Literary Criticism
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty …
Companionable Books
Many books are dry and dusty, there is no juice in them; and many are soon exhausted, you would no more go back to them than to a squeezed o…
The Dark
The Dark is a novella about a desperate young man, a “terrorist and nihilist”, trying to avoid arrest by taking refuge in a brothel. The sto…
A Far Country
The book follows the career of Hugh Paret from youth to manhood, and how his profession as a corporation lawyer gradually changes his values…
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…
The Lesson of the Master
A promising young writer meets an older man whose works have inspired him, as well as a highly intelligent and attractive young woman, at a …
In a German Pension
The first collected volume of short stories of the New Zealand modernist. Inspired by her own travels, Mansfield begins to refine her craft …
Prelude
Prelude invites listeners into the evocative world of Katherine Mansfield's childhood in New Zealand, capturing the essence of youth and the…
The Altar of the Dead
A fable of literally life and death significance, the story explores how the protagonist tries to keep the remembrance of his dead friends, …
A Raw Youth
Arkady Dolgoruky, is a 19-year-old intellectual. He is the illegitimate son of a landowner and dreams to become rich. In his quest to fulfi…
The American Language
"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…
The Last of the Valerii
An unnamed American painter resident in Rome serves as narrator in this story, watching as his god-daughter Martha, becomes the wife of Prin…
The Power of a Lie
Norby is requested to guarantee a bank loan for Wangen and he obliges, signing the loan document in the presence of a witness. Some time lat…
Pierre & Jean
This short novel’s titular characters are brothers. An old family friend dies, leaving without explanation his entire fortune to Jean, the y…
Joseph Conrad
This is a literary biography of Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924) who is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English. He was granted Brit…
Madame Bovary
Published in book form in April 1857, the novel focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her mea…
Lord Beaupre
What is a young man to do, when because of his pleasant disposition, and (of course) his considerable wealth, he finds himself besieged by b…
Elective Affinities
Elective Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaften) was Goethe's third novel. It depicts human relationships in a Romantic crucible, and is the s…
The Red and the Black
Stendhal - a German pen-name for a French writer who hated the English. Contemporary to some of the great names of French literature like Ba…
Three Lives
Three Lives tells the stories of three women from the same fictitious town of Bridgeport. The first story is of Anna, a servant to the wealt…