Literary Criticism
On the Sublime
This is a classical text on aesthetics and proper style in writing and rhetoric, including commentary on various ancient Greek works such as…
Miscellaneous Essays
Miscellaneous Essays by Thomas De Quincey offers a captivating glimpse into the mind of one of the 19th century's most intriguing literary f…
A Hero of Our Time
One of the iconic characters of all Russian literature, Grigori Aleksandrovich Pechorin is the ultimate “superfluous man.” An aristocratic r…
Olive
Inspired by Jane Eyre, Dinah Maria Craik's 1850 novel, Olive, was one of the first to feature a disabled central character. 'Slightly deform…
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…
The Autobiography of Goethe
This Autobiography of Goethe has a lengthy introduction and short biography of Goethe's life by Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) and was translate…
The Dark
The Dark is a novella about a desperate young man, a “terrorist and nihilist”, trying to avoid arrest by taking refuge in a brothel. The sto…
Prejudices
Mencken sharpens his pen and in a collection of short essays delivers acerbic opinions on issues and persons of the time. Among his targets…
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 …
Childhood
Childhood is the first published novel by Leo Tolstoy, released under the initials L. N. in the November 1852 issue of the popular Russian l…
Bel Ami
“He had faith in his good fortune, in that power of attraction which he felt within him - a power so irresistible that all women yielded to …
A Common Story
Alexander Fedoritch Adouev is the naïve, pampered son of Anna Pavlovna, a provincial landowner. He decides to go off to Saint Petersbur…
Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend (written in the years 1864–65) is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, …
The Three Sisters
Fascinated as she was by the lives of the Brontë siblings, May Sinclair loosely based her subtly sensual, quietly insurrectionary 1914 …
After Dark
William Kerby is in danger of losing his sight, which would hit him especially hard as he is a painter. Only rest can preserve it, but a man…
Feminism in Greek Literature
This study, published in 1923, examines the views regarding women's place in Ancient Greek society based especially on the writings of Homer…
The Bostonians
This bittersweet tragicomedy centers on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chance…
Anna of the Five Towns
The plot centers on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire…
Gobseck
Gobseck delves into the life of a shrewd and calculating pawnbroker, Jean-Esther Gobseck, whose financial dealings reveal the darker side of…
Youth
Youth is the third installment in Leo Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy, following Childhood and Boyhood. In this reflective narrative, Tol…