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The Diary of a Nobody is an English comic novel written by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith, with illustrations by the latter. It originated as an intermittent serial in Punch magazine in 1888-89 and first appeared in book form, with extended text and added illustrations, in 1892. The Diary records the daily events in the lives of a London clerk, Charles Pooter, his wife Carrie, his son William Lupin, and numerous friends and acquaintances over a period of 15 months.Before their collaboration on the Diary, the brothers each pursued successful careers on the stage. George originated nine of the principal comedian roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas over 12 years from 1877 to 1889. He also established a national reputation as a piano sketch entertainer and wrote a large number of songs and comic pieces. Before embarking on his stage career, Weedon had worked as an artist and illustrator. The Diary was the brothers' only mature collaboration. Most of its humour derives from Charles Pooter's unconscious and unwarranted sense of his own importance, and the frequency with which this delusion is punctured by gaffes and minor social humiliations. In an era of rising expectations within the lower-middle classes, the daily routines and modest ambitions described in the Diary were instantly recognised by its contemporary readers, and provided later generations with a glimpse of the past that it became fashionable to imitate.Although its initial public reception was muted, the Diary came to be recognised by critics as a classic work of humour, and it has never been out of print. It helped to establish a genre of humorous popular fiction based on lower or lower-middle class aspirations, and was the forerunner of numerous fictitious diary novels in the later 20th century. The Diary has been the subject of several stage and screen adaptations, including Ken Russell's "silent film" treatment of 1964, a four-part TV film scripted by Andrew Davies in 2007, and a widely praised stage version in 2011, in which an all-male cast of three played all the parts. (Wikipedia.og)

Agnes Grey, A Novel is the debut novel of English author Anne Brontë (writing under the pen name of "Acton Bell"), first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as she works within families of the English gentry. Scholarship and comments by Anne's sister Charlotte Brontë suggest the novel is largely based on Anne Brontë's own experiences as a governess for five years. Like her sister Charlotte's 1847 novel Jane Eyre, it addresses what the precarious position of governess entailed and how it affected a young woman.The choice of central character allows Anne to deal with issues of oppression and abuse of women and governesses, isolation and ideas of empathy. An additional theme is the fair treatment of animals. Agnes Grey also mimics some of the stylistic approaches of bildungsromans, employing ideas of personal growth and coming to age.The Irish novelist George Moore praised Agnes Grey as "the most perfect prose narrative in English letters," and went so far as to compare Anne's prose to that of Jane Austen. Modern critics have made more subdued claims admiring Agnes Grey with a less overt praise of Brontë's work than Moore. Agnes Grey was popular during what remained of Anne Brontë's life despite the belief of many critics at the time that the novel was marred by "coarseness" and "vulgarity," but it lost some of its popularity afterwards because of its perceived moralising. However, in the 20th century, there was an increase in examination by scholars of Agnes Grey and of Anne Brontë. In Conversation in Ebury Street, the Irish novelist George Moore provided a commonly cited example of these newer reviews, overtly praising the style of the novel. F. B. Pinion agreed to a large extent that Agnes Grey was a masterwork. However, Pinion felt that Moore's examination of the piece was a little extreme and that his "preoccupation with style must have blinded him to the persistence of her moral purpose" of Agnes Grey. (Wikipedia.og)

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel written by English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phenomenal success, but after Anne's death her sister Charlotte prevented its re-publication in England until 1854.The novel is framed as a series of letters from Gilbert Markham to his friend about the events connected with his meeting a mysterious young widow, calling herself Helen Graham, who arrives at Wildfell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion which has been empty for many years, with her young son and a servant. Contrary to the early 19th century norms, she pursues an artist's career and makes an income by selling her pictures. Her strict seclusion soon gives rise to gossip in the neighbouring village and she becomes a social outcast. Refusing to believe anything scandalous about her, Gilbert befriends her and discovers her past. In the diary she gives Gilbert, she chronicles her husband's physical and moral decline through alcohol and debauchery in the dissipated aristocratic society. Ultimately she flees with her son, whom she desperately wishes to save from his father's influence. The depiction of marital strife and women's professional identification is mitigated by the strong moral message of Anne Brontë's belief in universal salvation.Most critics now consider The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to be one of the first feminist novels. May Sinclair, in 1913, said that "the slamming of [Helen's] bedroom door against her husband reverberated throughout Victorian England." In leaving her husband and taking away their child, Helen violates not only social conventions but also the early 19th-century English law. (Wikipedia.og)About the author: Anne Brontë (17 January 1820 - 28 May 1849) was an English novelist and poet, and the youngest member of the Brontë literary family.Anne Brontë was the daughter of Maria (née Branwell) and Patrick Brontë, a poor Irish clergyman in the Church of England. Anne lived most of her life with her family at the parish of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. Otherwise, she attended a boarding school in Mirfield between 1836 and 1837, and between 1839 and 1845 lived elsewhere working as a governess. In 1846 she published a book of poems with her sisters and later two novels, initially under the pen name Acton Bell. Her first novel, Agnes Grey, was published in 1847 at the same time as Wuthering Heights by her sister Emily Brontë. Anne's second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was published in 1848. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is often considered one of the first feminist novels.Anne died at 29, most likely of pulmonary tuberculosis. After her death, her sister Charlotte edited Agnes Grey to fix issues with its first edition, but prevented republication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. As a result, Anne is not as well known as her sisters. Nonetheless, both of her novels are considered classics of English literature. (Wikipedia.og)

