Literary Criticism
The Metropolis
In this 1907 novel about the extravagant life of New York City’s high society, the author of The Jungle, presents a portrait of the wealthy …
The Fallen Leaves
Amelius Goldenheart, the hero of this story, is expelled from a Utopian community in New England and finds himself in London. His story is d…
The Rider on the White Horse
Hauke Haien, a young man of 24 years, has just beome dikemaster in Northern Frisia. Against the resistance of many of the townfolk, he has a…
Jenny
Jenny Winge is a Norwegian expatriate studying art in Rome, part of a Bohemian group of friends who explore the ancient City in an intoxicat…
Audrey Craven
In May Sinclair’s remarkable first novel, Audrey Craven is a beautiful young woman who has by her idiosyncrasies acquired a thoroughly undes…
Arrowsmith
This 1926 Pulitzer Prize winning novel centers on the title character, a promising medical student who, as a doctor and following several in…
White Rose of Weary Leaf
Isobel Violet Hunt was a British author renowned for her literary salons, which hosted such notables as H.G. Wells, D.H. Laurence, Henry Jam…
The Awakening
Owing to its highly personal content focused on feminine sexuality, this LibriVox edition was recorded by eight female readers. The Modern L…
The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung, also sometimes translated as The Transformation) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in…
Robert Browning
There is an old anecdote, probably apocryphal, which describes how a feminine admirer wrote to Browning asking him for the meaning of one of…
Botchan
Botchan is the story of a young math teacher from Tokyo whose first assignment takes him to a middle school in the country side. His arrival…
The Beast in the Jungle
The Beast in the Jungle is a poignant exploration of fate and the human condition, centered on John Marcher, a man who believes he is destin…
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…
The Legends of Genesis
The Legends of Genesis is the English translation of the introduction to Gunkel’s massive commentary, Genesis. Gunkel uses form critical ana…
An Anonymous Story
In "An Anonymous Story," Chekhov continues to explore his favorite themes of superfluous men, ironic rakes, exploited women, and t…
Agnes Grey
The novel tells the story of Agnes Grey, the daughter of a minister, whose family comes to financial ruin. Desperate to earn the money to ca…
Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure is the last of Thomas Hardy's novels, begun as a magazine serial and first published in book form in 1895. Its hero Jude Fa…
A Hero of Our Time
One of the iconic characters of all Russian literature, Grigori Aleksandrovich Pechorin is the ultimate “superfluous man.” An aristocratic r…
The Liar
The Liar by Henry James explores the intricate dynamics of love, deception, and the complexities of human relationships. Set against the bac…
Where Angels Fear to Tread
On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and traveling companion Caroline Abbott, widowed Lilia Herriton falls in love with both Italy …