Literary Criticism
Charles Dickens
In this insightful biography, G. K. Chesterton explores the life and literary contributions of Charles Dickens, one of the most celebrated a…
Sir Dominick Ferrand
"Levity" is not a word often applied to Henry James, but this story has about it an attractively lighthearted quality. It tells of…
Roderick Hudson
Published as a serial in 1875, Roderick Hudson is James's first important novel. The theme of Americans in Europe, so important in much of J…
Tolstoy on Shakespeare
In this thought-provoking essay, Leo Tolstoy presents a critical examination of William Shakespeare's works, exploring the playwright's them…
The Money Moon
Rejected in love, the incredibly rich (but appropriately modest) George Bellew walks into a small English village populated with a cast of m…
Daisy Miller
Daisy Miller is an 1878 novella by Henry James. It portrays the confused courtship of the eponymous American girl by Winterbourne, a compatr…
The Real Thing
The Real Thing is, on one level, a somewhat ironic tale of an artist and two rather particular models. Yet it also raises questions about th…
Felix Holt, The Radical
"Harold Transome is a landowner who goes against his family's political tradition (much to his mother's distress), while Felix Holt is …
The Colonel's Dream
In this novel, Chesnutt described the hopelessness of Reconstruction in a post-Civil War South that was bent on reestablishing the former st…
The Lost Girl
"There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut off from everything she belonged to."In this most under-valued …
The Perfect Wagnerite
The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring (originally published London, 1898) is a philosophical commentary on Richard Wagne…
Don Quixote
Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the mo…
Ulysses
Ulysses is a groundbreaking novel in which Irish author James Joyce explores realism through stream-of-consciousness technique and shifting …
The Princess Casamassima
Princess Casamassima can be read on several levels: first, as a political and social novel, exploring the anarchistic and revolutionary unde…
The Art of Fiction
A lecture on the art of fiction, given by the English critic Walter Besant on April 25, 1884, and an answer to the lecture by American write…
A Brief History of English and American Literature
Henry Augustin Beers, native of Buffalo, NY and professor of English at Yale, with the help of John Fletcher Hurst (1834-1903), Methodist bi…
Clotel
Clotel; or, The President's Daughter is a novel by William Wells Brown (1814-84), a fugitive from slavery and abolitionist and was published…
Tales of Unrest
Tales of Unrest is Joseph Conrad's first collection of short stories, published in 1898, showcasing his mastery of narrative and psychologic…
L'Assommoir
Émile François Zola (French pronunciation: [emil zɔˈla]) (2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was an influential French writer, …
The Story of an Unhappy Friendship
The Story of an Unhappy Friendship offers a unique glimpse into the complex relationship between Robert Sherard and the renowned playwright …