This book certainly isn't for everyone, but if you're a fan of 18th century lit/early American lit as I am, it's not to be missed for its depiction of the New World in all the terror of its vast and unknowable wilderness. I certainly can understand the harsh criticism of modern readers, and I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone I know, but it has earned its place in the literary portfolio, and it's clear the influence Brown had on other, more successful writers who followed. (MountainAshleah)About the author: Charles Brockden Brown (January 17, 1771 - February 22, 1810) was an American novelist, historian, and editor of the Early National period.Brown is regarded by some scholars as the most important American novelist before James Fenimore Cooper. Although Brown was not the first American novelist, as some early criticism claimed, the breadth and complexity of his achievement as a writer in multiple genres (novels, short stories, essays and periodical writings, poetry, historiography, and reviews) makes him a crucial figure in literature of the early Republic. His best-known works include Wieland and Edgar Huntly, both of which display his characteristic interest in Gothic themes. He has been referred to as the "Father of the American Novel." (wikipedia.org)

Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale, usually simply called Wieland, is the first major work by Charles Brockden Brown. First published in 1798, it distinguishes the true beginning of his career as a writer. Wieland is sometimes considered the first American Gothic novel. It has often been linked to Caleb Williams by William Godwin. Godwin's influence is clear, but Brown's writing is unique in its style. Wieland is often categorized under several subgenres other than gothic fiction, including horror, psychological fiction and epistolary fiction, which are listed at Project Gutenberg.Many modern critics fault Wieland for its gimmickry, and late-eighteenth century critics scorned it as well. The use of spontaneous combustion especially has been pointed at as a contrived element. In Brown's time, critics harshly faulted Brown for using ventriloquism as the device that drove the plot of the novel. Critics today have also disdained the ventriloquism in Wieland. In Brown's time, critics considered the work to be unsophisticated because of its dependence on the conventions of Gothic novels and novels of seduction. Regardless of its weaknesses, however, Wieland is thought to be one of the first significant novels published by an American, and it is most certainly Brown's most successful work. Joyce Carol Oates describes Wieland as "a nightmare expression of the fulfillment of repressed desire, anticipating Edgar Allan Poe's similarly claustrophobic tales of the grotesque."About the author: Charles Brockden Brown (January 17, 1771 - February 22, 1810) was an American novelist, historian, and editor of the Early National period.Brown is regarded by some scholars as the most important American novelist before James Fenimore Cooper. Although Brown was not the first American novelist, as some early criticism claimed, the breadth and complexity of his achievement as a writer in multiple genres (novels, short stories, essays and periodical writings, poetry, historiography, and reviews) makes him a crucial figure in literature of the early Republic. His best-known works include Wieland and Edgar Huntly, both of which display his characteristic interest in Gothic themes. He has been referred to as the "Father of the American Novel." (wikipedia.org)

King Coal is a 1917 novel by Upton Sinclair that describes the poor working conditions in the coal mining industry in the western United States during the 1910s, from the perspective of a single protagonist, Hal Warner. As in his earlier work, The Jungle, Sinclair uses the novel to express his socialist viewpoint. The book is based on the 1913-1914 Colorado coal strikes and written just after the Ludlow massacre. The sequel to King Coal was posthumously published under the title, The Coal War. Hal Warner, a rich young fellow determined to find the truth for himself about conditions in the mines, runs away from home and adopts the alias "Joe Smith." After being turned away by one coal mine for fear of Hal being a union organizer, he gets a job in another coal mine operated by the General Fuel Company, or GFC. In the mines he befriends many of the workers, and realizes their misery and exploitation at the hands of the bosses.He befriends Mary Burke, who is a passionate fighter for the workers' rights. Her father is a mine worker who spends his days drinking and leaving her to take care of her siblings. She and Hal grow close, which tears at Hal's loyalty to his fiancée back home.After dedicating himself to the workers' cause, he tells them that he will appeal to the bosses to become a check weigh man who measures the amount of coal, but the GFC, wanting to cheat the workers out of their pay, appoints a company check weigh man. Hal is eventually put into the jail by the marshal, who is teased by Hal over conditions of the mines and accused by Hal of being corrupted and unfair to the workers.After an explosion in the mines, Hal seeks out Percy Harrigan, an old friend whose father, Peter Harrigan, owns the General Fuel Company. The workers organize a strike and union to demand their rights from the bosses, but the rescue effort goes longer than expected. The bosses are more intent on the tools and equipment than the miners. "Damn the man! save the Mules!" says a boss.Hal appeals to the United Mine Workers to back the strike, but they refuse, telling him that the strike is primitive and unexpected and that to support it when its just started to participate in action would waste the union's resources. Hal is told to wait a few more years for the other unions to strike, and only with a massive course of action could the unions win. Hal is left to tell the workers the grievous news but the workers nevertheless cheer out his name (some calling out Joe Smith and others Hal) for standing up for them.After a confrontation with his brother Edward, Hal resolves to return home and dedicate his life to the workers' cause. Hal leaves and concludes that he is in love with Mary Burke. (wikipedia.org)

