Selected Top 60 Classics of Western Literature 1. The Iliad 31. Tess of the d’Urbervilles 2. The Odyssey 32. Jude the Obscure 3. La Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy) 33. The Gadfly 4. The Leopard 34. Anna of the Five Towns 5. Don Quixote 35. A Room with a View 6. Carmen 36. Rebecca 7. The Sorrows of Young Werther 37. Le Rouge et le Noir (Red and Black) 8. Faust 38. The Hunchback of Notre Dame 9. Fathers and Sons 39. Eugénie Grandet 10. Crime and Punishment 40. Père Goriot (Old Goriot) 11. War and Peace 41. Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions) 12. Anna Karenina 42. Ursula (Ursule Mirouet) 13. Resurrection 43. The Count of Monte Cristo 14. How the Steel Was Tempered 44. The Lady of the Camellias 15. Doctor Zhivago 45. Madame Bovary 16. The Great Comedies and Tragedies 46. Les Misérables (The Miserables) 17. Sense and Sensibility 47. Une Vie (A Life) 18. Pride and Prejudice 48. Bel-Ami (Beautiful Friend) 19. Emma 49. A Doll’s House 20. Persuasion 50. Little Women 21. Jane Eyre 51. The House of Mirth 22. Wuthering Heights 52. The Age of Innocence 23. Vanity Fair 53. The Sun Also Rises 24. David Copperfield 54. Little House on the Prairie 25. Bleak House 55. Gone with the Wind 26. A Tale of Two Cities 56. For Whom the Bell Tolls 27. Great Expectations 57. The Old Man and the Sea 28. Middlemarch 58. Corazón Salvaje (Wild Heart) 29. Far from the Madding Crowd 59. The Thorn Birds 30. The Mayor of Casterbridge 60. The Handmaid’s Tale Greek Literature The Iliad Author: Homer (c. 8th century BCE) Year: c. 8th century BCE; published in 1488; published in English in 1598 Length: 24 Books Book Description: The Iliad is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer (c. 8th century BCE). It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a 10-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege’s final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. It is a central part of the Epic Cycle. The Iliad is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature. The Iliad and the Odyssey were likely written in Homeric Greek, a literary mixture of Ionic Greek and other dialects, probably around the late 8th or early 7th century BCE. Homer’s authorship was infrequently questioned in antiquity, but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently, and that the stories formed as part of a long oral tradition. The poem was performed by professional reciters of Homer known as rhapsodes. Critical themes in the poem include kleos (glory), pride, fate, and wrath. Despite its predominantly tragic and serious themes, the poem also contains instances of comedy and laughter. The poem is frequently described as a masculine or heroic epic, especially compared with the Odyssey. It contains detailed descriptions of ancient war instruments and battle tactics, and fewer female characters. The Olympian gods also play a major role in the poem, aiding their favored warriors on the battlefield and intervening in personal disputes. Their characterization in the poem humanized them for Ancient Greek audiences, giving a concrete sense of their cultural and religious tradition. In terms of formal style, the poem’s repetitions and use of similes and epithets are often explored by scholars. The Odyssey Author: Homer (c. 8th century BCE) Year: c. 8th century BCE; published in 1488; published in English in 1614 Length: 24 Books Book Description: The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer (c. 8th century BCE). It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war, which lasted 10 years, his journey from Troy to Ithaca, via Africa and southern Europe, lasted for 10 more years, during 2 which time he encountered many perils and all of his crewmates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope’s hand in marriage. The Odyssey was originally composed in Homeric Greek in around the 8th or 7th century BCE and, by the mid-6th century BCE, had become part of the Greek literary canon. In antiquity, Homer’s authorship of the poem was not questioned, but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently, and that the stories formed as part of a long oral tradition. Given widespread illiteracy, the poem was performed by an aoidos or rhapsode and was more likely to be heard than read. Crucial themes in the poem include the ideas of nostos (“return”), wandering, xenia (“guest-friendship”), testing, and omens. Scholars still reflect on the narrative significance of certain groups in the poem, such as women and slaves, who have a more prominent role in the epic than in many other works of ancient literature. This focus is especially remarkable when contrasted with the Iliad, which centers the exploits of soldiers and kings during the Trojan War. The Odyssey is regarded as one of the most significant works of the Western canon. The first English translation of the Odyssey was in the 16th century. Adaptations and re-imaginings continue to be produced across a wide variety of media. In 2018, when BBC Culture polled experts around the world to find literature’s most enduring narrative, the Odyssey topped the list. Italian Literature La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) Author: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Year: 1308-1321; published in 1472 and 1555 Length: 422 pages Book Description: La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) is an Italian narrative poem written by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), begun c. 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author’s death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of Western literature. The poem’s imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it existed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The poem discusses “the state of the soul after death and presents an image of divine justice meted out as due punishment or reward,” and describes Dante’s travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Allegorically, the poem represents the soul’s journey towards God, beginning with the recognition and rejection of sin (Inferno), followed by the penitent Christian life (Purgatorio), which is then followed by the soul’s ascent to God (Paradio). Dante draws on medieval Catholic theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy derived from the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called “the Summa in verse.” In the poem, the pilgrim Dante is accompanied by three guides: Virgil, who represents human reason, and who guides him for all of Inferno and most of Purgatorio; Beatrice, who represents divine revelation in addition to theology, grace, and faith, and who guides him from the end of Purgatorio 3 onwards; and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who represents contemplative mysticism and devotion to Mary the Mother, and who guides him in the final cantos of Paradiso. The work was originally simply titled Comedìa (Tuscan for “Comedy”) – so also in the first printed edition, published in 1472 – later adjusted to the modern Italian Commedia. The adjective Divina was added by Giovanni Boccaccio, owing to its subject matter and lofty style, and the first edition to name the poem Divina Comedia in the title was that of the Venetian humanist Lodovico Dolce, published in 1555 by Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari. The Leopard Author: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896-1957) Year: 1958; first English translation by Archibald Colquhoun in 1960 Length: 207 pages Book Description: The Leopard is a novel written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896-1957) that chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento (Unification of Italy, 18481871). It is a modern classic which tells the captivating story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous families, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi’s landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them. Published posthumously in 1958 by Feltrinelli, after two rejections by the leading Italian publishing houses Mondadori and Einaudi, it became the top-selling novel in Italian history and is considered one of the most important novels in modern Italian literature. In 1959, it won Italy’s highest award for fiction, the Strega Prize. Tomasi was the last in a line of minor princes in Sicily. He had long contemplated writing a historical novel based on his greatgrandfather, Don Giulio Fabrizio Tomasi, another Prince of Lampedusa. The Lampedusa Palace in Palermo, like the palace in the novel, was bombed during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. The novel was made into an award-winning 1963 film of the same name, directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon. Spanish Literature Don Quixote Author: Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Year: 1605, 1615 Length: 952 pages (2 volumes) Book Description: Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel written by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. The story revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, a gentleman (hidalgo) from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano, who reads 4 so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant (caballero andante) to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha. He recruits as his squire a simple farm laborer, Sancho Panza, who brings a unique, earthy wit to Don Quixote’s lofty rhetoric. In the first part of the book, Don Quixote does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story meant for the annals of all time. However, as the Spanish writer Salvador de Madariaga (1886-1978) pointed out in his Guía del lector del Quijote (1926/1972), there is “the Sanchification of Don Quixote and the Quixotization of Sancho,” as “Sancho’s spirit ascends from reality to illusion, Don Quixote’s declines from illusion to reality.” Considered a founding work of Western literature, Don Quixote is often labelled as the first modern novel and one of the greatest works ever written. Don Quixote is also one of the most-translated books and one of the best-selling novels of all time. Carmen Author: Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870) Year: 1845-1846 Length: 70 pages Book Description: Carmen is a novella written by Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870), first published in 1845. The novella comprises four parts. Only the first three parts appeared in the original publication in the October 1, 1845, issue of the Revue des deux Mondes (Review of the Two Worlds); the fourth part first appeared in the book publication in 1846. The letter Mérimée wrote to the Countess of Montijo indicates that Carmen was inspired by a story she told him on his visit to Spain in 1830. He said, “It was about that ruffian from Málaga who had killed his mistress, who consecrated herself exclusively to the public... As I have been studying the Gypsies for some time, I have made my heroine a Gypsy.” The mixture of travelogue, adventure, and romance story was narrated to a flirtatious, charismatic, and amoral gypsy who bewitches and emotionally enslaves Don José, a desperate man, into a tragic obsession, has captivated generations with its passion and sensual intensity. Carmen has been adapted into a number of dramatic works, including the famous opera of the same name by Georges Bizet (1838-1875). The opera is based on Part III of the story and omits many elements, such as Carmen’s husband. The opera’s female singing roles other than Carmen (Micaëla, Frasquita, and Mercédès) have no counterparts in the novella. 