Literary Criticism
The Master of Ballantrae
Heir to a noble Scottish house in the mid 18th century, the Master is a charming, clever, and resourceful villain whose daring but ill-advis…
The Turmoil
The Turmoil is the first novel in the 'Growth' trilogy, which also includes The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and The Midlander (1923, retitl…
The Country of the Pointed Firs
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is considered Jewett’s finest work, described by Henry James as her “beautiful little quantum of achi…
Royal Highness
Royal Highness is the story of Prince Klaus Heinrich, a member of a struggling German duchy and an exotic American heiress who comes to live…
Max
On a trans-continental train journey into Paris, Max, a young adventurer determined to make his way as an artist, meets Blake, a well-to-do …
The Hidden Places
Hollister, returning home from the war physically scarred but otherwise healthy and intact, finds life difficult among society, and so choos…
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…
Voltaire and the French Enlightenment
In this Little Blue Book Number 512, Will Durant describes François-Marie Arouet, the writer, historian, and philosopher known as Vol…
Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp
This is Stowe's second book, another one depicting the horrors of southern slavery, published 4 years after Uncle Tom's Cabin and 5 years be…
The Wolf-Leader
Part local legend of a dark and dangerous Wolf-Leader, part childhood memories of his home near Villers-Cotterets, in Aisne, Dumas here penn…
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…
Taras Bulba
Taras Bulba is a romanticised historical novella by Nikolai Gogol set in Russia’s equivalent of America’s wild frontier, what is today Ukrai…
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 mill…
Stalky & Co.
Rudyard Kipling published Stalky & Co. in 1899. Set at an English boarding school in a seaside town on the North Devon coast. (The town,…
Anne Severn and the Fieldings
Written in an era of cheap, formulaic romantic fiction, the nuanced, seditious, quietly erotic novels of May Sinclair stand out like literat…
Barchester Towers
This is the second in Trollope’s ‘Barsetshire’ series of novels. The later novels in the series move away from Barchester itself but 'Barche…
The Papers
Today the world is awash with “celebrities” whose only accomplishment is being celebrated by the media in all its various forms. Henry James…
The Magic Skin
The Magic Skin is Honoré de Balzac's first successful novel, exploring the intricate relationship between desire, materialism, and th…
Death in Venice
Thomas Mann, author of Death in Venice (German: Der Tod in Venedig) was a winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. The main character in th…
The Roll-Call
"The Roll-Call" is the sequel to the Clayhanger trilogy. This book concerns the young life of Clayhanger's stepson, George. George…