Read a classic cover to cover, in the original, in half the time.
The text is never altered and never simplified. Every hard word, old sense, and name is explained in place, on the page, before you reach it.
MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial (the putting of a body in the ground) was signed by the clergyman (a minister of the church), the clerk (a writing officer), the undertaker (one who takes a task on), and the chief mourner (one who grieves at a funeral). Scrooge (Ebenezer Scrooge, the cold rich old man of this story) signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail (fully and finally dead — an old saying).
MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
The opening of every book is free to read. No account needed.
Why you stopped
You’ve started Moby-Dick. Twice.
Somewhere there is a bookmark still sitting sixty pages into a book everyone says is great. Not because it was too hard. Because every third sentence sent you to a dictionary, and then to your phone, and then the evening was gone and the book was still on page sixty.
You gave up on War and Peace at the third party.
Natásha turned out to also be Natálya Ilyínichna, and also Countess Rostóva. Half the dialogue slipped into French. Four hundred pages in, you could no longer tell who was in the room, which meant you could no longer tell who was lying to whom, which meant you were reading words and following nothing.
Neither time did you find the book too difficult. You found it too interrupted. These books are funnier, faster and more gossipy than their reputations suggest, but only if you can stay inside the paragraph long enough to notice.
That is what this edition does. It takes the interruptions out, and changes nothing else. The same book, unabridged, with the lookups already done and the room already named. You will finish it.
What’s on the page
Four kinds of help, placed before your eye arrives.
Nothing to tap, nothing to look up, nothing to set up.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
A short panel before each chapter: who, where, and what to expect. Orientation, never spoilers.
WHO’S HERE
The chapter’s cast in one glance, each person identified in a line, with no more than the story has told.
Inline glosses
Small blue explanations right after the hard words. Every rare word, old sense, and name, where it stands.
WHAT IT SAYS
Beside the hardest paragraphs, a note restates the sentence and shows how to read it.
The arithmetic
Where the evening actually goes.
Take A Christmas Carol, 22,574 words in the original English. It holds 2,353 words and names a modern reader has to look up. Here is what that costs, and what it costs here.
Reading it on your own, dictionary beside you
- Reading 22,574 words
- 1.9 hr
- Stopping for 2,353 lookups, at 20 seconds each
- 13.1 hr
- Time to finish the book
- 15.0 hr
Only 13% of that is reading. The rest of your evening goes somewhere other than the book.
Reading it here, explanations already on the page
- Reading the same 22,574 words, unchanged
- 1.9 hr
- Glancing at 2,353 explanations, at 2 seconds each
- 1.3 hr
- Time to finish the book
- 3.2 hr
Nothing was cut and nothing was simplified. The lookups were done in advance.
15.0 hours becomes 3.2. The text untouched, the dictionary work done. You just read.
Figures for A Christmas Carol from this edition’s own count. Reading speed 200 words a minute; a dictionary lookup taken at 20 seconds, a glance at a printed explanation at 2.
The library
Choose your book.
Every title is annotated chapter by chapter and reviewed before it reaches you. 23 available now.
Read the opening. Then decide.
The first pages of every book are free, with no account and no card. Real annotated text, not a sample page. If you are still reading when it runs out, that is your answer.
One payment for that book and it is yours to read and re-read for good. No subscription, no expiry.