Literary Criticism
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1903 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood…
Ethan Frome
Ethan Frome is a poignant exploration of unfulfilled dreams and the harsh realities of life in a small New England town. Set in the fictiona…
The Scarlet Letter
This book tells the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman who conceives a child while her husband is missing at sea. The Puritan Elders of …
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…
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…
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 Death of Ivan Ilyitch
The Death of Ivan Ilyitch is the story of a socially ambitious middle-aged judge who contracts an unexplained and untreatable illness. As I…
The Last Chronicle of Barset
Both Trollope and some of his later critics have considered The Last Chronicle to be his greatest novel. Many of its characters are familiar…
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…
The Doctor's Wife
This is one of the Victorian “Sensationist” Mary Elizabeth Braddon's many novels (best known among them: “Lady Audley’s Secret”). It is extr…
The House of the Dead
The House of the Dead is a novel published in 1861 by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian p…
The Mill on the Floss
The Mill on the Floss is George Eliot’s second novel, and was published in 1860, only a year after her first, Adam Bede. It centres on the l…
The Vicar of Wakefield
Published in 1766, 'The Vicar of Wakefield' was Oliver Goldsmith's only novel. It was thought to have been sold to the publisher for £…
Bartleby, the Scrivener
Bartleby, the Scrivener is a thought-provoking novella that explores the complexities of human behavior and the nature of work through the e…
Father Goriot
Father Goriot (Le Père Goriot), published in 1835, is widely considered to be Balzac's finest and most popular novel. It is set in Pa…
Far From The Madding Crowd
Far From The Madding Crowd is Hardy's fourth novel. It centres on the lives of five characters: Gabriel Oak, Bathsheba Everdene, Mr Boldwood…
Framley Parsonage
Framley Parsonage invites listeners into the intricate social tapestry of Victorian England, where the lives of clergymen and their families…
Mosses From An Old Manse
"Mosses from an Old Manse" is a short story collection by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1846. The collection includes se…
The Story of Avis
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's 1877 novel is set in a New England college town, and focuses on Avis Dobell, a professor's daughter. Avis is a ta…
Siddhartha
Siddhartha is one of the great philosophical novels. Profoundly insightful, it is also a beautifully written story that begins as Siddhartha…