Literary Criticism
Great Expectations
This classic tale tells of an orphan, Pip, who through a series of strange circumstances first finds a trade as a blacksmith's apprentice an…
Steppenwolf
This controversial literary classic paints the portrait of a man who perceives himself to live in two worlds, that of the idealist, cowed an…
The Possessed
Although titled The Possessed in the initial English translation, Dostoyevsky scholars and later translations favour the titles The Devils o…
The Beautiful and Damned
This 1922 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald chronicles the life of Anthony Patch, the only heir of millionaire Adam Patch, his grandfather. Antho…
Septimus
The book concerns the tangled lives of four people: Zora, a young widow who seeks some purpose in her life; Septimus Dix, an other-wordly bu…
The Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari) is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the …
The Descent of Man
This collection of ten stories, first published in 1904, shows Edith Wharton dissecting some of the customs, habits and vagaries of courtshi…
Benito Cereno
On an island off the coast of Chile, Captain Amaso Delano, sailing an American sealer, sees the San Dominick, a Spanish slave ship, in obvio…
The Fruit of the Tree
The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton explores the intricate lives of a wealthy mill owner and her socially progressive husband as they nav…
The Enchanted April
It’s a dreary February in post-World War I London when Mrs. Wilkins spots an advertisement in The Times for a small Italian castle for rent …
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life is one of the last great works completed by Balzac for his huge novel series entitled The Human Comedy. Sect…
Jennie Gerhardt
This is a story of an innocent, caring, beautiful young girl from and extremely poor family who throughout her life is drawn into affairs wi…
The American
One of James’s early novels, The American plunges right in to one of the writer’s most enduring subjects, that of the innocent, or at least …
Old Rose And Silver
The novel follows the lives of Rose and her widowed Aunt, Madame Francesca Bernard, along with young visitor and cousin Isabel, whose lives …
The House Behind the Cedars
In this, Chesnutt's first novel, he tells the tragic story of love set against a backdrop of racism, miscegenation and “passing” during the …
Madame Bovary
Written over a century and a half ago, Madame Bovary is still an extraordinarily fresh, exciting and shockingly frank novel, at once an acut…
Babbitt
Sinclair Lewis’ George F. Babbitt is a complicated and conflicted character. When you think you have his next move figured out he surprises …
Demian
Somewhat autobiographical, this "coming of age" novel unfolds an introspective boy's formative years in pre-World War 1 Germany, f…
Dubliners
Dubliners is a collection of poignant short stories that capture the essence of life in early 20th-century Dublin. Through a series of vivid…
King Coal
King Coal is a book by Upton Sinclair, first published in 1917, that exposes the dirty working conditions in the coal mining industry in the…