Drama Web Novels Featuring Classic

Drama web novels featuring Classic, with public chapters on NovelCult.

New here? Start with Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis

Dodsworth

In the booming American Midwest of the 1920s, an innovative auto manufacturer decides to retire early at the age of fifty, having achieved the American Dream through his hard work and ingenuity. With his younger, socially ambitious wife, he embarks on a long-dreamed-of European tour—a seemingly perfect capstone to a successful life. But what begins as a leisurely vacation opens up profound questions about identity, marriage, and the nature of fulfillment.

Sinclair Lewis · Drama · 36 ch

Little Women

Little Women is the classic coming-of-age tale of four sisters on their journey to adulthood. Though today it’s considered a classic, Little Women almost wasn’t written: Alcott wanted to publish a collection of short stories instead, but her publisher and her father pressed her to write a book that would appeal to a wide audience of young girls. The first volume was written quickly and published in 1868; it was a huge success, and Alcott composed the second volume just as quickly and published it in 1869.

Louisa May Alcott · Drama · 48 ch

The Vicar of Wakefield

Though published in 1766, The Vicar of Wakefield was one of the most popular and widely read books of the Victorian era. References to Vicar in Victorian literature abound: George Eliot, Austen, Dickens, Mary Shelly, Charlotte Brontë, Alcott, Goethe, and many more famous writers all mention Vicar in their books. The plot concerns the titular vicar, Charles Primrose, a mild-mannered and forgiving man who lives with his family in a country parish.

Oliver Goldsmith · Drama · 33 ch

Nicholas Nickleby

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby tells the story of the eponymous hero and his sister Kate after the death of their father leaves them and their mother destitute and dependent on the support of their uncle Ralph Nickleby. The latter is a cold, hard man whose only interest is in amassing money and influence, and who has no empathy for the plight of his brother’s wife and children. Though he is very rich, Ralph offers them almost nothing, other than arranging for Nicholas and Kate to be employed in degrading jobs and for their mother to live in a near-derelict house he owns.

Charles Dickens · Drama · 67 ch

Villette

Charlotte Brontë’s last novel, Villette, is thought to be most closely modelled on her own experiences teaching in a pensionnat in Brussels, the place on which the fictional town of Villette is based. In the novel, first published in 1853, we follow the protagonist Lucy Snowe from the time she is fourteen and lives with her godmother in rural England, through her family tragedies and departure for the town of Villette where she finds work at a French boarding school. People from her past reappear in dramatic ways, she makes new connections, and she learns the stories and secrets of the people around her.

Charlotte Brontë · Drama · 42 ch

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is Joyce’s first novel, published after the previous success of his short story collection Dubliners. The novel is written in a modernist style, with dialog and narration blending together in a kind of stream-of-consciousness meant to invoke the blurriness of memory. Joyce originally planned writing a realist autobiographical novel of 63 chapters titled Stephen Hero.

James Joyce · Drama · 13 ch

Main Street

Carol Milford grows up in a mid-sized town in Minnesota before moving to Chicago for college. After her education, during which she’s exposed to big-city life and culture, she moves to Minneapolis to work as a librarian. She soon meets Will Kennicott, a small-town doctor, and the two get married and move to Gopher Prairie, Kennicott’s home town.

Sinclair Lewis · Drama · 40 ch

The Sport of the Gods

The Sport of the Gods is a novel set in the United States in the late nineteenth century. It chronicles the tribulations of the Oakleys, an African American family of four, as they struggle to survive and maintain their integrity in a Southern town and then in New York City. Prejudice, provincialism, and temptation take their tolls, and the justice system stands ever ready to grab the losers.

Paul Laurence Dunbar · Drama · 20 ch

War and Peace

Against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, five aristocratic families in Russia are transformed by the vagaries of life, by war, and by the intersection of their lives with each other. Hundreds of characters populate War and Peace, many of them historical persons, including Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I, and all of them come to life under Tolstoy’s deft hand. War and Peace is generally considered to be Tolstoy’s masterpiece, a pinnacle of Russian literature, and one of history’s great novels.

Leo Tolstoy · Historical · 365 ch

The Way We Live Now

The Way We Live Now is Anthony Trollope’s longest novel, published in two volumes in 1875 after first appearing in serial form. After an extended visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1872, Trollope was outraged on his return to England by a number of financial scandals, and was determined to expose the dishonesty, corruption, and greed they embodied. The Way We Live Now centers around a foreign businessman, Augustus Melmotte, who has come to prominence in London despite rumors about his past dealings on the Continent.

