Le Morte D'Arthur ("The Death of Arthur") is a collection of stories written by Thomas Malory that chronicle the life, adventures, and death of King Arthur.

Robert Burns (1759-1796) is largely considered Scotland's national poet, and among his most famous compositions is the lyrics to the popular New Year's tune "Auld Lang Syne." Burns both compiled and edited a number of Scottish folk songs, and wrote his own lyrics to traditional tunes. Burns' birthday, January 25, is celebrated as a holiday in Scotland and around the world by the Scottish diaspora.

The poet John Donne was an Anglican clergyman, and wrote many poems which reflect a deep and pious religious faith. Donne, however, also excelled at writing sonnets that fit in with a traditional sonnet form, including extremely sensual love poems filled with erotic imagery.

Candide was written by Voltaire, a French Enlightenment author, in 1759 and systematically details a series of ills of European society. It targets religion and challenges the authority of the monarchy.

Jane Austen, who published between 1811 and 1816, wrote novels that centered on the romantic interests and pursuits of well-born women in England during the early nineteenth century. Some of her best-known works are Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma, which all deal with women finding their husbands.

Mary Shelley's landmark gothic novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, is told first from the perspective of an explorer who meets the inventor Victor Frankenstein. After an introductory chapter, the story is told by Frankenstein himself in a series of flashbacks, or scenes that take place in the past of the novel's timeframe.

Herman Melville's Moby Dick; or, The Whale, first published in 1851, tells the story of a whaling vessel, led by the intense Captain Ahab, as it tracks down the great white whale who gives the book its name. Told through the perspective of the sailor Ishmael, it is a highly allegorical tale featuring allusions to biblical themes, classical mythology, and historical issues.

Ebenezer Scrooge is the main character of the novella A Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens in 1843. The story features three Christmas ghosts who each visit the miserly rich man Scrooge on Christmas Eve night. The three ghosts show Scrooge his past, present, and future, which make him reconsider his life and become more charitable and generous.

Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace focuses on the lives of two young members of the Russian nobility, Pierre Bezhukov and Andrei Bolkonsky, who struggle with their identities during the Napoleonic wars. Bezhukov is a student who has spent time in Paris, and Bolkonsky is his old friend who is a carouser and bon vivant. War and Peace is considered one of the great novels of world literature.

The Scarlet Letter was written in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who often wrote about the colonial period in his native Massachusetts. The Scarlet Letter is the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman who is castigated by Puritan society for becoming pregnant and refusing to reveal the father of her child. The book's title derives from the bright red "A" she is required to wear by the town's magistrates.