The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy. One of Hardy's Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing in for Dorchester in Dorset where the author spent his youth. It was first published as a weekly serialisation from January 1886.The novel is considered to be one of Hardy's masterpieces, although it has been criticised for incorporating too many incidents, a consequence of the author trying to include something in every weekly published instalment. (wikipedia.org)

The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1876. It was written, in serial form, for The Cornhill Magazine, which was edited by Leslie Stephen, a friend and mentor of Hardy's. Unlike the majority of Hardy's fiction, the novel is a comedy, with both humour and a happy ending for the major characters and no suicides or tragic deaths. The late nineteenth century novelist George Gissing, who knew Hardy, considered it "surely old Hardy's poorest book". It was adapted for BBC Radio 4 by Katherine Jakeways. The one-hour play was released just before International Women's Day 2021, as part of a series on Hardy's women. (wikipedia.org)

Incredible Adventures is a collection by Algernon Blackwood, comprising three novellas and two short stories. It was originally published by Macmillan in 1914 and reprinted in 2004 by Hippocampus Press. H. P. Lovecraft wrote that: In the volume titled Incredible Adventures occur some of the finest tales which the author has yet produced, leading the fancy to wild rites on nocturnal hills, to secret and terrible aspects lurking behind stolid scenes, and to unimaginable vaults of mystery below the sands and pyramids of Egypt; all with a serious finesse and delicacy that convince where a cruder or lighter treatment would merely amuse. Some of these accounts are hardly stories at all, but rather studies in elusive impressions and half-remembered snatches of dream. Plot is everywhere negligible, and atmosphere reigns untrammelled.S. T. Joshi has acclaimed Incredible Adventures as possibly "the premier weird collection of this or any other century".The book contains the following stories, all novella-length except for "The Sacrifice" and "Wayfarers" The Regeneration of Lord Ernie"The Sacrifice"The DamnedA Descent into Egypt"Wayfarers" (wikipedia.org) About the authorAlgernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 - 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century". Throughout his adult life, he was an occasional essayist for periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and later telling them on radio and television. He also wrote 14 novels, several children's books and a number of plays, most of which were produced, but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, as many of his stories reflect. To satisfy his interest in the supernatural, he joined The Ghost Club. He never married; according to his friends he was a loner, but also cheerful company.His two best-known stories are probably "The Willows" and "The Wendigo". He would also often write stories for newspapers at short notice, with the result that he was unsure exactly how many short stories he had written and there is no sure total. Though Blackwood wrote a number of horror stories, his most typical work seeks less to frighten than to induce a sense of awe. Good examples are the novels The Centaur, which reaches a climax with a traveller's sight of a herd of the mythical creatures; and Julius LeVallon and its sequel The Bright Messenger, which deal with reincarnation and the possibility of a new, mystical evolution of human consciousness. Blackwood died after several strokes. Officially his death on 10 December 1951 was from cerebral thrombosis, with arteriosclerosis as a contributing factor. He was cremated at Golders Green crematorium. A few weeks later his nephew took his ashes to Saanenmöser Pass in the Swiss Alps, and scattered them in the mountains that he had loved for more than forty years. (wikipedia.org)

El filibusterismo (transl. The filibusterism; The Subversive or The Subversion, as in the Locsín English translation, are also possible translations), also known by its alternative English title The Reign of Greed, is the second novel written by Philippine national hero José Rizal. It is the sequel to Noli Me Tángere and, like the first book, was written in Spanish. It was first published in 1891 in Ghent.The novel centers on the Noli-El fili duology's main character Crisóstomo Ibarra, now returning for vengeance as "Simoun". The novel's dark theme departs dramatically from the previous novel's hopeful and romantic atmosphere, signifying Ibarra's resort to solving his country's issues through violent means, after his previous attempt in reforming the country's system made no effect and seemed impossible with the corrupt attitude of the Spaniards toward the Filipinos.The novel, along with its predecessor, was banned in some parts of the Philippines as a result of their portrayals of the Spanish government's abuses and corruption. These novels, along with Rizal's involvement in organizations that aimed to address and reform the Spanish system and its issues, led to Rizal's exile to Dapitan and eventual execution. Both the novel and its predecessor, along with Rizal's last poem, are now considered Rizal's literary masterpieces.Both of Rizal's novels had a profound effect on Philippine society in terms of views about national identity, the Catholic faith and its influence on the Filipino's choice, and the government's issues in corruption, abuse of power, and discrimination, and on a larger scale, the issues related to the effect of colonization on people's lives and the cause for independence. These novels later on indirectly became the inspiration to start the Philippine Revolution.Throughout the Philippines, the reading of both the novel and its predecessor is now mandatory for high school students throughout the archipelago, although it is now read using English, Filipino, and the Philippines' regional languages. (wikipedia.org)

