature more widely available. Over time, that change caused literacy rates to rise, creating a market for even more literature.

Ray Bradbury wrote 'Fahrenheit 451,' his landmark dystopian novel, on a rented typewriter in the basement of a UCLA library.

The typo that scandalized a continent

One printing mistake in the 17th century proved so unfortunate it cost two men their careers and scandalized religious folks for centuries. Read the story here.

Read 'The New Negro,' the influential collection that helped define the Harlem Renaissance.

A critic evaluates Orwell's lesser-known books

Orwell is primarily known for "Animal Farm" and "1984," but The Critic's Alexander Larman argues that Orwell's other titles—especially the 1936 novel "Keep the Aspidistra Flying"—are also worthy reads. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

A beginner's guide to Toni Morrison

The legendary American writer died in 2019, but her fiction is still as relevant as ever. This primer walks aspiring Morrison fans through her body of work, outlining the ideal starting point for several different kinds of readers. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Find your next book by prompting this AI

Have a general idea of the sort of book you'd like to read next, but don't know how to find a specific one? Try this fun and impressive tool. Describe the type of book you're looking for. It will suggest five options which attempt to meet your prompt. Find your next page-turner with this very cool tool.

'Bibliotherapy' is of increasing interest as a way to improve mental health and help navigate complex life situations—with people immersing themselves in the experiences of fictional characters or nonfiction and self-help books to find relief and gain personal insights.

How famous writers chose their pen names

From Joseph Conrad to JK Rowling, writers employ pseudonyms for all kinds of reasons. How they find those pseudonyms, however, depends on the individual.

One hundred ways to improve your life without really trying

Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved …

Browse an Orwell superfan's book collection

This Brown University Library exhibit displays scans from collector Daniel Leab's extensive trove of Orwell's works, including many first editions and translations. In addition to the beautiful covers, there's also plenty of fascinating bibliographic information.

A linguist argues Jane Austen's language is what defines her fiction

While many readers love Austen's novels for their characters and their romantic plots, Chi Luu argues that many people (including literary luminaries like Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, and Ralph Waldo Emerson) underestimate how her adept wordplay, sense of irony, and memorable turns of phrase are what have made readers fall in love with her fiction for centuries.

Eight ways literature can make us happier

Novels are often characterized as a form of cultural escape, but psychologists argue there are health benefits to the many elements comprising fiction. The Greek philosopher Aristotle explored this in his "Poetics," asking if literature was something meant to make us happier. This article highlights eight different innovations common to literature that provide psychological benefits, including the plot twist and more.

Why aren’t students reading?

It's not just anecdotal: Current students struggle to read longer texts and report lower reading levels for enjoyment than past generations. This brief explainer from the Chronicle of Higher Education diagnoses some of the possible causes (increased screen time and learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic among them) along with how some educators are trying to correct the problem.

The QWERTY layout first appeared in the Sholes and Glidden typewriter, sold starting in 1874 by the E. Remington and Sons gun manufacturer, which was looking to diversify after the Civil War.

Play a puzzle game where the speed of light is reduced to everyday speeds

In "Velocity Raptor," space and time warp as you make your way across a room of obstacles at "normal" speeds. Take advantage of these relativistic effects to solve puzzles involving clocks running at different rates and colors shifting as a result of your movement.

Practice encrypting and decrypting text using an online library of ciphers

This tool provides users with customizable protocols, including Caesar, Affine, and Vigenère ciphers, to hide messages in transformed text and convert them back into legible formats. Mechanisms are also available to convert text into other communication languages, such as Morse code and URL encoding.

The novel broke new ground by offering realistic stories

In this brief interview, Terry Castle, an English professor at Stanford, explains the origins of the early British novel. Castle details how the novel was produced for a newly literate middle class interested in recognizable characters and stories “about life as they knew it” rather than Greek and Roman myths or medieval romances. She also explains why a newly enfranchised female demographic was attracted to the fiction of writers like Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf.

Read the writing advice of science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury.

Scholars believe Dickens wrote over a million words of nonfiction

The author began writing professionally in his teens, first as a court reporter, then for many papers, penning op-eds, criticism, and other miscellany. While Dickens is often discussed as a novelist, he has a massive corpus of works situated in reality.

'For it would seem—her case proved it—that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.'

- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) in "Orlando: A Biography"

'Practice, which some regard as a chore, should be approached as just about the most pleasant recreation ever devised.'

- Legendary athlete Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956)

The opening chapters of bestselling novels are thousands of words shorter than they were in the 1950s

Novels like "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Lord of the Flies" averaged opening chapters with about 4,500 words. Titles from the 2020s, on the other hand, including "Fourth Wing" and "Lessons in Chemistry," are closer to 2,500 words.

Read the complete text of 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'

The 1900 L. Frank Baum book that established the world of Oz entered the public domain in 1956, making it available for anyone who would like to read, distribute or reinterpret it. That also means you can browse the complete, original text for free.

'Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.'

- Author Philip Roth (1933-2018)

Winston Churchill said he was comforted by Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' and its characters' calmness during World War II.

Read a 19th-century guide to writing a Valentine's Day card

Thomas Richardson's "London Fashionable Gentleman's Valentine Writer" offers readers romantic messages they can send to the objects of their eyes—along with some chippy kiss-offs for unwanted suitors. It might be sincere, or it might be satire. Either way, it's an entertaining read. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Browse a fan-made 'Newspeak Dictionary'

In Orwell's "1984," citizens of Oceania are expected to use Newspeak, a form of English that limits abstract thought and reinforces the government's version of reality. This satirical dictionary of the language demonstrates how Orwell constructed a lexicon for his fictional world.

How a sick George Orwell finished '1984'

The writer worked on the novel while living in a remote cottage in Scotland. While he was there, he was in a boating accident that sent him overboard, eventually leading to a fatal bout of tuberculosis. Orwell finished the novel (and massive revisions) while trying to recover. He died in 1950, at 46.

Read George Orwell's essay 'Why I Write,' the writer's memoir on how he came to literature.

The Wiki Game: get to one Wikipedia topic to another as fast as you can

Wikipedia, the free, community-built encyclopedia, uses hyperlinks so users can explore topics within topics. This tool often leads readers to go down endless rabbit holes, from one topic to another, endlessly. Now, you can make a game of it by...

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the entire first draft of 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' in a frantic three days, only to burn it out of disgust.

Explore interactive maps from fictional journeys, including 'The Odyssey,' 'Moby-Dick,' and more.

Read the poetry of Henry David Thoreau

Although primarily known for his nonfiction, the New England transcendentalist was also a prolific poet, writing verse that, like his essays, tackled nature, man, and society. The Academy of American Poets has collected 30 of his poems, which you can read for free.

Type out a tone and play it back with this fun game

Compose an original piece of music from your phone or desktop with this simple, super fun interface: Just start typing, discover the various sounds associated with each key or letter, and then press play. Go back, tweak, delete, and revise to your...

ChatGPT may struggle with factual inaccuracies, despite writing accurately in English

In a classroom experiment, a journalist enrolled in an AP English Literature course submitted an essay written by ChatGPT, which confused characters and setting when comparing two texts. The tool was also unfamiliar with texts outside of its training data.