Literary Criticism

Tolstoy on Shakespeare

by Leo Tolstoy Read by LibriVox Volunteers 4.4
In this thought-provoking essay, Leo Tolstoy presents a critical examination of William Shakespeare's works, exploring the playwright's them…

Against The Grain

by Joris-Karl Huysmans Read by Martin Geeson 4.2
Against The Grain is a provocative exploration of aestheticism and the complexities of modern existence, penned by Joris-Karl Huysmans. This…

Daisy Miller

by Henry James Read by LibriVox Volunteers 4.2
Daisy Miller is an 1878 novella by Henry James. It portrays the confused courtship of the eponymous American girl by Winterbourne, a compatr…

The Professor

by Charlotte Brontë Read by LibriVox Volunteers 4.2
The Professor follows the journey of William Crimsworth, a young man navigating the complexities of ambition, love, and self-discovery in 19…

The Colonel's Dream

by Charles Waddell Chesnutt Read by James K. White 4.7
In this novel, Chesnutt described the hopelessness of Reconstruction in a post-Civil War South that was bent on reestablishing the former st…

Mrs. Armytage

by Catherine Grace Frances Gore Read by Helen Taylor 4.5
Mrs Armytage is a widowed landowner, spirited, independent and very much used to having her own way and exercising total dominance over her …

Roderick Hudson

by Henry James Read by Nicholas Clifford (1930-2019) 4.6
Published as a serial in 1875, Roderick Hudson is James's first important novel. The theme of Americans in Europe, so important in much of J…

Ulysses

by James Joyce Read by LibriVox Volunteers 4.3
Ulysses is a groundbreaking novel in which Irish author James Joyce explores realism through stream-of-consciousness technique and shifting …

Siddhartha

by Hermann Hesse Read by Peter Kuhn 4.7
A major preoccupation of Hesse in writing Siddhartha was to cure his "sickness with life" (Lebenskrankheit) by immersing himself i…

The Perfect Wagnerite

by George Bernard Shaw Read by Bob Neufeld 4.5
The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring (originally published London, 1898) is a philosophical commentary on Richard Wagne…

Agnes Grey

by Anne Brontë Read by LibriVox Volunteers 4
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…

Barchester Towers

by Anthony Trollope Read by LibriVox Volunteers 4.2
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 Art of Fiction

by Henry James Read by Julie VW 4.6
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…

Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens

by G. K. Chesterton Read by Ray Clare 4.8
“These papers were originally published as prefaces to the separate books of Dickens in one of the most extensive of those cheap libraries o…

Bunyan Characters

by Alexander Whyte Read by LibriVox Volunteers 4.6
Bunyan Characters by Alexander Whyte delves into the rich tapestry of characters from John Bunyan's seminal work, The Pilgrim's Progress. Th…

Le Père Goriot

by Honoré de Balzac Read by Bernard 4.7
Le Père Goriot est un roman d’Honoré de Balzac, écrit en 1834, dont la publication débute dans la Revue de Paris…

The Country of the Pointed Firs

by Sarah Orne Jewett Read by LibriVox Volunteers 4.3
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is considered Jewett’s finest work, described by Henry James as her “beautiful little quantum of achi…

Tales of Unrest

by Joseph Conrad Read by LibriVox Volunteers 4.5
Tales of Unrest is Joseph Conrad's first collection of short stories, published in 1898, showcasing his mastery of narrative and psychologic…

La Comédie Humaine: Scènes de la vie privée

by Honoré de Balzac Read by Bernard 4.6
Ce n'était pas une petite tâche que de peindre les deux ou trois mille figures saillantes d'une époque, car telle est, e…

The Golden Bowl

by Henry James Read by Lee Ann Howlett 3.9
The Golden Bowl is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some cri…

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