by Longus (1987)
Longus's Daphnis and Chloe (second or early third century CE), in which an idealized pastoral environment provides the setting as a boy and girl discover their sexuality, is one of the great works of world literature. Xenophon's Anthia and Habrocomes (first century CE) is perhaps the earliest extant novel.
Plato
The Republic is Plato's most famous work and one of the seminal texts of Western philosophy and politics. The characters in this Socratic dialogue - including Socrates himself - discuss whether the just or unjust man is happier. They are the philosopher-kings of imagined cities and they also discuss the nature of philosophy and the soul among other things.
Stephen Halliwell
One of the first books written on what is now called aesthetics. Although parts are lost (e.g., comedy), it has been very influential in western thought, such as the part on tragedy.
Susan King
An antiquarian for the National Museum, Christina Blackburn has her reasons for disguising her smoldering beauty with a pair of prim spectacles and an icy facade. She posed for a painting that scandalized the Victorian art world --- and it nearly ruined her life. Ever since, she has vowed to suppress her passionate nature and keep her identity a secret. But when the museum sends her on a trip across Scotland, Christina finds herself face-to-face with the same notorious painting --- and its dangerously handsome owner. Sir Aedan Arthur MacBride knows the local legend about the sleeping maiden, of course, but refuses to believe in such a curse. Then he gazes upon this very real maiden's face, and he knows he is utterly doomed .
selected and translated by Christopher Stace
"Among the books which afford us an insight into the popular religious thought of the middle ages, none holds a more important place than the Legenda Aurea or Golden Legend. The book was compiled and put into form about the year 1275 by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, who laid under contribution for his purpose the Lives of the Fathers by S. Jerome, the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, and other books of a like kind; while for the lives of the saints more nearly approaching his own age he appears to have industriously collected such legends as he could meet with, whether in manuscript or handed down by oral tradition."--Prologue.