Literary Criticism
Tales of Unrest
Tales of Unrest is Joseph Conrad's first collection of short stories, published in 1898, showcasing his mastery of narrative and psychologic…
The Town Traveller
The town traveller is himself a British salesman, living in a lower class part of London in the Victorian era. The story depicts his interac…
The Perfect Wagnerite
The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring (originally published London, 1898) is a philosophical commentary on Richard Wagne…
The Golden Bowl
The Golden Bowl is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some cri…
The Fallen Leaves
Amelius Goldenheart, the hero of this story, is expelled from a Utopian community in New England and finds himself in London. His story is d…
The Metropolis
In this 1907 novel about the extravagant life of New York City’s high society, the author of The Jungle, presents a portrait of the wealthy …
Agnes Grey
The novel tells the story of Agnes Grey, the daughter of a minister, whose family comes to financial ruin. Desperate to earn the money to ca…
Winesburg, Ohio
Published in 1919, and listed on the Modern Library roster of the 20th century's 100 greatest novels in English, Winesburg, Ohio presents a …
The Double: A Petersburg Poem
In this classic novella, the life of a drab office clerk named Golyadkin begins to be haunted by his "doppelgänger," a man id…
The Cossacks
The Cossacks (1863) is an unfinished novel which describes the Cossack life and people through a story of Dmitri Olenin, a Russian aristocra…
The Story of an Unhappy Friendship
The Story of an Unhappy Friendship offers a unique glimpse into the complex relationship between Robert Sherard and the renowned playwright …
The Art of Fiction
A lecture on the art of fiction, given by the English critic Walter Besant on April 25, 1884, and an answer to the lecture by American write…
Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens
“These papers were originally published as prefaces to the separate books of Dickens in one of the most extensive of those cheap libraries o…
Through the Magic Door
I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with i…
The Devil's Pool
George Sand (the pen name of Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin 1804-1876) is famous for flaunting the conventions of behavior expected of women o…
Harrington
Harrington follows the protagonist of the same name who tries to explore his memories in order to understand his views on Jews. It begins wi…
The Burning Secret
A lonely, convalescing 12 year-old boy and his attractive mother, who is in a loveless marriage, meet a gentleman while vacationing at a Eur…
A Dozen Short Stories
Twelve of H. G. Wells' early short stories (1894-1925) originally printed in various magazines and papers. His earlier works delve into the …
Hunger
Hunger (Norwegian: Sult) is a novel by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun and was published in its final form in 1890. The novel has been hail…
The Bostonians
This bittersweet tragicomedy centers on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chance…