Literary Criticism
Lord Jim
While it's not often described as such, "Lord Jim" can be viewed as a kind of love story whose real theme is the close bond which …
Lost Illusions
Ève and David (1843) is the final book in Balzac’s Lost Illusions trilogy, which is part of his sweeping set of novels collectively t…
Resurrection
Resurrection is the last of Tolstoy's major fiction works published in his lifetime. Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of injustic…
The Song of the Lark
Set in the 1890s in Moonstone, a fictional place supposedly located in Colorado, The Song of the Lark is the self-portrait of an artist in t…
Alice Adams
A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Alice Adams chronicles the attempts of a lower middle class American midwestern family at the turn of the 20…
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells …
Riceyman Steps
Arnold Bennet's masterly novel is a gritty tale about a bookseller whose life and love of a woman are afflicted by miserliness. It is set in…
Ball of Fat
Ball of Fat is a poignant short story by renowned French author Guy de Maupassant, set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian War. The …
The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.
First published as a serial in Fraser's Magazine in 1844 as The Luck of Barry Lyndon, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq is a picaresque novel…
Anne Severn and the Fieldings
Written in an era of cheap, formulaic romantic fiction, the nuanced, seditious, quietly erotic novels of May Sinclair stand out like literat…
Main Street
Carol Milford, a college-educated, progressive, ambitious young woman, is self-sufficient working as a librarian in St. Paul, when she meets…
Bartleby the Scrivener
Bartleby the Scrivener is a thought-provoking short story set against the backdrop of Wall Street, exploring themes of isolation, conformity…
The Hidden Places
Hollister, returning home from the war physically scarred but otherwise healthy and intact, finds life difficult among society, and so choos…
The Professor
The Professor follows the journey of William Crimsworth, a young man navigating the complexities of ambition, love, and self-discovery in 19…
The Warden
Anthony Trollope sets the scene for his wonderful Chronicles of Barsetshire with this short novel about Septimus Harding's challenged eccles…
Resurrection
Resurrection is the last of Tolstoy's major fiction works published in his lifetime. Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of injustic…
The Ambassadors
Henry James considered The Ambassadors his best, or perhaps his best-wrought, novel. It plays on the great Jamesian theme of the American ab…
The Fortune of the Rougons
The Fortune of the Rougons (French: La Fortune des Rougon), originally published in 1871, is the first novel in Émile Zola's monument…
The Master of Ballantrae
Heir to a noble Scottish house in the mid 18th century, the Master is a charming, clever, and resourceful villain whose daring but ill-advis…
Under Western Eyes
Under Western Eyes (1911) is a novel by Joseph Conrad. The novel takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Geneva, Switzerland, and is vie…