Literary Criticism
The Last Day of a Condemned
A man who has been condemned to death writes down his cogitations, feelings and fears while he is waiting for his execution. He does not bet…
The Welsh And Their Literature
Originally an article in the US Edition of the London Quarterly Review, George Borrow offers a sweeping history of Welsh literature, beginni…
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…
The Lost Art of Reading
Gerald Stanley Lee speaks here-in of books and self in the time of factories, tall buildings and industry and big city making, the effects o…
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…
Famous Potatoes
"An engaging picaresque novel of a young man on the run. A warm, well-told story of a likable character with a knack for being in the w…
Appreciations
Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, is a collection of Walter Pater's previously-published essays on literature. The collection was well …
Three Lives
Three Lives tells the stories of three women from the same fictitious town of Bridgeport. The first story is of Anna, a servant to the wealt…
Germinal
This epic about French coal miners and the burgeoning labor movement is considered one of Zola's finest novels. - Summary by Matt Pierard
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…
Iracema, the Honey-Lips
Iracema (translated as Iracema, the Honey Lips: a legend of Brazil) is considered one of the most important books of Brazilian romanticism, …
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 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…
The Rainbow
The Rainbow explores the intricate lives of the Brangwen family over three generations, set against the backdrop of the English countryside.…
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 Growth of Love
Robert Bridges, who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1913, published three versions of his sonnet sequence, The Growth of Love:1876 - 24 sonn…
Camilla
Camilla is Frances Burney's third novel. It became very popular upon its publication in 1796. Jane Austen referred to it, among other novels…
John Sherman and Dhoya
John Sherman and Dhoya brings together two distinct yet thematically intertwined works by William Butler Yeats. In the novella John Sherman,…
Confidence
This light and somewhat awkward comedy centers on artist Bernard Longueville, scientist Gordon Wright, and the sometimes inscrutable heroine…
Nana
Excerpt from Introduction:"Nana" stands third in popularity among the Zola novels. It is a study of the prostitute type and it giv…