Fictional Biographies & Memoirs
- Humorous Lives: Fictional Memoirs
- Fictional Lives Through History
- Dramatic Lives: Fictional Biographies
- Classics of Personal Journeys
The Diary of a Superfluous Man
Turgenev's shy hero, Tchulkaturin, is a representative example of a Russian archetype - the "superfluous man", a sort of Hamlet no…
Leave it to PSmith
Freddie Threepwood and his uncle are in difficulties. Freddie wants a thousand pounds to start a bookmaker’s business and to marry Eve, whil…
The American Claimant
The American Claimant is an 1892 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The story focuses on the class differences and expectatio…
Marguerite de Valois
A historical fiction novel set in Paris (1572) during Charles IX's reign and the French Wars of Religion. Marguerite de Valois, daughter of …
Scenes of Clerical Life
Scenes of Clerical Life, which appeared in book form in 1858 (after serial publication in the previous year), was the first published fictio…
This Side of Paradise
Amory Blaine grew up in a wealthy family and was given an Ivy League education. Without a need to learn a profession, he chiefly dabbled in …
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Johnson's only novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, was originally published anonymously in 1912. It is a fictional novel written …
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she argued that women are not naturally inferior…
The Watsons
This fragment of a novel was written by Jane Austen in 1804 and remained untitled and unpublished until her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh…
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…
Helping Himself
Helping Himself, or Grant Thornton's Ambition deals with the grit and determination of Grant, a 15 year old farmer's boy whose father is dea…
Childhood
Childhood, published in 1852, is the first novel in Leo Tolstoy’s autobiographical trilogy, which also includes Boyhood, and Youth. Publishe…
My Lady Ludlow
This novella by the acclaimed Elizabeth Gaskell follows the reminiscences and life of aristocratic Lady Ludlow, told through the eyes of one…
The King of Schnorrers
Manasseh da Costa, protagonist of this hilarious novel, is a schnorrer (beggar) who lives on the charitable contributions of the Jews of lat…
In Pawn
Inspired by "Lives of the Saints", fat, lazy, good-for-nothing Harvey Redding decides to give up the junk-collecting business, and…
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders
Defoe wrote this novel after his work as a journalist and pamphleteer. By 1722, Defoe had become recognized as a novelist, with the success …
Probable Sons
Little Milly is left an orphan after the death of her mother and sent to live with her bachelor uncle, who has no use for children, especial…
A Room of One’s Own
This feminist essay argues for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy. First…
Orlando
A fictional biography following the adventures of Orlando: initially a gentleman, later a lady — always a poet — who romps through British h…
Anything Once
An unlikely pair of wanderers they were; the orphan girl Lou and her travelling partner Jim Botts. Jim appeared in need of following some ap…