Sister Carrie (1900) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. Controversial for its honest depiction of work, desire, and urban life, Sister Carrie has endured as a classic of naturalist fiction and remains a powerful example of social critique over a century after its publication. Despite poor reviews upon publication, the novel is now considered a landmark of American literature. Tired of the countryside, Carrie Meeber moves to Chicago to live with her older...

In the spring of 1863, while engaged in the fierce battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia, a young Union soldier matures to manhood and finds peace of mind as he comes to grips with his conflicting emotions about war.

First published in 1845, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the memoir of former slave turned abolitionist. The story recounts Douglass's life from early childhood growing up in Maryland as a slave to his eventual escape to the North. Learning to read and write served him well, as he would eventually use it to document the civil injustices of slavery in 19th century America and to craft his impassioned oratories against it.

"Published a few days before the British parliament first debated the abolition of the slave trade in 1789, Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative gives the author's account of his enslavement after his childhood kidnapping in Africa, and his journey from slavery to freedom. Equiano was slave to a captain in the Royal Navy, and later to a Quaker merchant, and he vividly depicts the appalling treatment of enslaved people at sea and on land. He takes...