Literary Criticism
Sons and Lovers
Lawrence summarised the plot of Sons and Lovers in a letter to Edward Garnett in 1912:“It follows this idea: a woman of character and refine…
Clayhanger
A coming-of-age story about Edwin Clayhanger, who leaves school, has his ambition to become an architect thwarted by his tyrannical father, …
Candide
Candide is a relentless, brutal assault on government, society, religion, education, and, above all, optimism. Dr. Pangloss teaches his youn…
The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises (1926) was Hemingway's first novel to be published, though there is his novella The Torrents of Spring which was publishe…
Charles Dickens
In this insightful biography, G. K. Chesterton explores the life and literary contributions of Charles Dickens, one of the most celebrated a…
Sons and Lovers
This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the child…
The Island of Doctor Moreau
In 1896 HG Wells produced the Island of Doctor Moreau. After a fateful shipwreck, a chance rescue, and offer of safe harbor, Edward Prendick…
The Homely Heroine
Who ever heard of a plain and downright homely heroine? Isn't a heroine by definition beautiful? Well, Edna Ferber, in her well known style …
The Possessed
Although titled The Possessed in the initial English translation, Dostoyevsky scholars and later translations favour the titles The Devils o…
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…
Quicksand
Quicksand is a 1928 novel by Nella Larsen, a writer of the Harlem Renaissance. It focuses on Helga Crane, a mixed-race woman who is a school…
Demian
Somewhat autobiographical, this "coming of age" novel unfolds an introspective boy's formative years in pre-World War 1 Germany, f…
The Fifth Queen
The Fifth Queen invites listeners into the tumultuous world of Tudor England, where ambition and desire intertwine in the court of King Henr…
The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis (in German, Die Verwandlung, "The Transformation") is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915, and arg…
The Gambler
The Gambler is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky about a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian general. The novella r…
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 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 …
A Sportsman's Sketches
A Sportsman's Sketches (Russian: Записки охотника; also known as The Hunting Sketches and Sketches from a Hunter's Album) was an 1852 collec…
Notes from the Underground
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short masterpiece about a ranting, slightly mad civil servant. The stylistic inventiveness, and the insights into the a…