5 German Literature Die Leiden des Jungen Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther) Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Year: 1774/1787; published in English in 1779 Length: 140 pages Book Description: The Sorrows of Young Werther (German: Die Leiden des Jungen Werther), or simply Werther, is a 1774 epistolary novel written by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), which appeared as a revised edition in 1787. It was one of the main novels in the Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress,” 1760s‒1780s) period in German literature, and influenced the later Romantic movement. Goethe, aged 24 at the time, finished Werther in 5 ½ weeks of intensive writing from January to March 1774. It instantly placed him among the foremost international literary celebrities and was among the best known of his works. The novel is made up of biographical and auto-biographical facts in relation to two triangular relationships and one individual: Goethe, Christian Kestner, and Charlotte Buff (who married Kestner); Goethe, Peter Anton Brentano, Maximiliane von La Roche (who married Brentano), and Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, who died by suicide on the night of Oct 29 or 30, 1772. He shot himself in the head with a pistol borrowed from Kestner. The novel was adapted as the opera Werther by Jules Massenet in 1892. Faust Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Year: 1790; partial English translation of Part One was published in 1821 Length: 360 pages (2 Parts) Book Description: Faust is a tragic play in two parts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), usually known in English as Faust: Part One and Faust: Part Two; it is considered as Goethe’s most complex and profound work, and one of the greatest classics of German literature and European literature. To tell the dramatic and tragic story of one man’s pact with the Devil in exchange for knowledge and power, Goethe drew from an immense variety of cultural and historical material, and a wealth of poetic and theatrical traditions. What results is a masterpiece of illustrating Goethe’s own moral and artistic development, and a symbolic, cautionary tale of Western humanity striving restlessly and ruthlessly for progress. Nearly all of Part One and the majority of Part Two are written in rhymed verse. Although rarely staged in its entirety, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages. The earliest forms of the work, known as the Urfaust, were developed between 1772 and 1775; however, the details of that development are not entirely clear. Urfaust has twenty-two scenes, one in prose, two largely prose and the remaining 1,441 lines in rhymed verse. The manuscript is lost, but a copy was discovered in 1886. The first appearance of the work in print was Faust: A Fragment, published in 1790. Goethe completed a preliminary version of what is now known as Part One in 1806. Its 6 publication in 1808 was followed by the revised 1828-1829 edition, the last to be edited by Goethe himself. Goethe finished writing Faust: Part Two in 1831; it was published posthumously in the following year. In contrast to Faust: Part One, the focus here is no longer on the soul of Faust, which has been sold to the devil, but rather on social phenomena such as psychology, history, and politics, in addition to mystical and philosophical topics. The second part formed the principal occupation of Goethe’s last years. Russian Literature Fathers and Sons Author: Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) Year: 1862; translated by Richard Freeborn Length: 226 pages Book Description: Fathers and Sons is an 1862 novel written by Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), published in Moscow by Grachev & Co. It is one of the most acclaimed Russian novels of the 19th century. Turgenev’s masterpiece about the conflict between generations is as fresh, outspoken, and exciting today as it was when first published in 1862. The controversial portrait of Bazarov, the energetic, cynical, and self-assured “nihilist” who repudiates the romanticism of his elders, shook Russian society. Indeed, the image of humanity liberated by science from age-old conformities and prejudices is one that can threaten establishments of any political or religious persuasion, and is especially potent in the modern era. This new translation, specially commissioned for the World’s Classics, is the first to draw on Turgenev’s working manuscript, which only came to light in 1988. Crime and Punishment Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) Year: 1866; separate edition 1867 Length: 527 pages Book Description: Crime and Punishment is a novel written by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881). It is the second of his full-length novels following his return from 10 years of exile in Siberia. Crime and Punishment follows the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who plans to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker, an old woman who stores money and valuable objects in her flat. He theorizes that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds, and seeks to convince himself that certain crimes are justifiable if they are committed in order to remove obstacles to the higher goals of “extraordinary” men. Once the deed is done, however, he finds himself wracked with confusion, paranoia, and disgust. His theoretical justifications lose all their power as he struggles with guilt and horror and is confronted with both internal and external consequences of his deed. Crime and Punishment was first published in the literary journal The 7 Russian Messenger in 12 monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. It is considered the first great novel of Dostoevsky’s mature period of writing and is often cited as one of the greatest works of world literature. War and Peace Author: Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Year: 1865-1869; published in English in 1889 Length: 519 pages Book Description: War and Peace is a literary work written by Russian author Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910). Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work mixes fictional narrative with chapters discussing history and philosophy. An early version was published serially beginning in 1865, after which the entire book was rewritten and published in 1869. It is regarded, with Anna Karenina, as Tolstoy’s finest literary achievement and remains an internationally praised classic of world literature. The book chronicles the French invasion of Russia and its aftermath during the Napoleonic era. It uses five interlocking narratives following different Russian aristocratic families to illustrate Napoleon’s impact on Tsarist society. Portions of an earlier version, titled The Year 1805, were serialized in The Russian Messenger from 1865 to 1867 before the novel was published in its entirety in 1869. Tolstoy said that the best Russian literature does not conform to standards and hence hesitated to classify War and Peace, saying it is “not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle.” Large sections, especially the later chapters, are philosophical discussions rather than narrative. He regarded Anna Karenina as his first true novel. War and Peace is at once an epic of the Napoleonic wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Tolstoy’s genius is clearly seen in the multitude of characters in this massive chronicle, all of them fully realized and equally memorable. Out of this complex narrative emerges a profound examination of the individual’s place in the historical process, one that makes it clear why Thomas Mann praised Tolstoy for his Homeric powers and placed War and Peace in the same category as The Iliad. Film adaptations of War and Peace began as early as in 1915 and 1956, and English TV series based on the novel were produced in 1972, 2007, and 2016. Anna Karenina Author: Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Year: 1878 Length: 598 pages Book Description: Anna Karenina is a novel written by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), first published in book form in 1878. Considered to be one of the greatest works of literature, Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1875 to 1877, all but the last part appearing in the periodical The Russian Messenger. The novel deals with themes of betrayal, faith, family, marriage, Imperial Russian society, desire, and the differences between 8 rural and urban life. The story centers on an extramarital affair between Anna and dashing cavalry officer Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky that scandalizes the social circles of Saint Petersburg and forces the young lovers to flee to Italy in a search for happiness, but after they return to Russia, their lives further unravel. A beautiful society wife Anna from St. Petersburg, determined to live life on her own terms, sacrifices everything to follow her conviction that love is stronger than duty. A socially inept but warm-hearted landowner Alexei pursues his own visions instead of conforming to conventional views. The adulteress and the philosopher head the vibrant cast of characters in Anna Karenina, Tolstoy's tumultuous tale of passion and selfdiscovery. Set against a backdrop of the historic social changes that swept Russia during the late 19th century, it reflects Tolstoy’s own personal and psychological transformation. Two worlds collide in the course of this epochal story: that of the old-time aristocrats, who struggle to uphold their traditions of serfdom and authoritarian government, and that of the westernizing liberals, who promote technology, rationalism, and democracy. This cultural clash unfolds in a compelling, emotional drama of seduction, betrayal, and redemption. The story takes place against the backdrop of the liberal reforms initiated by Emperor Alexander II of Russia and the rapid societal transformations that followed. The novel has been adapted into various media, including theater, opera, film, television, ballet, figure skating, and radio drama. Film adaptations of Anna Karenina started as early as in 1911, and English TV series based on the novel were produced in 1977 and 2013. Resurrection Author: Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Year: 1899; published in English in 1900 Length: 528 pages Book Description: Resurrection is the last novel written by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), published in 1899. It is a story of forgiveness, spiritual awakening, and personal transformation. Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, having fulfilled his duty on a jury, unexpectedly recognizes a woman named Katerina Mikhailovna Maslova. She was once a maid he had seduced and subsequently abandoned, leaving her pregnant. His aunt cast her out, and she eventually found herself drawn into a life of prostitution, eventually becoming entangled in a crime. As he observes her unjust trial and subsequent imprisonment, Nekhlyudov becomes consumed with guilt and a desire for redemption. Tolstoy intended the novel as a panoramic view of Russia at the end of the 19th century from the highest to the lowest levels of society, and criticizes the injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of the institutionalized church at that time. The novel also explores the economic philosophy of Georgism, of which Tolstoy had become a very strong advocate towards the end of his life, and explains the theory in detail. The publication of Resurrection led to Tolstoy’s excommunication by the Holy Synod from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. Various film adaptations have been made, including the Russian film Katyusha Maslova in 1915, a 1937 Japanese film 爱怨峡 (The Straits of Love and Hate), the 1944 Italian film Resurrection, a 1949 Chinese film produced by Great Wall Pictures titled 荡妇心 (A Forgotten Woman), and a 1960 Russian film. The best-known film version is the 1934 English-language film We Live Again. The Spanish TV film Resureccion was released in 1966. The 1968 BBC mini-series 9 Resurrection was rebroadcast in the US on Masterpiece Theatre. The Italian TV film Resurrezione was released in 2001. