Literary Criticism
Bartleby the Scrivener
Bartleby the Scrivener is a thought-provoking short story set against the backdrop of Wall Street, exploring themes of isolation, conformity…
Ball of Fat
Ball of Fat is a poignant short story by renowned French author Guy de Maupassant, set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian War. The …
Resurrection
Resurrection is the last of Tolstoy's major fiction works published in his lifetime. Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of injustic…
The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.
First published as a serial in Fraser's Magazine in 1844 as The Luck of Barry Lyndon, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq is a picaresque novel…
The Quest of the Silver Fleece
The Quest of the Silver Fleece is a story of romance, race, economics and politics set around the 1900s. Here, a traditionally educated boy …
Joseph Andrews
Joseph Andrews is a pioneering work of English literature that blends humor and social commentary in a tale of adventure and virtue. Followi…
Benito Cereno
On an island off the coast of Chile, Captain Amaso Delano, sailing an American sealer, sees the San Dominick, a Spanish slave ship, in obvio…
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…
Our Mutual Friend
Dickens' last complete novel was published serially 1864-5. It begins with an intriguing fortune offered to John Harmon by his late father, …
Under Western Eyes
Under Western Eyes (1911) is a novel by Joseph Conrad. The novel takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Geneva, Switzerland, and is vie…
Roderick Hudson
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…
Clotel
Clotel; or, The President's Daughter is a novel by William Wells Brown (1814-84), a fugitive from slavery and abolitionist and was published…
Cousin Pons
Cousin Pons is one of the final works in Balzac's long novel series titled The Human Comedy. It was published in 1847, along with Cousin Bet…
Barchester Towers
This is the second in Trollope’s ‘Barsetshire’ series of novels. The later novels in the series move away from Barchester itself but 'Barche…
Babbitt
Sinclair Lewis’ George F. Babbitt is a complicated and conflicted character. When you think you have his next move figured out he surprises …
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 …
The Money Moon
Rejected in love, the incredibly rich (but appropriately modest) George Bellew walks into a small English village populated with a cast of m…
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…
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
A mentally unstable genius, Victor Frankenstein, inspired by the dreams of ancient alchemists and empowered by modern science, creates a hum…
The Fruit of the Tree
The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton explores the intricate lives of a wealthy mill owner and her socially progressive husband as they nav…