Anthony Trollope · Drama · 100 ch

The Enchanted April

Four strangers, each enchanted by an advertisement addressed “To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine,” impulsively pool their savings to lease a medieval Italian castle for the month of April. All are deeply dissatisfied with life and in need of escape: awkward Mrs. Wilkins, increasingly resentful of a husband who largely ignores her; proper Mrs. Arbuthnot, whose own marriage seems headed toward estrangement; beautiful and unmarried Lady Caroline Dester, tired of men constantly “grabbing” at her; and elderly Mrs. Fisher, widowed and walled off in memories of the past. As they come to know one another, each woman finds herself gradually transformed by the beauty of San Salvatore—a magical place where conflict just might turn to friendship, and even the most soured relationship has a chance of being salvaged.

Elizabeth von Arnim · Drama · 22 ch

The American Senator

When John Morton returns to his rural English estate from a diplomatic posting in Washington, he returns not only with an American senator seeking to understand England, but also with a fiancée, the aristocratic beauty Arabella Trefoil. Morton’s return also brings him back into contact with his slightly older and estranged cousin, Reginald, who still resides in Dillsborough, their ancestral town. Out of these elements, Trollope constructs a “chronicle of a winter at Dillsborough”—as the Senator of the title does not, in fact, take pride of place, which instead goes to the goings-on among residents of the town and its environs.

Anthony Trollope · Drama · 79 ch

William—An Englishman

William Tully is an unremarkable English clerk, passing his mundane and well-ordered life by doing what others tell him and trying to live up to their expectations. But when his mother passes away suddenly, William finally decides to take control of his own life and discover his purpose in the world. Inspired by a coworker’s advice, William becomes immersed in political activism and eventually meets Griselda Watkins, a young suffragette.

Cicely Hamilton · Drama · 7 ch

Such Is Life

Such Is Life is an Australian novel written by Joseph Furphy under a pseudonym of “Tom Collins” and published in 1903. It purports to be a series of diary entries by the author, selected at approximately one-month intervals during late 1883 and early 1884. “Tom Collins” travels rural New South Wales and Victoria, interacting and talking at length with a variety of characters including the drivers of bullock-teams, itinerant swagmen, boundary riders, and squatters (the owners of large rural properties).

Joseph Furphy · Drama · 30 ch

The Beautiful and Damned

Anthony Patch, the grandson of a wealthy businessman, spends his youth in idle relaxation expecting to inherit his grandfather’s fortune. But when he meets Gloria, a vibrant young flapper, the two feel an irresistible attraction and quickly get married despite their clashing personalities. The two embark on a lifestyle of Jazz Age living: hard partying, profligate spending, and generally living the high life.

F. Scott Fitzgerald · Drama · 16 ch

Martin Eden

Martin Eden is a young, hard working man of the working class. After a chance encounter with a beautiful woman of the bourgeoisie, he finds himself in love. In order to win this woman’s approval he decides to educate himself: He corrects his speech, he learns proper manners, and he reads the classics of literature, philosophy, and science.

Jack London · Drama · 46 ch

A Thief in the Night

“Bunny” Manders is drawn to fill the void left by A. J. Raffles’ absence at the end of The Black Mask with untold stories of the past adventures.

E. W. Hornung · Drama · 13 ch

The Inferno

The narrator of The Inferno —ostensibly August Strindberg himself—has not had an easy recent past, and a move to Paris is not helping. As his mania overtakes his ability to function in the society of artists, writers, scientists and philosophers he’d like to be part of, he turns to more unconventional methods to help make sense of his world. Written in diary form, The Inferno is a semi-autobiographical work that blends self-deprecating humour with a whirl of neurosis and attempted rationalisation.

August Strindberg · Drama · 19 ch

The Great Impersonation

It’s 1913, and war is on the horizon. The disgraced English aristocrat, Everard Dominey, is stumbling through East Africa when he comes across his old classmate and lookalike—the German Baron von Ragastein. Shortly after their chance encounter, Dominey returns to England.

E. Phillips Oppenheim · Drama · 29 ch

The Red Badge of Courage

Henry Fleming has joined the Union army because of his romantic ideas of military life, but soon finds himself in the middle of a battle against a regiment of Confederate soldiers. Terrified, Henry deserts his comrades. Upon returning to his regiment, he struggles with his shame as he tries to redeem himself and prove his courage.

Stephen Crane · Drama · 24 ch