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a two-part adaptation by Robert Forrest of the novel on December 31, 2006 and January 7, 2007, with the cast including Katherine Igoe as Katerina Mikhailovna Maslova, Richard Dillane as Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, Vivienne Dixon as Lydia Shoustova, and Joanna Tope as Vera Doukhova. How the Steel Was Tempered Author: Nikolai Ostrovsky (1904-1936) Year: 1932-1934 (serial), 1936 (book) Length: 637 pages Book Description: How the Steel Was Tempered is a socialist realist novel written by Nikolai Ostrovsky (19041936), a fictionalized account of the author’s life. It is one of the best-selling books of all time, and the best-selling book in the Russian language. The story follows the life of Pavel Korchagin, his fighting in and aftermath of the Russian Civil War (1917-1923) when he fought for the Bolsheviks and was injured. The novel examines how Korchagin heals from his wounds and becomes as strong as steel. The novel begins when Korchagin is 12, living in the town of Shepetovka in Ukraine. He gets kicked out of school for putting tobacco in some bread dough and must go to work as a dishwasher. As a dishwasher, he is beaten by a coworker, but his brother Artyom defends him. The novel jumps forward to age 16 when he is working in a power plant. He meets a Bolshevik named Zhukhrai after a run-in with the Tsarist secret police. Zhukrai tells him about the Bolsheviks and Lenin. He also meets Tonia Toumanova, his first love interest. Again, the novel jumps to 1917 as the German army invades Shepetovka. Korchagin fights the Germans, and eventually joins the Bolsheviks in the Civil War. He is seriously injured and partially loses his sight. After the war, he works as a laborer, including building railways. He eventually is injured further, and loses his legs and a hand. He goes to Crimea to live out his days. Pavel’s mother and his well-loved wife Taya, are his comrades-in-arms in the revolutionary struggle. Through them, he continues selflessly to serve the people. Pavel’s meeting with Tonia (some version spelled it as “Tonya”), and Seryozha’s with Rita, in which the birth of a young love is described, and in the relations of Pavel and Taya, and comrade Rita Ustinovich, Anna Borhardt, Lydia Polevykh, and the other feminine characters of the novel are pure and noble, and reflect the great changes which have taken place in human relationships. The book closes with Korchagin sitting down to write an autobiography: “How the Steel Was Tempered,” establishing the book as a self-fulfilling framing device. A Soviet drama film of the same title directed by Mark Donskoy was released in 1942. Another Soviet drama film titled “Pavel Korchagin” based on the novel directed by Aleksandr Alov and Vladimir Naumov was released in 1956. A Russian TV series of the same title was released in 1973. In China, the novel was adapted into a TV series of the same title in 2000, all the members of the cast were from Ukraine. 10 Doctor Zhivago Author: Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) Year: 1957 Length: 704 pages Book Description: Doctor Zhivago is a novel written by Boris Pasternak (1890-1960), first published in Italy in 1957, and it was not allowed to appear in the Soviet Union until 1987. The story is about the life and loves of the gifted physician-poet, Yuri Zhivago, during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and World War II (1939-1945). Yuri has married Tonya and is working as a doctor at a hospital in Moscow. Tonya gives birth to their son (and later, their daughter). Following the October Revolution (1917-10-25) and the Russian Civil War (1917-1923), Yuri and his family decide to flee from Moscow to Yuriatin, where Tonya family’s former estate “Varykino” is located, in the Ural Mountains. Yuri Zhivago and his family settle in an abandoned house on the estate. However, Zhivago finds himself instead entangled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the nurse Lara. His first marriage to Tonya is not one born of passion but from friendship. In a way, Tonya takes on the role of the mother figure that Zhivago always sought but lacked. This, however, was not a romantic tie; while he feels loyal to her throughout his life, he never could find true happiness with her, for their relationship lacks the fervor that was integral to his relationship to Lara. Caught up in the great events of politics and war that eventually destroy him and millions of others, Zhivago clings to the private world of family life and love, embodied especially in the magical Lara. Owing to the author’s critical stance on the October Revolution, Doctor Zhivago was refused publication in the USSR. At the instigation of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, the manuscript was smuggled to Milan and published in 1957. In 1958, Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, an event that embarrassed and enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The most famous adaptation of Doctor Zhivago is the 1965 film directed by David Lean, featuring the Egyptian actor Omar Sharif as Zhivago and English actress Julie Christie as Lara, with Geraldine Chaplin as Tonya, and Alec Guinness as Yevgraf. The film won five Oscars, and is still considered a classic film, remembered also for Maurice Jarre’s score, which features the romantic “Lara’s Theme.” Though faithful to the novel’s plot, depictions of several characters and events are noticeably different, and many side stories are dropped. A British TV series Doctor Zhivago was broadcast by ITV in the UK in 2002, and on Masterpiece Theater in the US in 2003. A Russian miniseries was produced by Mosfilm in 2006. The novel Doctor Zhivago has been part of the Russian school curriculum since 2003, where it is read in the 11th grade. 11 English Literature The Great Comedies and Tragedies Author: William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Year: 1564-1616 Length: 896 pages Book Description: The Comedies with Introductions by Judith Buchanan: These Comedies are among the best loved of Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) plays. In each a problem emerges, is then intensified to a point of maximum confusion and potential upset, before the chaos is resolved, however improbably, into general goodwill and a spate of marriages. The triumph of these plays lies in the way they mingle humorous stage business and dexterous word play with a more serious study of identity, gender, dreaming, the meaning of love, even of the theatre itself. They reassure us that with all its faults, the world will always in the end be redeemable. The Tragedies with Introductions by Emma Smith: “Not for an age but for all time.” So, Ben Jonson established what we now take for granted: Shakespeare’s unique place among the world’s great authors. Romeo and Juliet show us the archetypal story of fated young love; Hamlet, the tortured psyche of the young prince of Denmark; Othello, a strikingly modern representation of racial difference; King Lear, a man stripped of all material and psychological comforts; and Macbeth, a dark investigation of the origins and effects of, evil. The plays throw a fascinating light on the concerns of Shakespeare’s day, yet offer perennial insights into the nature of human emotion. Sense and Sensibility Author: Jane Austen (1775-1817) Year: 1811 Length: 236 pages Book Description: Sense and Sensibility is the first novel written by the English author Jane Austen (1775-1817), published in 1811. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor (age 19) and Marianne (age 16½) as they come of age. They have an elder half-brother, John, and a younger sister, Margaret (age 13). The novel follows the three Dashwood sisters and their widowed mother as they are forced to leave the family estate at Norland Park and move to Barton Cottage, a modest home on the property of distant relative Sir John Middleton. There, Elinor and Marianne experience love, romance, and heartbreak. The novel is set in South West England, London, and Sussex, probably between 1792 and 1797. The novel has been in continuous publication since 1811, and has many times been illustrated, excerpted, abridged, and adapted for stage, film, and TV. 12 Pride and Prejudice Author: Jane Austen (1775-1817) Year: 1813 Length: 380 pages Book Description: Pride and Prejudice is the second novel written by English author Jane Austen (1775-1817), published in 1813. A novel of manners, it follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness. Mr Bennet, owner of the Longbourn estate in Hertfordshire, has five daughters, but his property is entailed and can only be passed to a male heir. His wife also lacks an inheritance, so his family faces becoming poor upon his death. Thus, it is imperative that at least one of the daughters marry well to support the others, which is a primary motivation driving the plot. Pride and Prejudice has consistently appeared near the top of lists of “most-loved books” among literary scholars and the reading public. It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature and has inspired many derivatives in modern literature. For more than a century, dramatic adaptations, reprints, unofficial sequels, films, and TV versions of Pride and Prejudice have portrayed the memorable characters and themes of the novel, reaching mass audiences. Emma Author: Jane Austen (1775-1817) Year: 1815-1816 Length: 512 pages Book Description: Emma is a novel written by English author Jane Austen (1775-1817). It is set in the fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. The novel was first published in December 1815, although the title page is dated 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian– Regency England. Emma is a comedy of manners. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” In the first sentence, she introduces the title character as “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition... had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people’s lives; and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray. Emma, written after Austen’s move to Chawton, was her last novel to be published during her lifetime. The novel has been adapted for a number of films, TV series, and stage plays. 13 Persuasion Author: Jane Austen (1775-1817) Year: 1817-1818 Length: 167 pages Book Description: Persuasion is the last novel completed by the English author Jane Austen (1775-1817), published on 20 December 1817, along with Northanger Abbey, six months after her death, although the title page is dated 1818. The story concerns Anne Elliot, an Englishwoman of 27 years, whose family moves to lower their expenses and reduce their debt by renting their home to an admiral and his wife. The wife’s brother, Captain Frederick Wentworth, was engaged to Anne in 1806, but the engagement was broken when Anne was persuaded by her friends and family to end their relationship. Anne and Captain Wentworth, both single and unattached, meet again after a separation lasting almost eight years, setting the scene for a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne. The novel was well received in the early 19th century, but its greater fame came later in the century and continued into the 20th and 21st centuries. Anne Elliot is noteworthy among Austen’s heroines for her relative maturity. As Persuasion was Austen’s last completed work, it is accepted as her most maturely written novel, showing a refinement of literary conception, indicative of a woman approaching 40 years of age. Her use of free indirect speech in narrative was in full evidence by 1816. Persuasion has been adapted for TV series four times, theater productions, radio broadcasts, and other literary works. Jane Eyre Author: Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) Year: 1847 Length: 389 pages (38 Chapters) Book Description: Jane Eyre (originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel written by the English author Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855). It was published under her pen name “Currer Bell” in 1847. The first American edition was published in the following year. Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman that follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall. The novel is a first-person narrative from the perspective of the title character. Its setting is somewhere in the north of England, late in the reign of George III (1760-1820). It has five distinct stages: Jane’s childhood at Gateshead Hall, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her education at Lowood School, where she gains friends and role models but suffers privations and oppression; her time as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her mysterious employer, Edward Fairfax Rochester; her time in the Moor House, during which her earnest but cold clergyman cousin, St John Rivers, proposes to her; and ultimately her reunion with, and marriage to, her beloved Rochester. Throughout these sections, it provides perspectives on a number of important social issues and ideas, many of which are critical of the 14 status quo. The novel revolutionized prose fiction, being the first to focus on the moral and spiritual development of its protagonist through an intimate first-person narrative, where actions and events are colored by a psychological intensity. The second edition was dedicated to William Makepeace Thackeray. Charlotte Brontë has been called the “first historian of the private consciousness” and the literary ancestor of writers such as Marcel Proust and James Joyce. The book contains elements of social criticism with a strong sense of Christian morality at its core, and it is considered by many to be ahead of its time because of Jane’s individualistic character and how the novel approaches the topics of class, sexuality, religion, and feminism. Jane Eyre, along with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, is one of the most famous romance novels. The novel has been adapted into a number of other forms, including theater, film (e.g., 1970), TV, and at least two full-length operas. The most recent film adaptation, Jane Eyre, was released in 2011, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, and won various awards from 2011-2012. Wuthering Heights Author: Emily Brontë (1818-1848) Year: 1847 Length: 230 pages Book Description: Wuthering Heights is the only novel written by the English author Emily Brontë (1818-1848), initially published in 1847 under her pen name “Ellis Bell.” It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with the Earnshaws’ foster son, Heathcliff. The novel was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction. Wuthering Heights is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English, but contemporaneous reviews were polarised. It was controversial for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, including domestic abuse, and for its challenges to Victorian morality, religion, and the class system. Wuthering Heights was accepted by publisher Thomas Newby along with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey before the success of their sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, but they were published later. After Emily’s death, Charlotte edited a second edition of Wuthering Heights, which was published in 1850. It has inspired an array of adaptations across several media, including English singer-songwriter Kate Bush’s song of the same name. The most famous film adaptation is 1939’s Wuthering Heights, starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon and directed by William Wyler. This acclaimed adaptation, like many others, eliminated the second generation’s story (young Cathy, Linton, and Hareton) and is rather inaccurate as a literary adaptation. It won the 1939 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film and was nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for Best Picture. 15 Vanity Fair Author: William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) Year: 1848 Length: 546 pages Book Description: Vanity Fair is a novel written by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848, carrying the subtitle Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society, which reflects both its satirization of early 19th-century British society and the many illustrations drawn by Thackeray to accompany the text. The serial was a popular and critical success, and it was published as a single volume in 1848 with the subtitle A Novel without a Hero, reflecting Thackeray’s interest in deconstructing his era’s conventions regarding literary heroism. It is sometimes considered the “principal founder” of the Victorian domestic novel with a beautifully complex story, chronicling how different one’s life would have been in Victorian England, depending on what their name was or who they knew. A satirical look at society through the eyes of two very different young women of different origins who against all odds become close friends. Becky Sharp, an orphan whose only chance at bettering her life is through her ruthless ambition, her sharp wit, and her undeniable beauty and charm. Becky will be forced to climb that social ladder one rung at a time. The second woman, Amelia Sedley is a true member of the gentry having been gifted a good life from birth. Amelia is a gentle soul though naïve, especially when it comes to the man she foolishly fell in love with. The women lean on each other as the world around them is splattered with the chaos spilling over from the Napoleonic War. Thackeray wrote these key words: “The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.” The novel is considered a classic and has inspired audio, film, and TV adaptations. It also inspired the title of the British lifestyle magazine first published in 1868, which became known for its caricatures of famous people of Victorian and Edwardian society. David Copperfield Author: Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Year: 1850 Length: 687 pages Book Description: David Copperfield is a novel written by Charles Dickens (1812-1870), narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity. As such, it is typically categorized in the bildungsroman genre. It was published as a serial in 1849 and 1850 and then as a book in 1850. David Copperfield is also a partially autobiographical novel: “a very complicated weaving of truth and invention,” with events following Dickens’ own life. Of the books he wrote, this was his favorite. Called “the triumph of the art of Dickens,” it marks a turning point in his work, separating the novels of youth and those of maturity. At first 16 glance, the work is modelled on 18th-century “personal histories” that were very popular, but David Copperfield is a more carefully structured work. It begins, like other novels by Dickens, with a bleak picture of childhood in Victorian England, followed by young Copperfield’s slow social ascent, as he painfully provides for his aunt, while continuing his studies. The novel follows the journey of David Copperfield, from his tumultuous childhood to his adulthood, as he navigates through a series of trials, tribulations, and triumphs. David Copperfield also serves as a social commentary on Victorian society, addressing issues such as child labor, poverty, and the treatment of women. Through the experiences of David and the people he encounters, Dickens sheds light on the harsh realities of the time, while also advocating for compassion and social reform. David Copperfield is a timeless classic that remains a testament to Charles Dickens’ literary genius. The novel’s enduring popularity and continued relevance in contemporary times are a testament to its enduring impact on literature and its place as one of Dickens’ greatest works. Dickens wrote it without an outline. Some aspects of the story were fixed in his mind from the start, but others were undecided until the serial publications were underway. The novel has a primary theme of growth and change, but Dickens also satirizes many aspects of Victorian life. These include the plight of prostitutes, the status of women in marriage, class structure, the criminal justice system, the quality of schools, and the employment of children in factories. David Copperfield has been made into film and TV series over a dozen times from 1911 to 2019. Bleak House Author: Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Year: 1852-1853 Length: 714 pages Book Description: Bleak House is a novel written by the English author Charles Dickens (1812-1870), first published as a 20-episode serial between March 1852 and September 1853. Widely considered as one of Dickens most superb and complete novels, Bleak House contains a more vastly complex and engaging array of characters and sub-plots than any of Dickens’ novels. As is commonplace in his works, Dickens satirically criticizes the social inequities of his time turning his attacks in this instance to the judicial system of 19th-century England. At the center of the novel is the story of John Jarndyce who is tied up in a long-running litigation concerning an estate to which his wards Richard Carstone and Ada Clare are the beneficiaries. A series of events take the vast array of comic and tragic characters from the slums of London to the mansions of noblemen, involving some in treachery and others in discovery. Dickens blends the perfect balance of comedy and social satire in a story that contains mystery, tragedy, murder, redemption, and enduring love. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens said there were many actual precedents for his fictional case. One such was probably Thellusson v Woodford, in which a will read in 1797 was contested and not determined until 1859. Though many in the legal profession criticized Dickens’ satire as exaggerated, Bleak House helped support a judicial reform movement that culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s. Some scholars debate when Bleak House is set. The English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth (1871-1944) sets the action in 1827; however, reference to preparation for the building of a railway in Chapter LV suggests the 1830s. The novel has been adapted for film, radio, TV, and musical. 17 A Tale of Two Cities Author: Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Year: 1859 Length: 318 pages Book Description: A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel written by Charles Dickens (1812-1870), published in 1859. Set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution (1789-1799), the novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror (1793-1794). Dickens opens the novel with a sentence that has become famous: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” Considered a literary masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities not only captures the essence of a tumultuous era, but also delves deep into themes of redemption, sacrifice, and the pursuit of justice. Charles Dickens’ powerful narrative skillfully explores the human capacity for love, forgiveness, and resilience in the face of adversity. As Dickens’ best-known work of historical fiction, A Tale of Two Cities is said to be one of the best-selling novels of all time. The novel has been adapted for film, TV, radio, and the stage, and has continued to influence popular culture. Great Expectations Author: Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Year: 1860-1861 Length: 515 pages Book Description: Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel written by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and his penultimate completed novel. The book is a growth story (Bildungsroman) that depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens’ second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens’ weekly periodical All the Year Round, from December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman & Hall published the novel in three volumes. The story is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens’ most celebrated scenes, starting in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery: poverty, prison ships and chains, and fights to the death, and it has a colorful cast of characters who have entered popular culture, these include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe Gargery, the unsophisticated and kind 18 blacksmith. Dickens’ themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Great Expectations has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media. Middlemarch Author: George Eliot (1819-1880) Year: 1871-1872 Length: 600 pages Book Description: Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is a novel written by the English author George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880). It appeared in eight installments (volumes) in 1871 and 1872. Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midlands town, in 1829 to 1832, the novel discusses issues that include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, selfinterest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. The story tells a man named Fred Featherstone is cured of an illness by Dr. Tertius Lydgate. The doctor secretly uses Fred’s illness as a way to get closer to Mary Garth, whose father forbids her from marrying him. John Raffles, a mysterious man who’s aware of Bulstrode’s shady past, attempts to blackmail him. Ladislaw Bulstrode, Casaubon and Lydgate are all forced to leave the town of Middlemarch by the general opprobrium over their involvement in the loan scandal. Dorothea falls in love with Ladislaw and renounces her fortune and shocks her family when she tells them that she is going to marry him. The “Finale” details the ultimate fortunes of the main characters as well as how they came to accept their exile from the town of Middlemarch. Despite comic elements, Middlemarch uses realism to encompass historical events: the 1832 Reform Act, early railways, and the accession of King William IV. It looks at medicine of the time and reactionary views in a settled community facing unwelcome change. Eliot began writing the two pieces that formed the novel in 1869-1870 and completed it in 1871. Initial reviews were mixed, but it is now seen widely as her best work and one of the great English novels. Far from the Madding Crowd Author: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) Year: 1874 Length: 355 pages Book Description: Far from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy’s (1840-1928) fourth published novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership, and it was published in 1874. 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, honor, 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 19 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, and has been adapted many times for radio, comics, films, and stage productions, notably in the Oscar-nominated 1967 film directed by John Schlesinger. The Mayor of Casterbridge Author: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) Year: 1886 Length: 554 pages Book Description: The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character is an 1886 novel written by the English author Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). It was first published as a weekly serialization from January 1886. 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. The novel is considered to be one of Hardy’s masterpieces, although it has been criticized for incorporating too many incidents, a consequence of the author trying to include something in every weekly published instalment. The novel has been adapted many times for film, TV, radio, and opera. Tess of the d’Urbervilles Author: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) Year: 1891 Length: 360 pages Book Description: Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman is a novel written by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). It initially appeared in a censored and serialized version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891, then in book form in three volumes in 1891, and as a single volume in 1892. Hardy’s tragic masterpiece Tess of the d’Urbervilles follows the story of Tess Durbeyfield, driven by hardship to claim kinship with the wealthy. But meeting her dissolute cousin Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past. In Tess, Thomas Hardy presents a world in which the human spirit is battered down by the forces, not of fate, but of social hierarchy. His novel represents one of the most moving indictments of the lives of 19th-century English women in all of literature. Although now considered a major novel of the 19th century, Tess of the d’Urbervilles received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England. The novel is set in an impoverished rural England, Thomas Hardy’s fictional Wessex. The novel has been adapted for the stage nine times from 1897 to 2019. The story has also been filmed at least eight times, including three for general release through cinemas and four TV productions. 20 Jude the Obscure Author: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) Year: 1895 Length: 416 pages Book Description: Jude the Obscure is a novel written by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), which began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895 (though the title page says 1896). It is Hardy’s last completed novel. The protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a rural stonemason with intellectual aspirations who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. Frustrated by poverty and the indifference of the academic institutions at the University of Christminster, his only chance of fulfilment seems to lie in his relationship with his unconventional cousin, Sue Bridehead. But life as social outcasts prove undermining, and when tragedy occurs, Sue has no resilience and Jude is left in despair. The novel is concerned with issues of class, education, religion, morality, and marriage. The novel has been adapted into film, TV, radio, stage, and podcast. The Gadfly Author: Ethel Lilian Voynich (1864-1960) Year: 1897 Length: 376 pages Book Description: The Gadfly is a novel written by the Irish-born British author Ethel Voynich (1864-1960), published in 1897 (United States, June; Great Britain, September of the same year). Set in 1840s Italy under the dominance of Austria, it was a time of tumultuous revolt and uprisings. The story centers on the life of the protagonist, Arthur Burton, who is a charming and witty writer of pointed political satires, and who finds himself running with a crowd of revolutionaries. The plot develops as the revolutionaries struggle against the government, and as the Gadfly struggles with a mysterious hatred of the Church, and of a certain Cardinal. A thread of a tragic relationship between Arthur and his love, Gemma, simultaneously runs through the story. The novel, with its complex themes of loyalty, disillusionment, revolution, romance, heroism, and struggle against both establishment and religion, was very popular in its day both in its native Ireland and other countries like Russia and China. In Russia, the book was so popular that it became required reading. Since its publication, it has also been adapted into film, opera, theater, and ballet, and its popularity spurred Voynich to write sequels and prequels. 21 Anna of the Five Towns Author: Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) Year: 1902 Length: 288 pages Book Description: Anna of the Five Towns is one of the English author and journalist Arnold Bennett’s (1867-1931) best-known novels, first published in 1902. The plot centers on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled by the Methodist church. The novel tells of Anna’s struggle for freedom and independence against her father’s restraints. In reality Stoke-on-Trent is an amalgamation (in 1910) of six towns: in order from northwest to southeast, the towns are Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton, and Longton. “The Five Towns” is a name given to it in novels by Arnold Bennett, who was born in Hanley and lived in the district. He said that he believed “Five Towns” was more euphonious than “Six Towns,” so he omitted Fenton (sometimes referred to as “the forgotten town”). He called Stoke “Knype” but used recognisable aliases for the other four towns. The novel offers a vivid and realistic portrayal of life in England during the industrial revolution; it provides insights into the social and cultural context of the time; and it features Bennett’s characteristic prose and his love of exploring the complexities of human nature. The novel was adapted for the BBC Home Service’s Saturday Night Theatre by Olivia Manning in February 1962. In 1985, BBC2 broadcast a four-part serialization of Anna of the Five Towns, adapted by John Harvey. In 2017, to mark Arnold Bennett’s 150th birthday, a stage version of Anna by Deborah McAndrew was put on at the New Vic Theatre in Stoke. In 2011, Helen Edmundson wrote an adaptation of Anna of the Five Towns which was broadcast in two parts on BBC Radio 4. A Room with a View Author: Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) Year: 1908 Length: 190 pages Book Description: A Room with a View is a novel written by the English author Edward Morgan Forster (18791970), published in 1908. Set in Italy and England, it follows the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a well-to-do young woman living in the restrained culture of Edwardian-era England. While on vacation in Italy, she finds her somewhat neatly ordered existence thrown off balance, when she meets and falls for the passionate, but conventionally unsuitable, George Emerson. With a cast of flamboyant and memorable characters, including romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish and the inconveniently observant Reverend Beebe, this delightful coming-of-age tale and social comedy satirizes English society’s notions of class and respectability. It is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century, and remains Forster’s best-loved novel. Merchant Ivory produced an award-winning film adaptation in 1985. 22 Rebecca Author: Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) Year: 1938 Length: 240 pages Book Description: Rebecca is a 1938 Gothic novel written by the English author Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989). The novel depicts that while working as the companion to a rich American woman on holiday in Monte Carlo (between southern France and the Mediterranean Sea), the unnamed narrator, a naïve young woman in her early 20s, becomes acquainted with a wealthy Englishman, Maxim de Winter, a 42-year-old widower. After a fortnight of courtship, she agrees to marry him and, after the wedding and honeymoon, accompanies him to his mansion in Cornwall, the beautiful estate Manderley. Soon after, she discovers that both he and his household are haunted by the memory of his late first wife, Rebecca. The novel is remembered for the character Mrs Danvers, the sinister housekeeper, who was profoundly devoted to the first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca, who died in a sailing accident about a year before Maxim and the second Mrs de Winter met, and its opening line: “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” A bestseller which has never gone out of print, Rebecca has been adapted numerous times for stage and screen, including a 1939 play by du Maurier herself, the film Rebecca (1940), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the 2020 remake directed by Ben Wheatley for Netflix. The story is also a successful musical production. French Literature Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) Author: Stendhal (1783-1842) Year: 1830; first translated into English ca. 1900 Length: 324 pages Book Description: Le Rouge et le Noir: Chronique du XIXe siècle (The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the 19th Century) is a historical psychological novel written by the French author with the pen name Stendhal, whose real name was Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842), published in 1830. The title has been variously translated into English as Red and Black, Scarlet and Black, and The Red and the Black, without the subtitle. The novel’s full title indicates its twofold literary purpose as both a psychological portrait of the romantic protagonist, Julien Sorel, and an analytic, sociological satire of the French social order under the Bourbon Restoration (1814-1830). It chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing through a combination of talent, hard work, deception, and hypocrisy. He ultimately allows his passions to betray him. The title may also be taken to refer to the tension between the clerical (black) and secular (red) interests of the protagonist, but it could also refer to the then-popular card game “rouge et noir,” with the card game being the narratological leitmotiv of a novel, in which chance 23 and luck determine the fate of the main character. There are other interpretations as well. The novel has been adapted into film at least eight times from 1928 to 1997. Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) Author: Victor Hugo (1802-1885) Year: 1831 Length: 452 pages Book Description: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris, literally “Our Lady of Paris,” originally titled Notre-Dame de Paris: 1482) is a French Gothic novel written by Victor Hugo (1802-1885), published in 1831. The title refers to the Notre-Dame Cathedral, which features prominently throughout the novel. It focuses on the unfortunate story of Quasimodo, the Roma Street dancer Esmeralda, and Quasimodo’s guardian the Archdeacon Claude Frollo in 15thcentury Paris. All its elements, the Renaissance setting, impossible love affairs, and marginalized characters, make the work a model of the literary themes of Romanticism. Written during a time of cultural upheaval, the novel champions historical preservation. Hugo solidified Notre-Dame de Paris as a national icon, arguing for the preservation of Gothic architecture as an element of Paris’ cultural heritage. The novel is considered a classic of French literature and has been adapted repeatedly for film, stage, and TV. Some prominent examples include a 1923 silent film with Lon Chaney, a 1939 sound film with Charles Laughton, a 1956 film with Anthony Quinn, and a 1996 Disney animated film with Tom Hulce. Eugénie Grandet Author: Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) Year: 1833 Length: 306 pages Book Description: Eugénie Grandet is a novel written by the French author Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), first published in 1833. Balzac is considered the greatest name in the post-Revolutionary literature of France. His writings display a profound knowledge of the human heart, with an extraordinary range of knowledge. Eugenie Grandet is a classical story of a girl whose life is blighted by her father’s hysterical greed and a magnificent tale of early 19th-century French provincial life. While writing it, Balzac conceived his ambitious project, La Comédie Humaine (The Human Comedy), and almost immediately prepared a second edition, revising the names of some of the characters so that Eugénie Grandet then fitted into the section: Scenes from provincial life (Scènes de la vie de province) in the Comédie. He dedicated the edition to Maria Du Fresnay, who was then his lover and was the mother of his daughter, Marie-Caroline Du Fresnay. The novel has been adapted six times for film, TV, and radio. 24 Père Goriot (Old Goriot) Author: Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) Year: 1835 Length: 220 pages Book Description: Le Père Goriot (Old Goriot, or Father Goriot) is a novel written by the French author Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), published in 1835, and was included in the Scènes de la vie privée section of his novel sequence La Comédie Humaine (The Human Comedy). Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three characters: the elderly doting Goriot, a mysterious criminalin-hiding named Vautrin, and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac. Originally published in serial form during the winter of 1834-1835, Le Père Goriot is widely considered Balzac’s most important novel. It marks the first serious use by the author of characters who had appeared in other books, a technique that distinguishes Balzac’s fiction. The novel is also noted as an example of his realist style, using minute details to create character and subtext. The novel takes place during the Bourbon Restoration (1814-1830), which brought profound changes to French society; the struggle by individuals to secure a higher social status is a major theme in the book. The city of Paris also impresses itself on the characters, especially young Rastignac, who grew up in the provinces of southern France. Balzac analyzes, through Goriot and others, the nature of family and marriage, providing a pessimistic view of these institutions. The novel was released to mixed reviews. Some critics praised the author for his complex characters and attention to detail; others condemned him for his many depictions of corruption and greed. It gave rise to the French expression “Rastignac,” a social climber willing to use any means to better his situation. The book quickly won widespread popularity and has often been adapted for film and the stage. Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions) Author: Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) Year: 1837-1843; first English translation by K.P. Wormeley in 1893 Length: 458 pages Book Description: Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions) is a serial novel written by the French author Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) between 1837 and 1843. It consists of three parts, starting in provincial France, thereafter moving to Paris, and finally returning to the provinces. Lucien Chardon, the son of a lower middle-class father and an impoverished mother of remote aristocratic descent, is the pivotal figure of the entire work. Living at Angoulême, he is impoverished, impatient, handsome and ambitious. His widowed mother, his sister Ève, and his best friend, David Séchard, do nothing to lessen his high opinion of his own talents, for it is an opinion they share. The book resembles another of Balzac’s greatest novels, La Rabouilleuse (The Black Sheep, 1842), that is set in Paris and in the provinces. It forms part of the Scènes de la vie de province in La Comédie Humaine (The Human Comedy). The novel’s main character, Lucien Chardon, works as a 25 journalist, and his friend David Séchard is a printer. These were both professions with which Balzac himself had experience. Balzac had started a printing business in Paris in 1826, which went bankrupt in 1828. His experiences influenced his description of David Séchard’s working life. Balzac had bought the newspaper La Chronique de Paris in 1836 and founded La Revue Parisienne in 1840, both of which also went bust. A number of his novels had been published in serial form in the newspapers, though he often had disagreements with the publishers. He had also received harsh reviews in the newspapers from critics such as Charles Augustin SainteBeuve and Jules Janin. Balzac had been critical of the press in La Peau de Chagrin and later published a criticism of the press called Monograph of the Paris Press in 1842. Illusions Perdues had been adapted several times for film, TV, and stage. Ursula (Ursule Mirouet) Author: Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) Year: 1841 Length: 272 pages Book Description: Ursule Mirouët is a novel that belongs to Honoré de Balzac’s (1799-1850) series of 94 novels and short stories La Comédie Humaine (The Human Comedy). First published in 1841, it forms part of Balzac’s Scènes de la vie de province. It is set in the years 1829-1837 in Nemours, though with flashbacks to Paris. An essentially simple tale about the struggle and triumph of innocence reviled, Ursule Mirouet is characterized by that wealth of penetrating observation so readily associated with Balzac’s work. The twin themes of redemption and rebirth are illuminated by a consistently passionate rejection of both philosophic and practical materialism in favour of love. In this case, love is aided by supernatural intervention, which itself effectively illustrates Balzac’s life-long fascination with the occult. In 1842, eight years before his death, Balzac described Ursule Mirouet as the masterpiece of all the studies of human society that he had written; he regarded the book as “a remarkable tour de force” (feat of strength). The Count of Monte Cristo Author: Alexandre Dumas (father) (1802-1870) Year: 1844-1846 (serialized) Length: 779 pages Book Description: The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas (father) (1802-1870) completed in 1844. It is one of the author’s most popular works, along with The Three Musketeers. Like many of his novels, it was expanded from plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet. The story takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean during the historical events of 1815-1839: the era of the Bourbon Restoration (1815-1830) through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France. It begins on the day that Napoleon left his first island of exile, Elba, beginning the Hundred Days 26 period of his return to power. The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book, an adventure story centrally concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, and forgiveness. Before he can marry his fiancée Mercédès, Edmond Dantès, a French 19-year-old first mate of the merchant ship Pharaon, is falsely accused of treason, arrested, and imprisoned without trial in the Château d'If, a grim island fortress off Marseille. A fellow prisoner, Abbé Faria, correctly deduces that romantic rival Fernand Mondego, envious crewmate Danglars, and double-dealing magistrate De Villefort are responsible for his imprisonment. Over the course of their long imprisonment, Faria educates Dantès and, knowing himself close to death, inspires him to retrieve for himself a cache of treasure Faria had discovered. After Faria dies, Dantès escapes and finds the treasure. As the fabulously wealthy, powerful and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo, he enters the fashionable Parisian world of the 1830s to avenge himself. The book is considered a literary classic today. According to Lucy Sante, “The Count of Monte Cristo has become a fixture of Western civilization’s literature.” The novel has been adapted many times for film, TV, stage, and audio. La Dame aux Camélias (The Lady of the Camellias) Author: Alexandre Dumas (son) (1824-1895) Year: 1848 Length: 181 pages Book Description: The Lady of the Camellias (French: La Dame aux Camélias), sometimes called in English Camille, is a novel written by Alexandre Dumas (son) (1824-1895) when he was 23 years old. First published in 1848, La Dame aux Camélias is a semi-autobiographical novel based on the author’s brief love affair with a courtesan, Marie Duplessis. Set in mid-19th-century France, the novel tells the tragic love story between fictional characters Marguerite Gautier, a demimondaine or courtesan suffering from consumption, and Armand Duval, a young bourgeois. Marguerite is nicknamed la dame aux camélias (French for “the lady of the camellias”) because she wears a red camellia when she is menstruating and unavailable for sex and a white camellia when she is available to her lovers. Armand falls in love with Marguerite and ultimately becomes her lover. He convinces her to leave her life as a courtesan and to live with him in the countryside. This idyllic existence is interrupted by Armand’s father, who, concerned with the scandal created by the illicit relationship, and fearful that it will destroy Armand’s sister’s chances of marriage, convinces Marguerite to leave. Until Marguerite is on her deathbed, Armand believes that she left him for another man, known as Count de Giray. He comes to her side as she is dying, surrounded by her friends, and pledges to love her even after her death. Adapted by Dumas for the stage, the play premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France, on February 2, 1852. It was an instant success. Shortly thereafter, Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi set about putting the story to music in the 1853 opera La Traviata, with female protagonist Marguerite Gautier renamed Violetta Valéry. In some of the English-speaking world, The Lady of the Camellias became known as Camille, and 16 versions have been performed at Broadway theaters alone. The title character is Marguerite Gautier, who is based on Marie Duplessis, the real-life lover of the author. 27 Madame Bovary Author: Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) Year: 1856-1857 Length: 672 pages Book Description: Madame Bovary, originally published as Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners (French: Madame Bovary: Mœurs de province), is a novel written by the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), published in 1857. The eponymous character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. When the novel was first serialized in Revue de Paris between 1 October and 15 December 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. After Flaubert’s acquittal on 7 February 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestseller in April 1857 when it was published in two volumes. A seminal work of literary realism, the novel is now considered Flaubert’s masterpiece, and one of the most influential literary works in history. Madame Bovary has had numerous film and television adaptations from 1932 to 2021. Les Misérables (The Miserables) Author: Victor Hugo (1802-1885) Year: 1862 Length: 303 pages Book Description: Les Misérables is a French historical novel written by Victor Hugo (1802-1885), first published in 1862, which is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. In the Englishspeaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title. However, several alternatives have been used, including The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims, and The Dispossessed. