Literary Criticism
The Portrait of a Lady
Our central character is Isabel Archer of Albany, New York, a young woman of no great means, and no great beauty (that is, by her own estima…
Max
On a trans-continental train journey into Paris, Max, a young adventurer determined to make his way as an artist, meets Blake, a well-to-do …
A Happy Boy
A Happy Boy is a poignant exploration of peasant life in 19th-century Norway, crafted by Nobel laureate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson.…
The Lifted Veil
The Lifted Veil is a thought-provoking novella by George Eliot that delves into the realms of the supernatural and the unknown. Set against …
Deephaven
Sarah Orne Jewett is best known for her clean and clear descriptive powers that at once elevate common-place daily events to something remar…
The Rainbow
Briefly appearing in 1915, then banned and taken out of circulation for its adult treatment of sexuality, Lawrence's visionary novel The Rai…
The Gambler
The Gambler is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky about a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian general. The novella r…
A Room with a View
When Lucy Honeychurch travels to Italy with her cousin, she meets George Emerson, a bohemian and an atheist who falls in love with her. Upon…
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…
The Job
'The Job' is an early work by American novelist Sinclair Lewis. It is considered an early declaration of the rights of working women. The fo…
Heart of Darkness
In this powerful novella based on Joseph Conrad's own experiences in the Belgian Congo, Charles Marlow, an experienced seaman, tells a small…
Stalky & Co.
Rudyard Kipling published Stalky & Co. in 1899. Set at an English boarding school in a seaside town on the North Devon coast. (The town,…
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 Marrow of Tradition
In The Marrow of Tradition, Charles W. Chesnutt--using the 1898 Wilmington, North Carolina massacre as a backdrop--probes and exposes the ra…
The Wolf-Leader
Part local legend of a dark and dangerous Wolf-Leader, part childhood memories of his home near Villers-Cotterets, in Aisne, Dumas here penn…
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…
Taras Bulba
Taras Bulba is a romanticised historical novella by Nikolai Gogol set in Russia’s equivalent of America’s wild frontier, what is today Ukrai…
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…
Summer
The story is one of only two novels by Wharton to be set in New England. The novel details the sexual awakening of its protagonist, Charity …
The Metamorphosis
"The Metamorphosis" is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915 and one of his best known works. The story begins with a …