Chile" by Heinrich von Kleist.Originally published in 1807, Kleist's novella takes place duringthe 1647 Santiago earthquake and ends tragically, with a young couple killed after having been blamed, in a sermon, for the disaster. But Kleist has a bigger purpose, which is to highlight the idea that meaning is a matter of interpretation, that what we know is what we see. "[O]nly when he turned and saw the city leveled to the ground behind him," he writes, "did he remember the terrifying moments he had just experienced. He bowed his forehead to the very ground as he thanked God for his miraculous escape; and as if this one appalling memory, stamping itself on his mind, had erased all others, he wept with rapture to find that the blessingof life, in all its wealth and variety, was still his to enjoy."

2) "The Flutter of an Eyelid" by Myron Brinig.Published in 1933, Brinig's novel is the great modernist fantasy of Los Angeles (every city needs one), although it is essentially unread today. The book ends with a massive earthquake, in which the entire state of California breaks off from North America and crumbles into the Pacific, "Los Angeles toboggan[ing] with almost one continuous movement into the water, the shore cities going first, followed by the inland communities; the business streets, the buildings, the motion picture studios in Hollywood where actors became stark and pallid under their mustard-colored makeup."

3) "The Folklore of Earthquakes" by Carey McWilliams.Written in response to the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, McWilliams'essay is a clear-eyed