Literary Criticism
Moby Dick
This great, genre-bending novel nominally centres on the quest of the monomaniacal Captain Ahab to gain revenge for the loss of his leg to a…
Kipps
Arthur Kipps, an orphaned draper’s assistant of humble means, unexpectedly inherits a large sum of money and that is when all his troubles b…
The Vicar of Wakefield
Published in 1766, 'The Vicar of Wakefield' was Oliver Goldsmith's only novel. It was thought to have been sold to the publisher for £…
Their Yesterdays
Their Yesterdays by Harold Bell Wright invites listeners into a reflective journey through the essence of human experience. This novel follo…
Personality Plus
Personality Plus introduces listeners to Emma McChesney, a savvy and stylish divorced mother navigating the challenges of early 20th-century…
Martin Eden
Martin Eden (1909) is a novel by American author Jack London, about a struggling young writer. It was first serialized in the Pacific Monthl…
The Magic Mountain
Thomas Mann’s epic novel depicts a decaying, corrupted European society on the eve of the First World War. Set in a luxurious sanatorium hig…
The Aspern Papers
One of James’s favorite short novels, the Aspern Papers tells of the efforts of the nameless narrator to procure the papers of a famous, bu…
Candide
Candide is a relentless, brutal assault on government, society, religion, education, and, above all, optimism. Dr. Pangloss teaches his youn…
This Side of Paradise
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1920, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke po…
Emma
Jane Austen famously described Emma Woodhouse, the title character of her 1815 novel, as "a heroine whom no-one but myself will much li…
The American
One of James’s early novels, The American plunges right in to one of the writer’s most enduring subjects, that of the innocent, or at least …
Crome Yellow
Crome Yellow, published in 1921 was Aldous Huxley’s first novel. In it he satirizes the fads and fashions of the time. It is the witty story…
Short Stories
This is a collection of short stories written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Dostoevsky), who is arguably better-known for his lengthy, contemplativ…
The Story of Avis
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's 1877 novel is set in a New England college town, and focuses on Avis Dobell, a professor's daughter. Avis is a ta…
Hard Times
Hard Times was Dickens's shortest novel and the only one to be set in the industrial north of England. A fast moving story with a typical ca…
Siddhartha
Siddhartha is one of the great philosophical novels. Profoundly insightful, it is also a beautifully written story that begins as Siddhartha…
The Island of Doctor Moreau
In 1896 HG Wells produced the Island of Doctor Moreau. After a fateful shipwreck, a chance rescue, and offer of safe harbor, Edward Prendick…
Don Quixote
Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the mo…
The Painted Veil
This Maugham classic is set in England and Hong Kong and in a cholera --ridden Chinese village in the 1920's. A committed, principled, epide…