Literary Criticism
Jude the Obscure
Eleven-year-old Jude Fawley, inspired by his teacher Mr. Phillotson, who leaves Marygreen for Christminster to take a university degree, dec…
Bleak House
Bleak house is one of Dickens finest achievements. It was written for serialisation in 1853 when Dickens was at the peak of his career. Mont…
Daniel Deronda
In this enduring Victorian classic written in 1876, two stories weave in and out of each other: The first is about Gwendolen, one of Eliot's…
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…
The Mysterious Stranger
Here's a Mark Twain story that's very unlike those he became famous for, but when I read it back in Catholic high school, it left a deep imp…
Cousin Betty
Cousin Betty (La Cousine Bette), published in serial format in 1846, was one of the last and greatest of Balzac's works. It was part of his …
The Magnificent Ambersons
In a world where a gentleman’s life is defined more “by being, rather than by doing,” a family’s reputation can be compromised if it is not …
Candide
Candide is a relentless, brutal assault on government, society, religion, education, and, above all, optimism. Dr. Pangloss teaches his youn…
Of Human Bondage
Of Human Bondage, published in 1915, is considered to be W. Somerset Maugham’s best work. Many believe the novel to be one of the world’s li…
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…
The Homely Heroine
Who ever heard of a plain and downright homely heroine? Isn't a heroine by definition beautiful? Well, Edna Ferber, in her well known style …
Indian Summer
Set in Florence's Anglo-American colony in the late 19th century, this is a romantic story of a middle-aged man, returning to the scene of h…
Fathers and Sons
The fathers and children of the novel refers to the growing divide between the two generations of Russians, and the character Yevgeny Bazaro…
Bunner Sisters
“Bunner Sisters,” like “The Age of Innocence” is set in 1870s New York, however the lives of Ann Eliza and Evelina Bunner reflect impoverish…
The Jungle
It is the end of the 19th century. Like thousands of others, the Rudkus family has emigrated from Lithuania to America in search of a better…
Framley Parsonage
Framley Parsonage invites listeners into the intricate social tapestry of Victorian England, where the lives of clergymen and their families…
Benito Cereno
On an island off the coast of Chile, Captain Amaso Delano, sailing an American sealer, sees the San Dominick, a Spanish slave ship, in obvio…
The Fruit of the Tree
The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton explores the intricate lives of a wealthy mill owner and her socially progressive husband as they nav…
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1903 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood…
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 …