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption. Les Misérables is Victor Hugo’s masterwork, a sprawling novel that grapples with some of the age-old themes of humanity and society, as well as some of the more revolutionary ideas that characterized French literature of the period. The novel follows the intertwining stories of some of society’s least fortunate characters, whose trials, travails, and hardships give the book its evocative title. However, Les Misérables does far more than this, examining the interplay of law, love, governance and history, as well as casting its eye upon those whose lives are washed away in time’s flood, the novel elaborates on the history of France, the architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Hugo published Les Misérables in 1862, but the ideas that would eventually coalesce into this masterpiece had been gestating for decades before this. It is believed that Hugo drew inspiration from events he witnessed in France in the 1830s and 1840s, as well as a life spent researching and analyzing some of the book’s loftier themes. Les 28 Misérables has been popularized through numerous adaptations for film, TV, and the stage, including a musical. Une Vie: L’Humble Vérité (A Life: The Humble Truth) Author: Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) Year: 1883 Length: 92 pages Book Description: Une Vie (A Life), also known as L’Humble Vérité (The Humble Truth), is the first novel written by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893). It was serialized in 1883 in the Gil Blas, then published in book form the same year as L’Humble Vérité. A Life is a satirical novel about the foolishness of romantic illusion. The novel tells the story of young Jeanne, full of hope and dreams of love, who discovers the outside world after finishing an education in a convent. She is looking forward to her new life and she is dreaming of the day when she will find the man who loves her. All her expectations are fulfilled, but… Leo Tolstoy called Une Vie “an excellent novel, not only incomparably the best novel by Maupassant, but almost the best French novel since Hugo’s Les Misérables.” The novel was the basis for the 1958 film One Life, directed by Alexandre Astruc, an award-winning 2016 film directed by Stéphane Brizé, as well as a 2019 play directed by Arnaud Denis and starring Clémentine Célarié. Bel-Ami (Beautiful Friend) Author: Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) Year: 1885 Length: 368 pages Book Description: Bel-Ami (Beautiful Friend) is the second novel written by the French author Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), published in 1885. An English translation titled Bel Ami, or The History of a Scoundrel: A Novel, first appeared in 1903. The story chronicles the ruthlessly ambitious young journalist, Georges Duroy’s corrupt rise to power from a poor former cavalry non-commissioned officer in France’s African colonies, to one of the most successful men in Paris, most of which he achieves by manipulating a series of powerful, intelligent, and wealthy women. “His rise testifies to the decline of a whole society,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). It is a novel about money, sex, and power. Set against the background of the politics of the French colonization of North Africa, the novel explores the dynamics of an urban society uncomfortably close to our own and is a devastating satire of the sleaziness of contemporary journalism. Bel-Ami enjoys the status of an authentic record of the apotheosis of bourgeois capitalism under the French Third Republic (1870-1940). But the creative tension between its analysis of modern behavior and its identifiably late 19th-century fabric is one of the reasons why Bel-Ami remains one of the finest French novels of its time, as well as being recognized as Maupassant’s greatest achievement as a novelist. The novel has been adapted for film, TV, and stage numerous times. 29 Norwegian Literature A Doll’s House Author: Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) Year: 1879 Length: 80 pages Book Description: A Doll’s House (Norwegian: Et dukkehjem; also translated as A Doll House) is a three-act play in prose by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). It premiered at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month. One of the best-known, most frequently performed of modern plays, A Doll’s House richly displays the genius with which Henrik Ibsen pioneered modern, realistic prose drama. In the central character of Nora, Ibsen epitomized the human struggle against the humiliating constraints of social conformity. Nora’s ultimate rejection of a smothering marriage and life in “a doll’s house” shocked theatergoers of the late 1800s and opened new horizons for playwrights and their audiences. But daring social themes are only one aspect of Ibsen’s power as a dramatist. A Doll’s House shows as well his gifts for creating realistic dialogue, a suspenseful flow of events and, above all, psychologically penetrating characterizations that make the struggles of his dramatic personages utterly convincing. The play is significant for its critical attitude toward 19th-century marriage norms. It aroused great controversy at the time, as it concludes with the protagonist, Nora, leaving her husband and children because she wants to discover herself. Ibsen was inspired by the belief that “a woman cannot be herself in modern society,” since it is “an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint.” Its ideas can also be seen as having a wider application: Michael Meyer argued that the play’s theme is not women’s rights, but rather “the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person.” In a speech given to the Norwegian Association for Women’s Rights in 1898, Ibsen insisted that he “must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women’s rights movement,” since he wrote “without any conscious thought of making propaganda,” his task having been “the description of humanity.” American Literature Little Women Author: Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) Year: 1868-1869 Length: 480 pages Book Description: Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by the American novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. The story follows the lives 30 of the four March sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters, it is classified as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel. Little Women was an immediate commercial and critical success, and readers were eager for more about the characters. Alcott quickly completed a second volume (titled Good Wives in the United Kingdom, though the name originated with the publisher and not Alcott). It was also met with success. The two volumes were issued in 1880 as a single novel titled Little Women. Alcott subsequently wrote two sequels to her popular work, both also featuring the March sisters: Little Men (1871) and Jo’s Boys (1886). The novel has been said to address three major themes: “domesticity, work, and true love, all of them interdependent and each necessary to the achievement of its heroine’s individual identity.” According to Sarah Elbert, Alcott created a new form of literature, one that took elements from romantic children’s fiction and combined it with others from sentimental novels, resulting in a totally new genre. Elbert argues that within Little Women can be found the first vision of the “All-American girl” and that her various aspects are embodied in the differing March sisters. The book has been translated into numerous languages, and frequently adapted for stage and screen. The House of Mirth Author: Edith Wharton (1862-1937) Year: 1905 Length: 275 pages Book Description: The House of Mirth is a 1905 novel written by the American author Edith Wharton (1862-1937). It tells the story of Lily Bart, a well-born but impoverished woman belonging to New York City’s high society around the end of the 19th century. Wharton creates a portrait of a stunning beauty who, though raised and educated to marry well, is reaching her 29th year, an age when her marital prospects are becoming ever more limited. The novel traces Lily’s slow 2-year social descent from privilege to a lonely existence on the margins of society. Before publication as a book on October 14, 1905, The House of Mirth was serialized in Scribner’s Magazine beginning in January 1905. Literary reviewers and critics at the time categorized it as both a social satire and novel of manners. When describing it in her introduction to Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth: A Case Book, Carol Singley states that the novel “is a unique blend of romance, realism, and naturalism, [and thus] transcends the narrow classification of a novel of manners.” In the words of one scholar, Wharton uses Lily as an attack on “an irresponsible, grasping and morally corrupt upper class.” A finely nuanced, enduring literary classic, the novel has been adapted for radio, stage, and cinema. 31 The Age of Innocence Author: Edith Wharton (1862-1937) Year: 1920 Length: 367 pages Book Description: The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel written by the American author Edith Wharton (18621937). It was initially serialized in 1920 in four parts, in the magazine Pictorial Review. Later that year, it was released as a book by D. Appleton & Company. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the prize, “established Wharton as the American ‘First Lady of Letters.’” The story is set in the 1870s, in upper-class, “Gilded Age” New York City. Wharton wrote the book in her 50s, after she was already established as a major author in high demand by publishers. The Age of Innocence centers on the impending marriage of an upper-class couple, Newland Archer and May Welland, and the introduction of May’s cousin, Ellen Olenska, plagued by scandal, whose presence threatens their happiness. Though the novel questions the assumptions and morals of 1870s New York society, it never develops into an outright condemnation of the institution. The novel is noted for Wharton’s attention to detail and its accurate portrayal of how the 19th-century East Coast American upper class lived, as well as for the social tragedy of its plot. Wharton was 58 years old at publication; she had lived in that world and had seen it change dramatically by the end of World War I. Helen Killoran explains in The Critical Reception of Edith Wharton that critics have always admired Wharton’s craftsmanship, her attention to structure, and her subtle ironies, along with her description of interiors (attributed to her time as an interior designer). Hillary Kelly suggests that Wharton’s “status made her story more than believable—it made the story real ... Novelists before Wharton understood that storytelling was an act of exposure, but she built it into the architecture of The Age of Innocence and weaponized it.” The novel has been adapted numerous times for film (e.g. 1993), TV (e.g. 2009), and stage from 1924 to 2024. The Sun Also Rises Author: Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) Year: 1926 Length: 266 pages Book Description: The Sun Also Rises is the first novel written by the American author Ernest Hemingway (18991961). It portrays American and British expatriates who travel along the Camino de Santiago from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona and watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. Hemingway biographer Jeffrey Meyers writes that it is now “recognized as Hemingway’s greatest work” and Hemingway scholar Linda Wagner-Martin calls it his most important novel. The novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by Scribner’s. A year later, Jonathan Cape published the novel in London under the title Fiesta. It remains in print. The novel is about real32 life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction: the characters are based on people in Hemingway’s circle and the action is based on events, particularly Hemingway’s life in Paris in the 1920s and a trip to Spain in 1925 for the Pamplona festival and fishing in the Pyrenees. Hemingway converted to Catholicism as he wrote the novel, and Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera notes that protagonist Jake Barnes, a Catholic, was “a vehicle for Hemingway to rehearse his own conversion, testing the emotions that would accompany one of the most important acts of his life.” Hemingway presents his notion that the “Lost Generation,” considered to have been decadent, dissolute, and irretrievably damaged by World War I, was in fact resilient and strong. Hemingway investigates the themes of love and death, the revivifying power of nature and the concept of masculinity. His spare writing style, combined with his restrained use of description to convey characterizations and action, demonstrates his “Iceberg Theory” of writing. In 1954, Hemingway was honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature, a testament to his enduring impact. Little House on the Prairie Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) Year: 1932-1943, 1971 Length: 1897 pages Book Description: The Little House on the Prairie books comprise a series of American children’s and youth novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (b. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls, 1867-1957). The stories are based on her childhood and adolescence in the American Midwest (Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Missouri) between 1870 and 1894. Eight of the novels were completed by Wilder, and published by Harper & Brothers in the 1930s and 1940s, during her lifetime. The name “Little House” appears in the first book titled Little House in the Big Woods, and the third book titled Little House on the Prairie. The second book titled Farmer Boy was about her husband’s childhood. The first draft of a ninth novel was published posthumously in 1971 and is commonly included in the series. A tenth book, the non-fiction On the Way Home, is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s diary of the years after 1894, when she, her husband, and their daughter moved from De Smet, South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, where they settled permanently. It was also published posthumously, in 1962, and includes commentary by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. The Little House books have been adapted for stage or screen more than once, most successfully as the American TV series Little House on the Prairie, which ran from 1974 to 1983, as well as an anime (Laura, the Prairie Girl), and many spin-off books; there are also cookbooks and various other licensed products representative of the books. 33 Gone with the Wind Author: Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949) Year: 1936 Length: 524 pages Book Description: Gone with the Wind is a novel written by the American author Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949), first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction Era (1865-1877). The novel unfolds against the backdrop of rebellion wherein seven southern states, Georgia among them, have seceded from the United States (the “Union”) to form the Confederate States of America (the “Confederacy”). It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled daughter of a wellto-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman’s destructive “March to the Sea.” This historical novel features a coming-ofage story, with the title taken from the poem “Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae” written by Ernest Dowson (1867-1900). Gone with the Wind was popular with American readers from the outset and was the top American fiction bestseller in 1936 and 1937. In 2014, a Harris poll found it to be the second favorite book of American readers, just behind the Bible. Gone with the Wind is a controversial reference point for subsequent writers of the South, both black and white. Scholars at American universities refer to, interpret, and study it in their writings. The novel has been absorbed into American popular culture. Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Margaret Mitchell published during her lifetime, and she received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book in 1937. It has been adapted several times for stage and screen. The 1939 film of the same name is considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made and also received the Academy Award for Best Picture during the 12th annual Academy Awards ceremony. For Whom the Bell Tolls Author: Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) Year: 1940 Length: 480 pages Book Description: For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel written by the American author Ernest Hemingway (18991961), published in 1940. It tells the story during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer and demolitions expert attached to the International Brigades, is assigned to blow up a bridge on behalf of the antifascist guerrilla forces in an attack on the city of Segovia. It was published just after the end of the Spanish Civil War, whose general lines were well known at the time. It assumes the reader knows that the war was between the government of the Second Spanish Republic, which many foreigners went to Spain to help, and which was supported by the Communist Soviet Union, and the Nationalist faction, which was supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In 1940, the year the book was published, the United States had not yet entered World War II, which began on September 1, 1939, with Nazi 34 Germany’s invasion of Poland. The novel is regarded as one of Hemingway’s best works, along with The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and The Old Man and the Sea. For Whom the Bell Tolls has been adapted for film, TV, stage, and radio. The Old Man and the Sea Author: Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) Year: 1952 Length: 128 pages Book Description: The Old Man and the Sea is a novella by the American author Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), written between December 1950 and February 1951, and published by the Life magazine in its September 1, 1952 issue. Hemingway’s publisher, Scribner’s, released their first edition a week later on September 8. Over the following year, Hemingway became increasingly convinced that the manuscript would stand on its own as a novella. Translated into nine languages by the end of 1952, The Old Man and the Sea remained on the New York Times bestseller list for six months. It tells the story of Santiago, an aging fisherman, and his long struggle to catch a giant marlin. Hemingway takes the timeless themes of courage in the face of adversity and personal triumph won from loss and transforms them into a magnificent 20th-century classic. The novella was highly anticipated and the initial critical reception was equally positive, but attitudes have varied significantly since then. Whether The Old Man and the Sea is inferior or equal to Hemingway’s other works has since been the subject of scholarly debate. Thematic analysis has focused on Christian imagery and symbolism, on the similarity of the novella’s themes to its predecessors in the Hemingway canon, and on the character of the fisherman Santiago. In 1953, The Old Man and the Sea received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It was the only work explicitly mentioned when Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, and it was the last major fictional work Hemingway published during his lifetime. Mexican Literature Corazón Salvaje (Wild Heart) Author: Caridad Bravo Adams (1908-1990) Year: 1957 Length: 496 pages Book Description: Corazón Salvaje (Wild Heart) is a novel written by the prolific Mexican author Caridad Bravo Adams (1908-1990), published in 1957 after it had been adapted to the screen in 1956. The story takes place in Martinique, an island in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the eastern Caribbean Sea, in the French colonies, starting in the late 1800s and ending with the 1902 volcanic eruption of Mt. Pelee in St. Pierre. It describes the life of a boy named Juan who grows up to be a pirate, while his half-brother, Andrés, goes to study in France, and the two sisters, 35 Mónica and Aimée, who fall in love with them. There have been five Mexican productions based on the book, two films and three telenovelas. The 1968 film adaptation is considered the closest to the original story, which starred Julio Alemán as Juan del Diablo and Angélica María as Mónica Molnar – this part made her a star in China. She later repeated her role in the 1977 telenovela version. The most successful production was the 1993 telenovela. Australian Literature The Thorn Birds Author: Colleen McCullough (1937-2015) Year: 1977 Length: 704 pages Book Description: The Thorn Birds is a 1977 novel written by the Australian author Colleen McCullough (19372015). Set primarily on Drogheda, a fictional sheep station in the Australian Outback named after Drogheda, Ireland. The story focuses on the Cleary family and spans from 1915 to 1969, and chronicles three generations of Clearys, an indomitable clan of ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. It is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys’ only daughter, Meggie, and the haunted priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart, and the intense joining of two hearts and souls over a lifetime, a relationship that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma. The novel is the bestselling book in Australian history. The novel was also adapted into an eponymous TV miniseries. During its March 27-30, 1983 run, it became the United States’ second-highest rated miniseries of all time, behind Roots. Subsequently, a 1996 miniseries filled in a gap of 19 years in the middle of the novel, but it was criticized for inconsistencies with the original series. It was also adapted into a musical in 2009. Canadian Literature The Handmaid’s Tale Author: Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Year: 1985 Length: 384 pages Book Description: The Handmaid’s Tale is a futuristic dystopian novel written by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood (b. 1939), published in 1985. An ebook version was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 1986. The story is set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which has overthrown the United States government. The novel explores themes of powerless women in a patriarchal society, loss of 36 female agency and individuality, suppression of women’s reproductive rights, and the various means by which women resist and try to gain individuality and independence. Offred is the central character and narrator, and one of the “Handmaids”: women who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the “Commanders,” who are the ruling class in Gilead. Offred’s persistent memories of life in the “time before” and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. Provocative, startling, prophetic, and with Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit, and acute perceptive powers in full force, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once a mordant satire and a dire warning. The title echoes the component parts of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which is a series of connected stories, such as The Merchant’s Tale, and The Parson’s Tale. It also alludes to the tradition of fairy tales where the central character tells her story. The Handmaid’s Tale won the 1985 Governor General’s Award and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987; it was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award. The book has been adapted into a 1990 film, a 2000 opera, a 2017 TV series, and other media. A sequel novel, The Testaments, was published in 2019. Compiled by Donia Zhang 2024-4-18 37