Literary Criticism
Agnes Grey
Agnes Grey is a poignant exploration of the struggles faced by a young governess in 19th-century England. Anne Brontë draws from her ow…
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…
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…
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Clearly frustrated at the refusal of his contemporaries to recognise the iniquity of society, Tressell's cast of hypocritical Christians, ex…
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 …
Candide
Candide is a relentless, brutal assault on government, society, religion, education, and, above all, optimism. Dr. Pangloss teaches his youn…
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…
The Magnificent Ambersons
In a world where a gentleman’s life is defined more “by being, rather than by doing,” a family’s reputation can be compromised if it is not …
The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises (1926) was Hemingway's first novel to be published, though there is his novella The Torrents of Spring which was publishe…
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life is one of the last great works completed by Balzac for his huge novel series entitled The Human Comedy. Sect…
The Moon and Sixpence
This Maugham novel is based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin. The story is told by the narrator as he gradually comes to know the mai…
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 Permanent Husband
THE PERMANENT HUSBAND, also published as The Eternal Husband, is a psychological novella by the acclaimed Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky.…
The Jungle
It is the end of the 19th century. Like thousands of others, the Rudkus family has emigrated from Lithuania to America in search of a better…
Fathers and Sons
The fathers and children of the novel refers to the growing divide between the two generations of Russians, and the character Yevgeny Bazaro…
The Glory of Clementina Wing
The book follows the adventures of two main characters - Clementina Wing, a talented artist in her mid 30's with no social graces and Ephrai…
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 …
Benito Cereno
On an island off the coast of Chile, Captain Amaso Delano, sailing an American sealer, sees the San Dominick, a Spanish slave ship, in obvio…
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…
Madame Bovary
Written over a century and a half ago, Madame Bovary is still an extraordinarily fresh, exciting and shockingly frank novel, at once an acut…