Free books with English translation
Every book on Lexico’s shared shelf is in the public domain and free to read. Each page below shows the opening in the original language the way the app does: tap a sentence for its English translation and any word for its meaning. The whole text is in Lexico, where the words you look up become flashcards.
French
Boule de Suif
Guy de Maupassant · 1880 · ~10,500 words · level B2 · in English: Ball of Fat
During the Franco-Prussian War, a coach of respectable citizens flees occupied Rouen together with a prostitute nicknamed Boule de Suif, and their gratitude to her does not last. The story that made Maupassant famous.
Bel-Ami
Guy de Maupassant · 1885 · Chapter 1, ~5,000 words · level B2
Georges Duroy, a penniless former soldier, arrives in Paris and climbs through journalism and the beds of well-connected women. Maupassant’s novel of ambition.
Clair de lune
Guy de Maupassant · 1884 · ~24,500 words · level B2 · in English: Moonlight
Three stories from Maupassant’s collection: “Clair de lune”, in which a priest who distrusts women sets out to catch his niece with her lover, “Conte de Noël” and “Mademoiselle Cocotte”.
La Vénus d'Ille
Prosper Mérimée · 1837 · ~10,500 words · level B2–C1 · in English: The Venus of Ille
An antiquarian visits a village in Roussillon where a bronze Venus has just been dug up, a few days before his host’s son is to be married. Mérimée’s tale of the fantastic, told with a straight face.
Spanish
El almohadón de plumas
Horacio Quiroga · 1907 · ~1,000 words · level B1 · in English: The Feather Pillow
A young bride wastes away in a cold, silent house, and nobody can find out why. Horacio Quiroga’s best-known horror story, and the shortest book on Lexico.
La gallina degollada
Horacio Quiroga · 1909 · ~4,500 words · level B1–B2 · in English: The Decapitated Chicken
An illness leaves a couple’s four sons severely disabled, and all their hopes move to their healthy daughter. A short, brutal horror story by Quiroga.
Los ojos sombríos
Horacio Quiroga · ~6,000 words · level B2 · in English: The Dark Eyes
At a dance, a man just out of a break-up listens to an old friend’s tangled love story. Quiroga in a romantic, feverish mood.
El retrato de Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde · 1890 · Preface and chapters 1–2, ~10,500 words · level B2 · in English: The Picture of Dorian Gray
A young man stays beautiful while his portrait ages with every sin. Oscar Wilde’s only novel, in an anonymous Spanish translation.
Italian
Il fantasma di Canterville
Oscar Wilde · 1887 · ~10,500 words · level B1–B2 · in English: The Canterville Ghost
An American diplomat buys an English castle, ghost included, and his family refuses to be frightened. Oscar Wilde’s comic ghost story in Italian.
Un carattere
Luigi Capuana · ~2,000 words · level B1–B2 · in English: A Character
Renzo comes back to find his fiancée Lidia ill in bed, and a secret between them that her parents know nothing about. A short psychological story by Luigi Capuana, told mostly in dialogue.
Fausto Bragia
Luigi Capuana · ~9,000 words · level B2
A poor music teacher becomes the lover of a rich, respected woman and believes his luck has finally turned. Luigi Capuana’s story of ambition and its price.
German
Das Urteil
Franz Kafka · 1913 · ~4,000 words · level B2 · in English: The Judgment
A young merchant writes to a friend in Russia about his engagement, then takes the letter to his father. Kafka wrote the story in a single night.
Immensee
Theodor Storm · 1849 · ~9,500 words · level B2
An old man sits in the dusk and remembers Elisabeth, the girl he grew up with and lost. Theodor Storm’s short, quiet novella, a German school classic.
In der Strafkolonie
Franz Kafka · 1919 · ~10,500 words · level C1 · in English: In the Penal Colony
A traveller is invited to watch an execution by an elaborate machine that writes the sentence on the condemned man’s body. One of Kafka’s darkest stories.
Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde · 1890 · Preface and chapters 1–2, ~10,500 words · level B2–C1 · in English: The Picture of Dorian Gray
A young man stays beautiful while his portrait ages with every sin. Oscar Wilde’s only novel, in Richard Zoozmann’s German translation.
