We have been quite happy with Laurel Springs Honors English (for English, we strongly prefer the Honors online, not the Honors textbook -- the textbook version uses anthologies, while the online version uses whole books and other original sources; the online courses are developed in-house and are quite good -- they aren't multi-choice junk at all). They pretty much stick to the canon, which means that they aren't focused on contemporary "teen issues" at all (unlike some bricks and mortar schools). So I have had a middle-schooler in 9th and 10th grade Honors English there, and the readings included the Odyssey and Iliad (in a good translation), Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Beowulf, some Gilgamesh, poetry, and a bunch of other stuff. (Hope this is useful!) Lots of writing as well: good, analytic writing assignments, not "how do you feel?" stuff.
On the independence front: you can buy LSS courses one by one. There are 36 fairly hefty written assignments, and they are graded by a teacher, but the parent does the day-to-day work of teaching.
If I were doing literature without an outside curriculum with a 10-year-old (which I once did!), I might add in Call of the Wild, Elijah of Buxton, and some narrative poetry (Charge of the Light Brigade, The Raven, Ride of Paul Revere).
