Recommendations based on Medea and Other Playsby Euripides

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone

    by Sophocles
    Ancient tragedy of a family's fall from grace due to a fateful prophecy.

    English versions of Sophocles’ three great tragedies based on the myth of Oedipus, translated for a modern audience by two gifted poets. Index. ... (Barnes & Noble)

  2. Metamorphoses

    by Ovid
    A collection of tales of transformation, featuring gods and mortals.

    Prized through the ages for its splendor and its savage, sophisticated wit, The Metamorphoses is a masterpiece of Western culture–the first attempt to link all the Greek myths, before and after ... (Goodreads)

  3. The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides

    by Aeschylus
    Tragedy of a cursed family and their struggle to find the truth and justice.

    Alternate cover edition can be found, here,, here,, here,, here, In the Oresteia—the only trilogy in Greek drama which survives from antiquity—Aeschylus took as his subject the bloody chain of murder ... (Goodreads)

  4. The Aeneid

    by Virgil
    Epic tale of Aeneas and the founding of Rome, a fateful journey through the gods.

    The Aeneid – thrilling, terrifying and poignant in equal measure – has inspired centuries of artists, writers and musicians. Virgil’s epic tale tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, who flees his ... (Goodreads)

  5. Medea

    by Euripides
    Tragedy of a woman's vengeful wrath against her husband and his family.

    One of the most powerful and enduring of Greek tragedies, Medea centers on the myth of Jason, leader of the Argonauts, who has won the dragon-guarded treasure of the Golden Fleece with the help of ... (Goodreads)

  6. The Iliad

    by Homer
    Epic tale of the Trojan War, depicting heroism and tragedy.

    Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, ... (Goodreads)

  7. Candide

    by Voltaire
    A young man's satirical journey through life, encountering misfortune and eventual optimism.

    Candide is the story of a gentle man who, though pummeled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he lives in "the best of all possible worlds." On the surface a ... (Goodreads)

  8. Othello

    by William Shakespeare
    A tale of jealousy, manipulation, and tragedy, as one man's descent into madness leads to disastrous consequences.

    In Othello, Shakespeare creates a powerful drama of a marriage that begins with fascination (between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona), with elopement, and with intense mutual ... (Goodreads)

  9. Paradise Lost

    by John Milton
    Epic poem of the Fall of Man, exploring the depths of human nature and the consequences of sin.

    John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of ... (Goodreads)

  10. One, No One and One Hundred Thousand

    by Luigi Pirandello
    A man's exploration of identity, uncovering the illusions of the external world.

    Vitangelo Moscarda discovers by way of a completely irrelevant question that his wife poses to him that everyone he knows, everyone he has ever met, has constructed a Vitangelo, persona, in their own ... (Wikipedia)

  11. Lysistrata

    by Aristophanes
    Women of Greece uniting to end the Peloponnesian War through a sex strike.

    These lines, spoken by the Athenian Lysistrata and her friend Calonice at the beginning of the play, , set the scene for the action that follows. Women, as represented by Calonice, are sly hedonists ... (Wikipedia)

  12. The Bacchae

    by Euripides
    A classic tragedy exploring the clash of divine and mortal power and the consequences of hubris.

    The play begins before the palace at Thebes, with Dionysus telling the story of his birth and his reasons for visiting the city. Dionysus explains he is the son of a mortal woman, Semele, and a god, ... (Wikipedia)

  13. The Complete Poems

    by John Keats
    A collection of Keats' poetry, showcasing his romantic and melancholic style, exploring themes of love, beauty, nature, and mortality.
  14. The Epic of Gilgamesh

    by Anonymous
    Ancient Sumerian epic poem recounting the adventures of a hero who struggles with mortality.

    Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as much as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is the world’s oldest epic, predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells ... (Goodreads)

  15. Oedipus Rex

    by Sophocles
    Tragic tale of a man's inescapable destiny and the consequences of his actions.

    Oedipus, King of Thebes, sends his brother-in-law, Creon, to ask advice of the oracle at Delphi , concerning a plague ravaging Thebes. Creon returns to report that the plague is the result of ... (Wikipedia)

  16. The Collected Poems

    by Sylvia Plath
    A collection of poems that explore the complexities of life, death, love, and mental illness through vivid and haunting imagery.

