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The Home and the World (1916) is a novel by Bengali author Rabindranath Tagore. Written after Tagore received the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, the novel dramatizes the Swadeshi movement for Indian independence from British rule. Through the lens of one family, Tagore illuminates the conflict between Western culture and Indian nationalism while exploring the complex relationships of men and women in modern India.
Concerned for his wife, who spends...
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Faithful family employee Thady Quirk recounts the decline, over four generations, of the Rackrent family. Through gambling, hapless litigation, and general extravagance the Rackrent's ruin is accomplished, but Thady is steadfast in defence of his masters.
With the short novel Castle Rackrent, Maria Edgeworth is said to have originated a number of literary genres and subgenres, including the historical novel, the Anglo-Irish novel and the "Big House"...
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First published in 1852, "The Blithedale Romance" is the third of Nathaniel Hawthorne's romantic novels. Set in the utopian communal farm called Blithedale in the 1840's, the novel tells the story of four inhabitants of the commune: Hollingsworth, a misogynist philanthropist obsessed with turning Blithedale into a colony for the reformation of criminals; Zenobia, a passionate feminist; Priscilla, a mysterious lady with a hidden agenda who turns out...
4) Martin Eden
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English
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Martin Eden (1909) is a novel by American writer Jack London. The book follows the tradition of the Künstlerroman, a narrative that traces the life and development of an artist, to tell the story of a young man not unlike London himself. Part fiction, part autobiography, Martin Eden examines the consequences of dreams and achievements, successes and failures, for a young artist struggling with fame. The novel is heavily influenced by London's socialist...
5) The Absentee
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English
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Lord Colambre can see that his pretentious mother's social ambitions earn her nothing but contempt from London's fashionable society. And it's come to his attention that his father's finances have suffered a good deal underwriting his wife's extravagances.
Anxious about his family's fortunes, Colambre departs Cambridge for Ireland to assess his father's estates firsthand. There he finds his absent father's tenants sorely put upon by the estate's agent....
6) Adam Bede
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English
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Originally published in 1859, "Adam Bede" is the first novel by George Eliot, which was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Eliot was one of the leading British writers of the Victorian era, as well as a noted journalist, poet, and translator. "Adam Bede" concerns a small, tight-knit, and fictional rural community called Hayslope and the romantic drama that develops between four of its young residents: the title character Adam, a young carpenter, the...
7) Dead Souls
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English
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First published in 1842, "Dead Souls" is the story of Chichikov, a young middle-class gentleman who comes to a small town in Russia with a dubious plan to improve his wealth and position in life. He begins by spending beyond his means on the premise that he can impress the local officials and gain standing and connections in the community. At the heart of his plan is the idea of acquiring "dead souls" or more explicitly serfs of landowners who have...
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First Published in 1860, "The Marble Faun" is the last of the four major romances written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Published shortly before the beginning of the American Civil War, it is a romantic and fantastical tale set in an imagined Italy and revolves around the love lives of the four main characters: Miriam, a beautiful and mysterious painter, Hilda, an innocent and morally upright copyist, Kenyon, a gifted sculptor, and Donatello,...
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"When it comes to walking the mean streets, Dickens could give modern genre authors the tour of their lives." -Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times
When a corpse is found in the Thames River and identified as John Harmon, many lives will be forever changed. John, who had been abroad and estranged from his miserly father for years, will no longer collect his inheritance. It will instead go to the miser's employees, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, transforming...
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Regarded as one of Bennett's finest The Old Wives' Tale (1908) was inspired by a chance encounter in a Parisian restaurant. It follows the lives of two very different French sisters, Constance and Sophia Baines, from their youth, through their work in their mother's draper's shop, to old age. The 200,000-word masterpiece was written by hand in ten months during a period in which Bennett suffered from insomnia.
11) Pericles
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Likely written around 1607 or 1608 and attributed at least in part to Shakespeare, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is an adventure-filled play that follows the extended sailing journeys of a young prince. Pericles, a young prince from Phoenicia, is forced to flee Antioch when he correctly guesses a riddle that reveals the incestuous activity of King Antiochus. Unable to stay at home in Tyre because of Antiochus' vengeance, he sails away and ends up shipwrecked...
12) Dombey and Son
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Charles Dickens was an English short story writer, dramatist, essayist, and the most popular novelist to come out of the Victorian era. Many of his novels, with their frequent concern for social reform, were first published in magazines in serial form under the pseudonym, Boz. Unlike authors who completed entire novels before serialization, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialized. The continuing popularity of his novels and...
13) The American
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This early work by Henry James was originally published in 1877 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. Henry James was born in New York City in 1843. One of thirteen children, James had an unorthodox early education, switching between schools, private tutors and private reading.. James published his first story, 'A Tragedy of Error', in the Continental Monthly in 1864, when he was twenty years old. In 1876, he emigrated...
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First published serially between January and December of 1878 in the sensationalistic monthly London magazine "Belgravia", Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native" is the author's sixth published novel. Set in Egdon Heath, an area of Thomas Hardy's fictionalized Wessex known for the thorny evergreen shrubs, called furze or gorse, which are cut there by its residents for fuel. When the story begins, on Guy Fawkes Night, we find Diggory Venn, a merchant...
15) Nana
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Rougon-Macquart volume 9
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English
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We first meet Nana in the Variety Theatre, where the captivating eighteen-year-old is appearing in the lead role of a musical-even though she can't act or sing. "Nana has something that makes up for everything else," the theater owner explains, and he's right. Instead of booing her off the stage, the crowd howls with admiration. She has disrobed by the third act, and her career as a femme fatale is off to a sensational start. Nana crawls out of the...
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Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare - Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, where it was listed as a comedy, the play's first recorded performance occurred in 1604. The play's main themes include justice, "mortality and mercy in Vienna," and the dichotomy between corruption and purity: "some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall." Mercy...
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Published in book form in 1882, these stories first appeared in magazines from 1877 to 1880. The first part consists of "The Suicide Club," and "The Rajah's Diamond;" stories that detail the exotic adventures of Prince Florizel of Bohemia and his associate Colonel Geraldine. Tales from the second part include "A Lodging for the Night," Stevenson's first published story, and "The Pavilion on the Links," praised by Arthur Conan Doyle as the "high-water...
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Jennie Gerhardt (1911) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. Controversial for its honest depiction of work, desire, and urban life, Jennie Gerhardt has endured as a classic of naturalist fiction and remains a powerful example of social critique over a century after its publication. Originally titled The Transgressor, the novel was shelved by Dreiser following a nervous breakdown in 1903. Controversial upon publication, Jennie Gerhardt has been largely...
19) The Double
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Advised by his doctor to become more sociable, Golyadkin, a low-level bureaucrat, arrives uninvited at a birthday party his office manager is having for his daughter. After a number of socially awkward and increasingly uncomfortable moments, Golyadkin is asked to leave and flees the party. While making his way home through a snowstorm, an extraordinary thing happens: Golyadkin meets his double.
At first the two are friendly, but it quickly becomes...
20) The "Genius"
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English
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The "Genius" (1915) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. Based partly on his own experience as an artist from the Midwest, The "Genius" examines the nature of talent, the difficulty of desire, and the meaning of faith itself. Although he had high hopes for the novel, reviews were mixed, and sales suffered due to charges of obscenity. Some critics, however, praised Dreiser's openness on sex and desire, opposing the censorship targeting the author's work....
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