Literary Criticism
The Magic Skin
The Magic Skin is Honoré de Balzac's first successful novel, exploring the intricate relationship between desire, materialism, and th…
Art and Morality
“Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?”“We are dom…
The Titan
Cowperwood moves to Chicago with his new wife Aileen. He decides to take over the street-railway system. He bankrupts several opponents with…
A Dark Night's Work
Love, murder and class commentary in Mrs Gaskell's usual brilliant style! This novel was originally serialised and published by Charles Dick…
Main Street
Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis of Minneapolis. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is…
The Jew of Malta
Christopher “Kit” Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564 – 30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. T…
Daisy Miller
Daisy Miller is an 1878 novella by Henry James first appearing in Cornhill Magazine in June–July 1879, and in book form the following year. …
Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure is the last of Thomas Hardy's novels, begun as a magazine serial and first published in book form in 1895. Its hero Jude Fa…
The Awkward Age
Nanda Brookenham is coming of age, and thus 'coming out' in London society - which leads to complications in her family's social set in Lond…
Chance
Apparently a two part story about a Damsel and a Knight, perhaps a damsel who depends upon the kindness of strangers. It was originally enti…
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 …
The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung, also sometimes translated as The Transformation) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in…
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…
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…
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist was published in 1838 as a three volume book. The novel was the first of Dickens' works to realistically portray the degradatio…
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 …
Bunyan Characters
Bunyan Characters by Alexander Whyte delves into the rich tapestry of characters from John Bunyan's seminal work, The Pilgrim's Progress. Th…
The Three Sisters
Fascinated as she was by the lives of the Brontë siblings, May Sinclair loosely based her subtly sensual, quietly insurrectionary 1914 …
Better Angel
In 1933, Forman Brown wrote, under the pseudonym Richard Meeker, a controversial novel called Better Angel, about a young man coming to term…
Liza of Lambeth
Liza of Lambeth focuses on the challenges of life facing Liza, an 18 year old factory girl who lives in the poverty of the slums of 1890s Lo…