Literary Criticism
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…
The Novels of Jane Austen
An 1859 essay by the prominent philosopher and literary critic, G. H. Lewes, who was an enthusiastic promoter of the novels of Jane Austen a…
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 …
Under the Shadow of Etna
The short stories of Giovanni Verga, one of the leading authors of Italian verismo, or realism, tell mostly of working-class characters in r…
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…
Lady Susan
Jane Austen demonstrated her mastery of the epistolary novel genre in Lady Susan, which she wrote in 1795 but never published. Although 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, …
Appreciations
Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, is a collection of Walter Pater's previously-published essays on literature. The collection was well …
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…
The Wings of the Dove
"The Wings of the Dove," published in 1902, represents to my memory a very old--if I shouldn't perhaps rather say a very young--mo…
Clayhanger
This first of a trilogy of novels is a coming-of-age story set in the Midlands of Victorian England, following Edwin Clayhanger as he leaves…
The Flaw in the Crystal
One of May Sinclair’s “uncanny” stories, this novella explores many of Sinclair’s most treasured themes: the bounds of marriage, the conflic…
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…
The Naturewoman
The Mastersons, a wealthy Bostonian family, await the arrival of their cousin Anna in the wake of her grandfather's death. Though born in Bo…
Love Among the Artists
Love Among the Artists was published in the United States in 1900 and in England in 1914, but it was written in 1881. In the ambience of chi…
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…
Mademoiselle Ixe
This is a story by the English writer Mary Elizabeth Hawker (1848-1908) entitled Mademoiselle Ixe, by[pseudonym] Lanoe Falconer. The manuscr…
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…
A Tale of a Tub
A Tale of a Tub was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, composed between 1694 and 1697, that was eventually published in 1704. I…
Jacob's Room
The novel centres, in a very ambiguous way, around the life story of the protagonist Jacob Flanders, and is presented entirely by the impres…