Literary Criticism
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 Landlady
Everything changed when Ordynov, a secluded young thinker, stepped out of his old lodgings in search of another corner. The ailing landlord …
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…
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays
This famous Shakespearean exploration illuminates its plays through the frame of character, while also weighing theme, mood, structure and p…
Pan
Pan tells the story Lieutenant Glahn and his summer in a forest north in Norway. He lives in a hut with his dog Aesop and they spend their d…
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…
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 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…
Youth
Youth is the third installment in Leo Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy, following Childhood and Boyhood. In this reflective narrative, Tol…
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…
Father Goriot
One of Balzac's most popular works, set around 1815 during the re-ascendancy of the Bourbon kings following the defeat of Napoleon. Said to …
Mother
Mother by Kathleen Norris explores the profound relationship between a daughter and her mother through the lens of domestic life. As Margare…
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 …
In the Cage
In the Cage is a novella by Henry James, first published as a book in 1898. This long story centers on an unnamed London telegraphist. She d…
At the Foot of the Rainbow
This story is about three people, two men and a woman. Jimmy, selfish and deceitful, who has shamelessly lied to, cheated, and used his dear…
The Bostonians
This bittersweet tragicomedy centers on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chance…
The Three Sisters
Fascinated as she was by the lives of the Brontë siblings, May Sinclair loosely based her subtly sensual, quietly insurrectionary 1914 …
Maude
Maude is a novella by Christina Rossetti, written in 1850 but published posthumously in 1897. Considered by scholars to be semi-autobiograph…
Botchan
Botchan is the story of a young math teacher from Tokyo whose first assignment takes him to a middle school in the country side. His arrival…
The American Language
"It was part of my daily work, for a good many years, to read the principal English newspapers and reviews; it has been part of my work…