Two on a Tower: A Romance (1882) is a novel by English author Thomas Hardy, classified by him as a romance and fantasy it is one of his minor works. The book is one of Hardy's Wessex novels, set in late Victorian Dorset. Because the book defied the social norms of the day, upon release the book was called shocking, repulsive, and one critic called it Hardy's "worst yet." Hardy's biographer, Claire Tomalin, says Hardy was "writing for serialization, which drove him to pack in far too much plot," and he wrote too fast "without time to think or reconsider."Hardy wrote in a letter to Edmund Gosse on 10 Dec 1882, "I get most extraordinary criticisms of T. on a T. Eminent critics write & tell me in private that it is the most original thing I have done...while other eminent critics (I wonder if they are the same) print the most cutting rebukes you can conceive-show me (to my amazement) that I am quite an immoral person..." (wikipedia.org)

Anabasis (an "expedition up from") is the most famous work of the Ancient Greek professional soldier and writer Xenophon. It narrates the expedition of a large army of Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger to help him seize the throne of Persia from his brother, Artaxerxes II, in 401 BC. The seven books making up the Anabasis were composed circa 370 BC. Though as an Ancient Greek vocabulary word, ᾰ̓νᾰ́βᾰσῐς means "embarkation", "ascent" or "mounting up", the title Anabasis is rendered in translation as The March Up Country or as The March of the Ten Thousand. The narration of the army's journey across Asia Minor and Mesopotamia is Xenophon's best known work, and "one of the great adventures in human history". Xenophon, in his Hellenica, did not cover the retreat of Cyrus but instead referred the reader to the Anabasis by "Themistogenes of Syracuse"-the tenth-century Suda also describes Anabasis as being the work of Themistogenes, "preserved among the works of Xenophon", in the entry Θεμιστογένεης. (Θεμιστογένης, Συρακούσιος, ἱστορικός. Κύρου ἀνάβασιν, ἥτις ἐν τοῖς Ξενοφῶντος φέρεται καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ περὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδος. J.S. Watson in his Remarks on the Authorship of Anabasis refers to the various interpretations of the word "φέρεται", which give rise to different interpretations and different problems.) Aside from these two references, there is no authority for there being a contemporary Anabasis written by "Themistogenes of Syracuse", and indeed no mention of such a person in any other context. The Greek term anabasis referred to an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country. While the journey of Cyrus is an anabasis from Ionia on the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea, to the interior of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, most of Xenophon's narrative is taken up with the return march of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, from the interior of Babylon to the coast of the Black Sea. Socrates makes a cameo appearance, when Xenophon asks whether he ought to accompany the expedition. The short episode demonstrates the reverence of Socrates for the Oracle of Delphi. Xenophon's account of the exploit resounded through Greece, where, two generations later, some surmise, it may have inspired Philip of Macedon to believe that a lean and disciplined Hellene army might be relied upon to defeat a Persian army many times its size. Besides military history, the Anabasis has found use as a tool for the teaching of classical philosophy; the principles of statesmanship and politics exhibited by the army can be seen as exemplifying Socratic philosophy. (wikipedia.org)

The Aeneidis a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned the Aeneid into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy.The Aeneid is widely regarded as Virgil's masterpiece and one of the greatest works of Latin literature. (wikipedia.org)

The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's best-known work on ethics, the science of the good for human life, which is the goal or end at which all our actions aim. The aim of the inquiry is political science and the master art of politics. It consists of ten books or scrolls, understood to be based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum. The title is often assumed to refer to his son Nicomachus, to whom the work was dedicated or who may have edited it (although his young age makes this less likely). Alternatively, the work may have been dedicated to his father, who was also called Nicomachus. The work plays a pre-eminent role in explaining Aristotelian ethics.The theme of the work is a Socratic question previously explored in the works of Plato, Aristotle's friend and teacher, about how men should best live. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes how Socrates, the friend and teacher of Plato, had turned philosophy to human questions, whereas pre-Socratic philosophy had only been theoretical. Ethics, as now separated out for discussion by Aristotle, is practical rather than theoretical, in the original Aristotelian senses of these terms. In other words, it is not only a contemplation about good living, because it also aims to create good living. It is therefore connected to Aristotle's other practical work, Politics, which similarly aims at people becoming good. Ethics is about how individuals should best live, while the study of politics is from the perspective of a law-giver, looking at the good of a whole community.The Nicomachean Ethics is widely considered one of the most historically important philosophical works and had an important influence on the European Middle Ages, becoming one of the core works of medieval philosophy. Therefore, it indirectly became of great significance in the development of all modern philosophy as well as European law and theology. Many parts of the Nicomachean Ethics are well known in their own right, within different fields. While various philosophers influenced Christendom since its earliest times, in Western Europe, Aristotle became "the Philosopher". In the Middle Ages, a synthesis between Aristotelian ethics and Christian theology became widespread in Europe, as introduced by Albertus Magnus. The most important version of this synthesis was that of Thomas Aquinas. Other more "Averroist" Aristotelians such as Marsilius of Padua were controversial but also influential. (Marsilius is for example sometimes said to have influenced the controversial English political reformer Thomas Cromwell.)Until well into the seventeenth century, the Nicomachean Ethics was still widely regarded as the main authority for the discipline of ethics at Protestant universities, with over fifty Protestant commentaries published on the Nicomachean Ethics before 1682. During the seventeenth century, however, several authors such as Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes argued forcefully and largely successfully that the medieval and Renaissance Aristotelian tradition in practical thinking had become a great impediment to philosophy in their time. In more recent generations, however, Aristotle's original works (if not those of his medieval followers) have once again become an important source. More recent philosophers influenced by this work include Alasdair MacIntyre, G. E. M. Anscombe, Mortimer Adler, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Martha Nussbaum. (wikipedia.org)

