The classics,
still alive.
Complete reading maps for foundational authors, plus free editions where the edition itself is confirmed as public domain.
Translation matters. An original work may be public domain while a modern translation is protected. Nivegu links only to identified public-domain editions and does not copy contemporary translations.
Choose a writer.
011564–1616 · English
William Shakespeare
Plays and poems that still shape modern ideas of power, desire, ambition, comedy and tragedy.
43 works mapped →021828–1910 · RussianLeo Tolstoy
A vast body of fiction and moral inquiry: families, war, faith, property, violence and the cost of living truthfully.
35 works mapped →031821–1881 · RussianFyodor Dostoevsky
Psychological novels about guilt, freedom, belief, humiliation and the dangerous stories people tell themselves.
24 works mapped →041775–1817 · EnglishJane Austen
Precise social comedy about money, marriage, judgment and the gap between self-image and conduct.
10 works mapped →051812–1870 · EnglishCharles Dickens
Big, propulsive novels about childhood, class, institutions and the human lives hidden inside systems.
16 works mapped →061860–1904 · RussianAnton Chekhov
Stories and plays where small gestures expose loneliness, comedy, status and unspoken change.
15 works mapped →