Nicholas Clifford (1930-2019)
The Birthplace
Neither the name of Shakespeare nor that of Stratford appears directly in this short piece by James, and yet both are absolutely central to …
Sybil, or the Two Nations
Sybil is one of the most prominent political novels of the mid-nineteenth century, taking as its subject the "condition of England"…
Seven Men
In order to liven up the literary history of Great Britain in the 1890s (as if Oscar Wilde, Stevenson, Kipling, Hardy, etc., were not lively…
The Siege of London
In this work, first published in 1883, James once again writes of an American trying to settle in England. The woman at the center, however,…
Frederic the Great
Macaulay's review essay on Frederick the Great of Prussia is found in vol. iii of his Critical and Historical Essays, and concentrates prima…
The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent Love (version 2)
A mysterious burgary of the British Consulate at Leghorn, coupled with the even more mysterious visit of an English yacht, leads to a trail …
The Lesson of the Master
A promising young writer meets an older man whose works have inspired him, as well as a highly intelligent and attractive young woman, at a …
Lord Clive
Robert Clive was, in Macaulay’s view, the real founder of British power in India. Macaulay himself served on the Governor’s Council in India…
The Last of the Valerii
An unnamed American painter resident in Rome serves as narrator in this story, watching as his god-daughter Martha, becomes the wife of Prin…
Peccavi
How does a man who as committed a heavy sin — not a crime, but a sin with terrible consequences — atone for his behaviour? What if the man i…
Sir Edmund Orme
Henry James wrote a number of ghost stories -- The Turn of the Screw being the most famous. Did he believe in ghosts himself, as did many of…
The Figure in the Carpet
The story ostensibly concerns a young literary critics who greatly admires the writer Hugh Vereker. A meeting with Vereker, however, shows h…
Warren Hastings
"Warren Hastings" is Chapter IV of Thomas Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays, vol. III. It first appeared in the Edinburgh …
La Grande Bretèche
La Grande Bretèche is an addendum to Balzac's Another Study of Woman, and is the final of a set of stories told around a dinner table…
Lord Beaupre
What is a young man to do, when because of his pleasant disposition, and (of course) his considerable wealth, he finds himself besieged by b…
Coningsby, or The New Generation
Coningsby is the first of trilogy of political novels that Disraeli published in the 1840s, and gives an insight into his views of the polit…