One of the Great Novels of American BusinessEdna Ferber's classic novel "Fanny Herself" is many things. It is a "semi-autobiographical" novel about a young girl growing up in Appleton Wisconsin in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century. It is loosely based on episodes from her own life, and other family members. Her older sister was named Fannie, and was the author of a famous cookbook titled "Fannie Fox's Cookbook". In her autobiography "A Peculiar Treasure" Ferber even quotes several episodes from this book saying that the account cannot be improved upon.But this is also a novel about religious tolerance and the culture of the midwest during this period of history. Ferber is an acute, humorous, and precise observer of culture and behavior. Her eye for detail, and her ear for dialogue are apparent in the many plays and movies which she wrote. Her observations of the pleasures of growing up as a bright, curious, and Jewish girl in small town Wisconsin are both revealing, and amusing.Ferber also writes tellingly of the dynamics of her family, a father who could not work, and had no business instincts; a mother who was proud, capable, and competent, unafraid of taking risks, and a sibling for whom much was sacrificed.Perhaps the most interesting story in this novel evolves after Fanny leaves home and goes to work for a new, rapidly expanding, mail order catalog company based in Chicago. A thinly disquised version of the new and explosive company subsequently called Sears and Roebuck. Although this part of the story is fiction, the descriptions of Sears, how it operates, how it changed American business, it's management, and it's methods are excellent. As with her famous Emma McChesney stories, Ferber is able to capture the essence of business transactions as interpersonal relationships in a way that no other author has done. Ferber wrote about businesses all over the United States, from the riverboat business of Showboat, to the oil business of Giant! Her novels are extensively rooted in the growth and challenges of business owners, workers and customers.One of the great scenes of the novel is the description of a Suffragette parade in New York in the years before WW1. It brings into sharp focus the feelings of women who were unable to vote, even as they expanded their roles into all other areas of society.This novel is a great place to start for anyone who has not read Ferber. It has many of the themes and even some of the characters of her other work. Highly recommended. (Dharma)BioEdna Ferber (August 15, 1885 - April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big (1924), Show Boat (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), Cimarron (1930; adapted into the 1931 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Giant (1952; made into the 1956 film of the same name) and Ice Palace (1958), which also received a film adaptation in 1960. Ferber's novels generally featured strong female protagonists, along with a rich and diverse collection of supporting characters. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination, ethnic or otherwise.Ferber's works often concerned small subsets of American culture, and sometimes took place in exotic locations she had visited but was not intimately familiar with, such as Texas or Alaska. She thus helped to highlight the diversity of American culture to those who did not have the opportunity to experience it. Some novels are set in places she had not visited. (wikipedia.org)

The Secret of Chimneys is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by The Bodley Head in June 1925 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. It introduces the characters of Superintendent Battle and Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.At the request of George Lomax, Lord Caterham reluctantly agrees to host a weekend party at his home, Chimneys. A murder occurs in the house, beginning a week of fast-paced events with police among the guests.The novel was well received at first publication, described as more than a murder mystery, as it is a treasure hunt. Later reviews found it a first-class romp and one of the author's best early thrillers. The most recent review says the novel requires a hefty suspension of disbelief. The later reviewers note that descriptions of characters use the terminology of the times in which it was written, and might be considered racist decades later. (wikipedia.org)

The Trumpet-Major is a novel by Thomas Hardy published in 1880, and his only historical novel, and Hardy included it with his "romances and fantasies". It concerns the heroine, Anne Garland, being pursued by three suitors: John Loveday, the eponymous trumpet major in a British regiment, honest and loyal; his brother Bob, a flighty sailor; and Festus Derriman, the cowardly nephew of the local squire. Unusually for a Hardy novel, the ending is not entirely tragic; however, there remains an ominous element in the probable fate of one of the main characters.The novel is set in Weymouth during the Napoleonic wars; the town was then anxious about the possibility of invasion by Napoleon. Of the two brothers, John fights with Wellington in the Peninsular War, and Bob serves with Nelson at Trafalgar. The Napoleonic Wars was a setting that Hardy would use again in his play, The Dynasts, and it borrows from the same source material.Edward Neill has called the novel an attempt to repeat the success of his earlier work Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), after the limited success of his intervening works. The novel originally appeared in 1880 in the Evangelical serial Good Words (January-December) with 33 illustrations by John Collier. The three-volume first edition was published in October 1880. (wikipedia.org)

