Literary Criticism
The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories showcases Mark Twain's profound exploration of human nature and morality through a collection of t…
Notes from the Underground
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short masterpiece about a ranting, slightly mad civil servant. The stylistic inventiveness, and the insights into the a…
A Sportsman's Sketches
A Sportsman's Sketches (Russian: Записки охотника; also known as The Hunting Sketches and Sketches from a Hunter's Album) was an 1852 collec…
Silas Marner
Silas Marner (originally published in 1861): Betrayed by a beloved friend and accused of a crime he didn’t commit, awkward Silas Marner is e…
The Island of Doctor Moreau
In 1896 HG Wells produced the Island of Doctor Moreau. After a fateful shipwreck, a chance rescue, and offer of safe harbor, Edward Prendick…
The Descent of Man
This collection of ten stories, first published in 1904, shows Edith Wharton dissecting some of the customs, habits and vagaries of courtshi…
The American
One of James’s early novels, The American plunges right in to one of the writer’s most enduring subjects, that of the innocent, or at least …
The Aspern Papers
One of James’s favorite short novels, the Aspern Papers tells of the efforts of the nameless narrator to procure the papers of a famous, bu…
Deephaven
Sarah Orne Jewett is best known for her clean and clear descriptive powers that at once elevate common-place daily events to something remar…
The Dawn of a To-morrow
A wealthy London business man takes a room in a poor part of the city.He is depressed and has decided to take his life by going the next day…
The Rainbow
Briefly appearing in 1915, then banned and taken out of circulation for its adult treatment of sexuality, Lawrence's visionary novel The Rai…
The Enchanted April
It’s a dreary February in post-World War I London when Mrs. Wilkins spots an advertisement in The Times for a small Italian castle for rent …
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 Beautiful and Damned
The Beautiful and Damned explores the lives of Anthony Patch and his wife, Gloria, as they navigate the opulent yet tumultuous world of 1920…
This Side of Paradise
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1920, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke po…
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…
Hilda Lessways
This book is the second in Bennett’s four books about life in the Five Towns (the real life Potteries in Staffordshire). It tells the story …
Heart of Darkness
In this powerful novella based on Joseph Conrad's own experiences in the Belgian Congo, Charles Marlow, an experienced seaman, tells a small…
Sons and Lovers
This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the child…
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…