Literary Criticism
Bunyan Characters Volume I
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Alexander Whyte
This is the first volume of four which goes into the details of Characters from John Bunyan's books. This one is about characters of Pilgrim…
Through the Magic Door
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with i…
An Essay on Criticism
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Alexander Pope
An Essay on Criticism was the first major poem written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688-1744). However, despite the title, the poe…
The Birth of Tragedy
Read by Jim Locke
Friedrich Nietzsche
In this famous early work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he investigates the artistic characteristics of Apollonian (reason) and…
Robert Browning
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G. K. Chesterton
There is an old anecdote, probably apocryphal, which describes how a feminine admirer wrote to Browning asking him for the meaning of one of…
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences
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Mark Twain
Fenimore Cooper - author of The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, etc - has often been praised, but just as often been criticised for hi…
The American Language
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H. L. Mencken
"It was part of my daily work, for a good many years, to read the principal English newspapers and reviews; it has been part of my work…
Egyptian Tales, translated from the Papyri, Series Two : XVIIIth to XIXth Dynas…
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William Matthew Flinders Petrie
Egyptian stories translated from ancient, often incomplete, documents. - Summary by Timothy Ferguson
The Raven and The Philosophy Of Composition
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Edgar Allan Poe
Poe’s famous narrative poem and the author’s reflections on its composition. (David Wales)
Fear and Trembling (selections)
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Soren Kierkegaard
"And God tempted Abraham and said unto him: take Isaac, thine only son, whom thou lovest and go to the land Moriah and sacrifice him th…
Portraits of Russian Poets
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Ilya Ehrenburg
«Портреты русских поэтов»: Ахматова, Бальмонт, Балтрушайтис, Блок, Брюсов, Белый, Волошин, Есенин, Иванов, Мандельштам, Маяковск…
Essays and Literary Studies
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Stephen Leacock
A collection of wry looks at literature, education, and other social phenomena by Canadian humourist and economics professor, Stephen Leacoc…
Voltaire and the French Enlightenment
Read by Pamela Nagami
Will Durant
In this Little Blue Book Number 512, Will Durant describes François-Marie Arouet, the writer, historian, and philosopher known as Vol…
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences (Version 2)
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Mark Twain
This is Mark Twain's vicious and amusing review of Fenimore Cooper's literary art. It is still read widely in academic circles. Twain's essa…
The Lost Art of Reading
Read by Joseph Tabler
Gerald Stanley Lee
Gerald Stanley Lee speaks here-in of books and self in the time of factories, tall buildings and industry and big city making, the effects o…
Emily Brontë
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Agnes Mary Frances Robinson
Emily Brontë (1818-1848) is best known for her only novel, "Wuthering Heights." She was born in Yorkshire, northern England, …
Stage Land
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Jerome K. Jerome
A comic look at the curious habits and customs of the inhabitants of 'Stage Land'. Dedicated to 'that highly respectable but unnecessarily r…
Reviews
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Oscar Wilde
Wilde’s literary reputation has survived so much that I think it proof against any exhumation of articles which he or his admirers would hav…
The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance
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Edith Birkhead
A seminal essay on the development of horror as a genre, highly influential on later writers. - Summary by Timothy Ferguson
Appreciations, with an Essay on Style
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Walter Pater
Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, is a collection of Walter Pater's previously-published essays on literature. The collection was well …