The Return of the Native is Thomas Hardy's sixth published novel. It first appeared in the magazine Belgravia, a publication known for its sensationalism, and was presented in twelve monthly installments from January to December 1878. Because of the novel's controversial themes, Hardy had some difficulty finding a publisher; reviews, however, though somewhat mixed, were generally positive. In the twentieth century, The Return of the Native became one of Hardy's most popular and highly regarded novels. With its deeply flawed heroine and its (for the time) open acknowledgement of illicit sexual relationships, The Return of the Native raised some eyebrows when it first appeared as a serial in Victorian Britain. Although he intended to structure the novel into five books, thus mirroring the classical tragic format, Hardy submitted to the tastes of the serial-reading public sufficiently to tack on a happy ending for Diggory Venn and Thomasin in a sixth book, Aftercourses. In Hardy's original conception, Venn retains his weird reddleman's character, while Thomasin lives out her days as a widow.Hardy's choice of themes-sexual politics, thwarted desire, and the conflicting demands of nature and society-makes this a truly modern novel. Underlying these modern themes, however, is a classical sense of tragedy: Hardy scrupulously observes the three unities of time, place, and action and suggests that the struggles of those trying to escape their destinies will only hasten their destruction. To emphasise this main part he uses as setting an ancient heath steeped in pre-Christian history and supplies a Chorus consisting of Grandfer Cantle, Timothy Fairway, and the rest of the heathfolk. Eustacia, who manipulates fate in hopes of leaving Egdon Heath for a larger existence in Paris, instead becomes an eternal resident when she drowns in Shadwater Weir; Wildeve shares not only Eustacia's dream of escape, but also her fate; and Clym, the would-be educational reformer, survives the Weir but lives on as a lonely, remorseful man.Some critics-notably D. H. Lawrence-see the novel as a study of the way communities control their misfits. In Egdon Heath, most people (particularly the women) look askance at the proud, unconventional Eustacia. Mrs. Yeobright considers her too odd and unreliable to be a suitable bride for her son, and Susan Nunsuch, who frankly believes her to be a witch, tries to protect her children from Eustacia's supposedly baleful influence by stabbing her with a stocking pin and later burning her in effigy. Clym at first laughs at such superstitions, but later embraces the majority opinion when he rejects his wife as a murderer and adulteress. In this view, Eustacia dies because she has internalised the community's values to the extent that, unable to escape Egdon without confirming her status as a fallen woman, she chooses suicide. She thereby ends her sorrows while at the same time-by drowning in the weir like any woman instead of floating, witchlike-she proves her essential innocence to the community. (wikipedia.org)

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership.The novel is set in Thomas Hardy's Wessex in rural southwest England, as had been his earlier Under the Greenwood Tree. It deals in themes of love, honour and betrayal, against a backdrop of the seemingly idyllic, but often harsh, realities of a farming community in Victorian England. It describes the life and relationships of Bathsheba Everdene with her lonely neighbour William Boldwood, the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, and the thriftless soldier Sergeant Troy.On publication, critical notices were plentiful and mostly positive. Hardy revised the text extensively for the 1895 edition and made further changes for the 1901 edition.The novel has an enduring legacy. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 48 on the BBC's survey The Big Read, while in 2007, it was ranked 10th on The Guardian's list of greatest love stories of all time. The novel has also been dramatised several times, notably in the Oscar-nominated 1967 film directed by John Schlesinger. (wikipedia.org)

A Pair of Blue Eyes is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1873, first serialised between September 1872 and July 1873. It was Hardy's third published novel, and the first not published anonymously upon its first publication. Hardy included it with his "romances and fantasies". A Pair of Blue Eyes normally is categorised as one of Hardy's minor works, "a book with a few good points but a failure as a whole". Like Desperate Remedies, it contains melodramatic scenes that appear disconnected from the characters and plot.A focus of critical interest of the novel is the scene in which Henry Knight reviews the entire history of the world as he hangs over the edge of a cliff (reputedly the origin of the term "cliffhanger"), and eventually is rescued by a rope of Elfride's underwear. Carl J. Weber sources the scene to a picnic Hardy and his wife had, in which he was sent to search for a lost earring, claiming this passage is the "first indication in the novels of Hardy's ability to sustain interest in a tense situation by sheer power of vivid description." On the other hand, Millgate claims the scene forms part of the "irrelevant" description suited to the "rag-bag" of a novel. For Jean Brooks, the scene is "macabre" and an illustration of "cosmic indifference", also highlighting the comic in the rescue.However, Gittings and Halperin claim it is more likely the idea for this scene comes from an essay by Leslie Stephen titled "Five minutes in the Alps". The "cliff without a name", as it is referred to, is probably based on Beeny Cliff. (wikipedia.org)

