Leland Ryken’s Christian Guides to the Classics

The Crossway Christian Guides to the Classics series:

In these short guidebooks, popular professor, author, and literary expert Leland Ryken takes you through some of the greatest literature in history while answering your questions along the way.

Each book:

Includes an introduction to the author and work
Explains the cultural context
Incorporates published criticism
Defines key literary terms
Contains discussion questions at the end of each unit of the text
Lists resources for further study
Evaluates the classic text from a Christian worldview

Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress



This volume leads readers through John Bunyan’s classic Christian allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress, offering insights into the nature of faith, the reality of temptation, and the glory of salvation.

Dickens’s Great Expectations



In this volume, Ryken guides readers through Dickens’s quintessential coming-of-age novel, Great Expectations. Exploring perennial themes such as love, justice, and heroism, this book stands as the preeminent example of Dickens’s unrivaled ability to conjure realistic characters and palpable settings.

Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter



This guide opens up the signature book of American literature, Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, and unpacks its universal themes of sin, guilt, and redemption.

Homer’s The Odyssey



This guide opens up Homer’s The Odyssey and highlights the universal themes of endurance and longing for rest as displayed in this epic tale of a man trying to find his way home.

Milton’s Paradise Lost



This guide opens up the paramount epic in the English language, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and showcases Milton’s understanding of crime and punishment in the events of creation, paradisal perfection, the fall, and redemption.

Shakespeare’s MacBeth



This guide opens up the last of Shakespeare’s magnificent tragedies, Macbeth, and explores the themes of temptation, sin, and guilt, as well as the keys to virtuous behavior.

The Devotional Poetry of Donne, Herbert, and Milton (forthcoming in August 2014)

This particular volume will help readers understand and engage with the devotional poetry of three seventeenth-century poetic geniuses—John Donne, George Herbert, and John Milton.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet

(forthcoming in August 2014)

This volume will help readers understand and engage with William Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy: Hamlet.