    Pulitzer Prize winner Sylvia Plath’s complete poetic works, edited and introduced by Ted Hughes. By the time of her death on 11, February 1963, Sylvia Plath had written a large bulk of poetry. To my ... (Barnes & Noble)

  17. Antigone

    by Sophocles
    A tragedy about a woman's struggle to uphold justice amidst oppressive laws.

    The curse placed on Oedipus lingers and haunts a younger generation in this new and brilliant translation of Sophocles' classic drama. The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone is an ... (Goodreads)

  18. La Dame aux Camélias

    by Alexandre Dumas (Fils)
    A young woman's descent into a life of debauchery and its consequences.

    One of the greatest love stories of all time, this novel has fascinated generations of readers. Dumas's subtle and moving portrait of a woman in love is based on his own love affair with one of the ... (Goodreads)

  19. The Tempest

    by William Shakespeare
    A story of magical revenge, redemption, and forgiveness set on a remote island.

    A ship is caught in a powerful storm, there is terror and confusion on board, and the vessel is shipwrecked. But the storm is a magical creation carried out by the spirit Ariel , and caused by the ... (Wikipedia)

  20. Ficciones

    by Jorge Luis Borges
    A collection of short stories exploring the limits of the imagination.

    The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the whirlwind of Borges's genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his ... (Goodreads)

  21. Paris Spleen

    by Charles Baudelaire
    A collection of prose poems that explore the beauty and darkness of Parisian life, capturing the essence of modernity and urban experience.

    Set in a modern, urban Paris, the prose pieces in this volume constitute a further exploration of the terrain Baudelaire had covered in his verse masterpiece, The Flowers of Evil : the city and its ... (Goodreads)

  22. The Brothers Karamazov

    by Fyodor Dostoevsky
    A philosophical exploration of morality, faith, and family dynamics among a group of brothers.

    The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich ... (Goodreads)

  23. King Lear

    by William Shakespeare
    An aging king's descent into madness reveals the consequences of pride and vanity.

    Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the ... (Goodreads)

  24. Baudolino

    by Umberto Eco
    A medieval tale of adventure, deception and the search for truth.

    In the year of 1204, Baudolino of Alessandria enters Constantinople , unaware of the Fourth Crusade that has thrown the city into chaos. In the confusion, he meets Niketas Choniates and saves his ... (Wikipedia)

  25. The Importance of Being Earnest

    by Oscar Wilde
    A lighthearted comedy of manners, full of witty dialogue and satirizing Victorian society.

    Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The ... (Goodreads)

  26. Absalom, Absalom!

    by William Faulkner
    A tangled web of family secrets, betrayal, and tragedy in the American South.

    Absalom, Absalom! details the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen , a white man born into poverty in West Virginia who moves to Mississippi with the complementary aims of gaining wealth and becoming a ... (Wikipedia)

  27. The Well of Loneliness

    by Radclyffe Hall
    A novel about a young girl named Stephen who struggles with her sexual identity and societal expectations in early 20th century England.

    The book's protagonist, Stephen Gordon, is born in the late Victorian era , to upper-class parents in Worcestershire who are expecting a boy and who christen her with the name they had already ... (Wikipedia)

  28. A Streetcar Named Desire

    by Tennessee Williams
    A woman's struggle to come to terms with her past and present in a post-war New Orleans.

    After the loss of her family home to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from the small town of Laurel, Mississippi , to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger married sister, Stella , ... (Wikipedia)

  29. The Name of the Rose

    by Umberto Eco
    A Franciscan friar investigates a series of murders in a medieval monastery, uncovering a sinister plot.

    In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk , a Benedictine novice travelling under his protection, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological ... (Wikipedia)

  30. Pygmalion

    by George Bernard Shaw
    The transformation of a poor flower girl into an elegant society lady.

    George Orwell claimed that "The central plot of Shaw's play, Pygmalion , is lifted out of Peregrine Pickle [by Tobias Smollett ], and I believe that no one has ever pointed this out in print, which ... (Wikipedia)