The Rainbow is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence, first published by Methuen & Co. in 1915. It follows three generations of the Brangwen family living in Nottinghamshire, focusing particularly on the individual's struggle to growth and fulfilment within the confining strictures of English social life. Lawrence's 1920 novel Women in Love is a sequel to The Rainbow. Lawrence's frank treatment of sexual desire, and the part it plays within relationships as a natural and even spiritual force of life, caused The Rainbow to be prosecuted in an obscenity trial at Bow Street Magistrates' Court on 13 November 1915, as a result of which 1,011 copies were seized and burnt. After this ban it was unavailable in Britain for 11 years, although editions were available in the United States. The philosopher Roger Scruton argues in Sexual Desire (1986) that "because we live in a world structured by gender, the other sex is forever to some extent a mystery to us, with a dimension of experience that we can imagine but never inwardly know." Scruton believes that the prevailing theme of Lawrence's novels is that "In desiring to unite with [the other sex], we are desiring to mingle with something that is deeply - perhaps essentially - not ourselves, and which brings us to experience a character and inwardness that challenge us with their strangeness." Scruton believes that The Rainbow vindicates Lawrence's vision. The critic Harold Bloom listed The Rainbow in his The Western Canon (1994) as one of the books that have been important and influential in Western culture. In 1999, the Modern Library ranked The Rainbow forty-eighth on a list of the 100 best novels in English of the 20th century. In 1988, the BBC produced a television adaptation directed by Stuart Burge, with Imogen Stubbs in the role of Ursula Brangwen. The following year, the novel was adapted into the UK film The Rainbow, directed by Ken Russell, who had also directed the 1969 film adaptation Women in Love.In 2021, BBC produced a new 2-part radio adaptation of the novel, aired on Radio 4 and starring Cassie Bradley in the role of Ursula and Karl Collins as Tom. (wikipedia.org)

The Lost Girl is a novel by D. H. Lawrence, first published in 1920. It was awarded the 1920 James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the fiction category. Lawrence started it shortly after writing Women in Love, and worked on it only sporadically until he completed it in 1920. Alvina Houghton, the daughter of a widowed Midlands draper, comes of age just as her father's business is failing. In a desperate attempt to regain his fortune and secure his daughter's proper upbringing, James Houghton buys a theater. Among the traveling performers he employs is Ciccio, a sensual Italian who immediately captures Alvina's attention. Fleeing with him to Naples, she leaves her safe world behind and enters one of sexual awakening, desire, and fleeting freedom. (wikipedia.org)

Sons and Lovers is a 1913 novel by the English writer D. H. Lawrence. It traces emotional conflicts through the protagonist, Paul Morel, and his suffocating relationships with a demanding mother and two very different lovers, which exert complex influences on the development of his manhood. The novel was originally published by Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd., London, and Mitchell Kennerley Publishers, New York. While the novel initially received a lukewarm critical reception, along with allegations of obscenity, it is today regarded as a masterpiece by many critics and is often regarded as Lawrence's finest achievement. It tells us more about Lawrence's life and his phases, as his first was when he lost his mother in 1910 to whom he was particularly attached. And it was from then that he met Frieda Richthofen, and around this time that he began conceiving his two other great novels, The Rainbow and Women In Love, which had more sexual emphasis and maturity. (wikipedia.org)

Kangaroo is a 1923 novel by D.H. Lawrence. It is set in Australia. Kangaroo is an account of a visit to New South Wales by an English writer named Richard Lovat Somers and his German wife Harriet in the early 1920s. This appears to be semi-autobiographical, based on a three-month visit to Australia by Lawrence and his wife Frieda, in 1922. The novel includes a chapter ("Nightmare") describing the Somers' experiences in wartime St Ives, Cornwall, vivid descriptions of the Australian landscape, and Richard Somers' sceptical reflections on fringe politics in Sydney. Ultimately, after being initially somewhat drawn to the Digger movement led by Benjamin Cooley - 'Kangaroo' - neither it nor the "great general emotion" of Kangaroo himself appeal to Somers, and in this the novel begins to reflect Lawrence's own experiences during World War I. On the other hand, Somers also rejects the socialism of Willie Struthers, which emphasises "generalised love". Kangaroo is sometimes cited as an influence on the Jindyworobak movement, an Australian nationalist literary group, which emerged about a decade later. Gideon Haigh saw fit to dub it "one of the sharpest fictional visions of the country and its people".It was adapted as a film, also called Kangaroo, in 1987, featuring Colin Friels as Somers, Judy Davis as Harriet and Hugh Keays-Byrne as Kangaroo.The Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe used extracts from the novel in his work for speaker and orchestra, The Fifth Continent (1963). It was recorded in 1963 by Fred Parslow, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Matthews, and then again in 1997 with the composer narrating, accompanied by Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and David Porcelijn - released on ABC Classics. (wikipedia.org)

