Literary Criticism
The Touchstone
Stephen Glennard's career is falling apart and he desperately needs money so that he may marry his beautiful fiancee. He happens upon an adv…
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 …
Babbitt
Sinclair Lewis’ George F. Babbitt is a complicated and conflicted character. When you think you have his next move figured out he surprises …
Simon the Jester
Simon de Gex, a wealthy and successful MP, is diagnosed with a terminal illness and decides to use his last few months using his wealth and …
Life in the Iron Mills
This 1861 novella was the first published work by Rebecca Harding Davis: writer, social reformer, and pioneer of literary realism. It tell…
The Mysterious Stranger
Here's a Mark Twain story that's very unlike those he became famous for, but when I read it back in Catholic high school, it left a deep imp…
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
A mentally unstable genius, Victor Frankenstein, inspired by the dreams of ancient alchemists and empowered by modern science, creates a hum…
The Possessed
Although titled The Possessed in the initial English translation, Dostoyevsky scholars and later translations favour the titles The Devils o…
Cousin Betty
Cousin Betty (La Cousine Bette), published in serial format in 1846, was one of the last and greatest of Balzac's works. It was part of his …
Daniel Deronda
In this enduring Victorian classic written in 1876, two stories weave in and out of each other: The first is about Gwendolen, one of Eliot's…
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…
Father Goriot
Father Goriot (Le Père Goriot), published in 1835, is widely considered to be Balzac's finest and most popular novel. It is set in Pa…
Of Human Bondage
Of Human Bondage, published in 1915, is considered to be W. Somerset Maugham’s best work. Many believe the novel to be one of the world’s li…
The Last Chronicle of Barset
Both Trollope and some of his later critics have considered The Last Chronicle to be his greatest novel. Many of its characters are familiar…
To The Lighthouse
The Ramsey family, with house guests, visit the Isle of Skye at least twice. The plot is not at all the point though, as this is a book abou…
Main Street
Carol Milford, a college-educated, progressive, ambitious young woman, is self-sufficient working as a librarian in St. Paul, when she meets…
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…
Jaffery
The book follows the lives of Hilary, the narrator, and three of his friends whom he met at Cambridge. One soon dies - another (Adrian) writ…
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 …
Indian Summer
Set in Florence's Anglo-American colony in the late 19th century, this is a romantic story of a middle-aged man, returning to the scene of h…