NetFable

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Gothic novels were never one voice

Dracula is diary entries and phonograph transcripts. Frankenstein is a stranger's letters home. Reading them as a conversation isn't a modernization — it's closer to the form they were already in.

Free public-domain classics, read as interactive fiction

Austen, Bronte, Stoker, Stevenson, Wilde — the copyright on all of them ran out decades ago. Here is where to read them free, adapted as a story you steer rather than a wall of text.

Where to start with Sherlock Holmes

Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories, and the usual advice to begin at the beginning is wrong. Where to actually start.

Classic novels you can finish tonight

Carmilla, The Turn of the Screw, Jekyll and Hyde, Lady Susan — classics short enough to finish this evening, none of which read like homework.

Which Brontë sister to read first

Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre, Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, and Anne wrote the one Charlotte tried to bury. A guide to starting with the Brontes.