History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (German: Geschichte und Klassenbewußtsein: Studien über marxistische Dialektik) is a 1923 book by the Hungarian philosopher György Lukács, in which Lukács re-emphasizes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's influence on Karl Marx, analyses the concept of class consciousness, and attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism. History and Class Consciousness, which helped to create Western Marxism, is the book for which Lukács is best known, and some of his pronouncements have become famous. Nevertheless, History and Class Consciousness was condemned in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and Lukács later repudiated its ideas, and came to believe that in it he had confused Hegel's concept of alienation with that of Marx. It has been suggested that the concept of reification as employed in Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) shows the strong influence of History and Class Consciousness, though such a relationship remains disputed. (wikipedia.org)

Growth of the Soil (Norwegian Markens Grøde), is a novel by Knut Hamsun which won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. It follows the story of a man who settles and lives in rural Norway. First published in 1917, it has since been translated from Norwegian into languages such as English. The novel was written in the popular style of Norwegian new realism, a movement dominating the early 20th century. The novel exemplified Hamsun's aversion to modernity and inclination towards primitivism and the agrarian lifestyle. The novel employed literary techniques new to the time such as stream of consciousness. Hamsun tended to stress the relationship between his characters and the natural environment. Growth of the Soil portrays the protagonist (Isak) and his family as awed by modernity, yet at times, they come into conflict with it. The novel contains two sections entitled Book One and Book Two. The first book focuses almost solely on the story of Isak and his family and the second book starts off by following the plight of Axel and ends mainly focusing on Isak's family. (wikipedia.org)

...It has everything a Victorian novel is known for; beautiful ladies with long luxurious dresses, handsome noble men, wealth, jewels, silks, etc. and the good, the bad and the ugly that they adorn. Well worth the reading of this novel. (MaryAnnSki)About the author: May Agnes Fleming (pseudonyms, Cousin May Carleton, M. A. Earlie; November 15, 1840 - March 24, 1880) was a Canadian novelist. She was "one of the first Canadians to pursue a highly successful career as a writer of popular fiction." May Agnes Early was born in Carleton, West Saint John, in the Colony of New Brunswick, the daughter of Bernard and Mary Early. May Agnes began publishing while studying at school. She married an engineer, John W. Fleming, in 1865. She moved to New York two years after her first novel, Erminie; or The gypsy's vow: a tale of love and vengeance was published there (1863).Under the pseudonym "Cousin May Carleton", she published several serial tales in the New York Mercury and the New York Weekly. Twenty-one were printed in book form, seven posthumously. She also wrote under the pseudonym, "M.A. Earlie". The exact count is unclear, since her works were often retitled, but is estimated at around 40, although some were not actually written by her, but were attributed to her by publishers cashing in on her popularity. At her peak, she was earning over $10,000 yearly, due to publishers granting her exclusive rights to her work.She died in Brooklyn, of Bright's disease. (wikipedia.org)

A Victorian novel by May Agnes Fleming.May Agnes Fleming (pseudonyms, Cousin May Carleton, M. A. Earlie; November 15, 1840 - March 24, 1880) was a Canadian novelist. She was "one of the first Canadians to pursue a highly successful career as a writer of popular fiction." May Agnes Early was born in Carleton, West Saint John, in the Colony of New Brunswick, the daughter of Bernard and Mary Early. May Agnes began publishing while studying at school. She married an engineer, John W. Fleming, in 1865. She moved to New York two years after her first novel, Erminie; or The gypsy's vow: a tale of love and vengeance was published there (1863).Under the pseudonym "Cousin May Carleton", she published several serial tales in the New York Mercury and the New York Weekly. Twenty-one were printed in book form, seven posthumously. She also wrote under the pseudonym, "M.A. Earlie". The exact count is unclear, since her works were often retitled, but is estimated at around 40, although some were not actually written by her, but were attributed to her by publishers cashing in on her popularity. At her peak, she was earning over $10,000 yearly, due to publishers granting her exclusive rights to her work.She died in Brooklyn, of Bright's disease. (wikipedia.org)

A Farewell to Arms is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant ("tenente") in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The title is taken from a poem by the 16th-century English dramatist George Peele.The novel, set against the backdrop of World War I, describes a love affair between the expatriate Henry and an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. Its publication ensured Hemingway's place as a modern American writer of considerable stature. The book became his first best-seller, and has been called "the premier American war novel from that debacle World War I."The novel has been adapted a number of times, initially for the stage in 1930; as a film in 1932 and again in 1957, and as a three-part television miniseries in 1966. The 1996 film In Love and War, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Chris O'Donnell and Sandra Bullock, depicts Hemingway's life in Italy as an ambulance driver in the events prior to his writing of A Farewell to Arms. (wikipedia.org)

The Jungle is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878-1968). The novel portrays the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. Sinclair's primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. However, most readers were more concerned with several passages exposing health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat packing industry during the early 20th century, which greatly contributed to a public outcry which led to reforms including the Meat Inspection Act.The book depicts working-class poverty, lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery."Sinclair was considered a muckraker, a journalist who exposed corruption in government and business. In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. He first published the novel in serial form in 1905 in the newspaper, and it was published as a book by Doubleday in 1906. (wikipedia.org)