Literary Criticism
To Let
‘The Forsyte Saga’ is the story of a wealthy London family stretching from the eighteen-eighties until the nineteen-twenties.To Let is the t…
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 mill…
The Wolf-Leader
Part local legend of a dark and dangerous Wolf-Leader, part childhood memories of his home near Villers-Cotterets, in Aisne, Dumas here penn…
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 …
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…
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…
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…
Don Quixote
Don Quixote is an early novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Cervantes created a fictional origin for the story in …
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 Turmoil
The Turmoil is the first novel in the 'Growth' trilogy, which also includes The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and The Midlander (1923, retitl…
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…
Sons of the Covenant
Born in London's poverty-stricken and heavily Jewish East End, the Lipcott boys create their own successes in life and love. The brothers' c…
The Roll-Call
"The Roll-Call" is the sequel to the Clayhanger trilogy. This book concerns the young life of Clayhanger's stepson, George. George…
Liza of Lambeth
Liza of Lambeth focuses on the challenges of life facing Liza, an 18 year old factory girl who lives in the poverty of the slums of 1890s Lo…
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…
Robert Falconer
Robert Falconer follows the journey of a young man whose life is shaped by the love of music and the struggles of faith. Set against the bac…
The Country of the Pointed Firs
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is considered Jewett’s finest work, described by Henry James as her “beautiful little quantum of achi…
His Masterpiece
“His Masterpiece" (“L’Oeuvre”) is a fictionalized account of the Parisian art world in the mid 19th century, and the emerging Realism, …
The Magic Skin
The Magic Skin is Honoré de Balzac's first successful novel, exploring the intricate relationship between desire, materialism, and th…
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…