One of Dostoyevsky's most famous novels, this 1872 work utilizes five main characters and their philosophical ideas to describe the political chaos of Imperial Russia in the nineteenth century. Based on an actual event involving the murder of a revolutionary by his comrades, this novel depicts a band of ruthless radicals attempting to incite revolt in their small, rural community. At the center of «The Possessed» lies Dostoyevsky's des ...
George Eliot, the pen name used by Mary Anne Evans, wrote popular works that epitomized the settings and ideology of contemporary Victorian England. She was brought up in a large farmhouse near Coventry, where she was surrounded by the wide fields, large trees, canals and small roads that would color the landscape of her later fiction. Evans was raised in the Church of England, where she developed strong moral convictions that carried over into ...
"The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade" is the 1857 novel of Herman Melville which tells the interlocking stories of a group of travelers aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi River making their way toward New Orleans. The novel, which emulates the style of Chaucer's «Canterbury Tales», centers on its title character, the Confidence-Man, a mysterious figure who sneaks aboard the steamboat and successively tests the confidence of the passe ...
Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) was a novelist, poet and playwright known for his honest and affectionate portrayals of Russian serfs in the feudal system of the nineteenth century. Unlike his contemporaries Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy, whose writings focused primarily on church and religion, Turgenev believed in and advocated the need for Russia to Westernize. He criticized the provincial society and political turbulence of his time through so ...
Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919) was an American writer of children's books, best known for creating the marvelous Land of Oz in «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz». This fanciful kingdom was catalogued in a series of children's books beginning with the publication of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz». Baum's Oz series signifies the first fully developed fantasy world created by an American author. In 1900, Baum and Denslow, famous illustrator wi ...
First published in 1913, this provocative semi-autobiographical novel reflects the struggles of Paul Morel, an artist who cannot reciprocate love for other women while under the influence of his stifling mother. Unconsciously taught to despise his father and eschew other women, Paul comes even further under his mother's psychological grasp after the death of his older brother. When he eventually does fall in love, the results of confused af ...
Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) was an admired 19th century French writer. He became one of the leading artists since Gustave Flaubert and is considered to be one of the fathers of the modern short story. Maupassant's stories are characterized by their wealth of style, clever plotting and effortless resolutions. Considered Maupassant's greatest novel, «Pierre and Jean» is vivid, satirical, and emotionally profound. The Roland brothers, P ...
The extraterrestrial adventures of John Carter, an American Civil War veteran transplanted to Mars, continue in this third installment of Edgar Rice Burroughs' «Barsoom» series. The initial series was originally published as a four-part serial in «All-Story Magazine» between December, 1913 through March, 1914; its wild popularity resulted in numerous sequels. The story chronicles Carter's encounters with Martian royalty, fantastic crea ...