Fantasy web novels featuring Classic, with public chapters on NovelCult.
New here? Start with Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
Start reading
Initially published in The Strand Magazine, which explains its episodic nature, Five Children and It was later collected into a book. Like many of E. Nesbit’s works, it has proven popular with children and adults to this day.
E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 11 ch
Alice dreams herself into a mirror version of Wonderland, a whimsical land of talking flowers, and chess pieces, and a fighting lion and unicorn, and crosses sections of a life-size chess board. Upon reaching the Eighth Square, she is crowned a queen and the Red and White Queens throw her her very own dinner party to celebrate. Through the Looking-Glass is a sequel to the wildly popular Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice finds herself in a mirror image of Wonderland, instead based on a chess board rather than a deck of cards, meeting mirror copies of her old friends.
Lewis Carroll · Fantasy · 15 ch
The Worm Ouroboros is considered to be one of the foundational texts of the high fantasy genre, influencing later authors like J. R. R.
E. R. Eddison · Fantasy · 38 ch
Originally published in 1928, Orlando, one of Virginia Woolf’s better-known novels, provides a splendid example of Modernist experimentation with genre and storytelling. Orlando is a young Elizabethan nobleman who loves writing poetry as much as he does hunting, wrestling with the household dogs, and indulging in a fine night’s carouse. After being favored by Queen Elizabeth herself, he falls tragically in love.
Virginia Woolf · Fantasy · 11 ch
Peter Pan, a young boy who refuses to grow up, takes Wendy to the lost boys on the fantasy island of the Neverland to be their mother. Wendy’s two brothers, John and Michael, accompany them on their many adventures, including skirmishes with the Native Americans who reside there, and battles with pirates, led by Pan’s nemesis Captain Hook, who is said to be feared even by Captain Flint and Long John Silver. Peter and Wendy, J.
J. M. Barrie · Fantasy · 17 ch
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the classic American children’s novel about the adventures of Dorothy, a young girl who along with her dog Toto is swept away by a cyclone to the magical Land of Oz. It was written by L. Frank Baum and published in May 1900.
L. Frank Baum · Fantasy · 25 ch
Dorothy Gale, accompanied by her cat, Eureka, is traveling to visit her Uncle Henry and her other relatives in California, when she encounters her second cousin, Zeb. While en route in a horse-drawn buggy, an earthquake strikes, creating a vast crevasse into which Dorothy, Zeb, Eureka, and a cab-horse named Jim fall. While underground, they encounter the Wizard, who was last seen flying off in a balloon at the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
L. Frank Baum · Fantasy · 21 ch
Initially published throughout 1819 and 1820, The Sketchbook is a collection of 34 essays and short stories, collected and ordered according to the Author’s Revised Edition published in 1848. The Sketchbook is the first publication to use Irving’s pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, which he would carry into later works. The stories vary in nature, from the comical “The Mutability of Literature” to the eerie and seemingly supernatural “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” but the personality of their narrator, Geoffrey Crayon, connects the stories and attracts their readers.
Washington Irving · Fantasy · 35 ch
The Water of the Wondrous Isles is a landmark in fantasy fiction. First published a year after Morris’s death in 1897 by Kelmscott Press—Morris’s own printing company—the novel follows Birdalone, a young girl who is stolen as a baby by a witch who takes her to serve in the woods of Evilshaw. After she encounters a wood fairy that helps her escape the witch’s clutches, Birdalone embarks on a series of adventures across the titular Wondrous Isles.
William Morris · Fantasy · 109 ch
Everyone’s familiar with Lewis Carroll’s famous children’s classic and the huge influence it’s had on modern culture. The Mad Hatter, the Duchess, the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar—all of these strange and familiar creatures appear in Alice, and the nonsensical style, memorable poems, and colorful set pieces are just as influential. The book was originally written as gift to Alice Liddel, the daughter of one of Carroll’s friends.
Lewis Carroll · Fantasy · 13 ch
Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843 and the first edition, published on 19th December, was so successful that it sold out in just six days. The publishers had to produce two further editions between Christmas and the new year to meet the demand, and the novella has never been out of print. A Christmas Carol tells the story of a greedy money-lender, Ebenezer Scrooge, who is first visited by the ghost of his former business partner and then by three spirits—the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
Charles Dickens · Fantasy · 6 ch
Like other E. Nesbit stories, The Phoenix and the Carpet was initially published in The Strand Magazine. While The Railway Children or Five Children and It proved more popular, Phoenix has still been adapted into three BBC TV series and a film.
E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 13 ch
The House of the Wolfings tells the tale of a band of German Goths living in a wood they call the Mark. Their lives are idyllic until the long shadow of the Roman Empire threatens the peace in their land. Thiodolf, the leader of the Wolfings and a descendant of the ancient gods, must rally the surrounding tribes to defend their home and way of life.
William Morris · Fantasy · 32 ch
The Road to Oz tells the story of Dorothy Gale as she escorts a shaggy traveler who appears outside her farm. They soon find themselves transported to a fantasy land. Upon realizing this, Dorothy and the Shaggy Man travel down the road with the assumption that it will lead them to Oz, revealing a way for Dorothy to return home.
L. Frank Baum · Fantasy · 25 ch
In Sylvie and Bruno, the titular characters serve as the connection between the novel’s two settings: Outland, a fictional land in which the children’s father is the Warden, and the real world, Victorian England. After their father is betrayed by their uncle, the family leaves their home and travels to different places to meet interesting and unusual characters. The part of the story set in England is social commentary, with the characters discussing philosophy, religion, morals, and economics.
Lewis Carroll · Fantasy · 26 ch
The titular Vathek is a powerful caliph who, though intelligent and capable, has a tendency to indulge in sensuality. A mysterious traveler arrives in his kingdom and mesmerizes Vathek with a promise of dark powers and hedonism beyond imagination. Vathek becomes obsessed with the supernatural possibilities, and, goaded on by his power-hungry mother, embarks on a journey of blasphemy and debauchery.
William Beckford · Fantasy · 6 ch
Edith Nesbit was a popular children’s author of the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras in Britain. Though she was writing more than a century ago, her books nevertheless remain popular and are generally still in print. The House of Arden was published in 1908.
E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 14 ch
Four years after writing his immensely popular The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum returned to the Land of Oz in this second book of fourteen he wrote about the magical country. Like its predecessor, The Marvelous Land of Oz has delighted children through the years, and has been adapted into stage plays, films, and comics.
L. Frank Baum · Fantasy · 25 ch
Thuvia, Maid of Mars moves the focus of Burroughs’ Martian series to Carthoris, the son of the human John Carter and Martian Dejah Thoris and the prince of Helium. Princess Thuvia of Ptarth and Prince Carthoris of Helium are in love. Fate, however, is against them: the princess is promised to another, the Jeddak of Kaol, Kulan Tith.
Edgar Rice Burroughs · Fantasy · 14 ch
The Enchanted Castle is a novel for young readers by Edith Nesbit, who was writing in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era in Britain. As in her other children’s books, it begins in the everyday world but quickly brings in the fantastical and magical. A large part of the delight of Nesbit’s books is that her children behave in quite ordinary ways, getting into scrapes, getting dirty and their clothes torn, making decisions which seem right to them at the time but which are generally wrong-headed.
E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 14 ch