Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, Italy in the middle of the 13th century and what is principally known of him comes from his own writings. One of the world’s great literary masterpieces, “The Divine Comedy” is at its heart an allegorical tale regarding man’s search for divinity. The work is divided into three sections, “Inferno”, “Purgatorio”, and “Paradiso”, each containing thirty-three cantos. It is the narrative of a journey down through ...
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” so begins Charles Dickens’s famous novel concerning the contentious time leading up to and during the French Revolution. In these first words Dickens exemplifies the dichotomous relationship that existed between the aristocracy and the lower classes of the time and the universal themes that would be depicted throughout the book. “A Tale of Two Cities,” is set in London and Paris, the titular ...
One of the most popular novels of early American literature, “The Last of the Mohicans” helped to establish James Fenimore Cooper as one of the first great and world-famous American authors. The second and best known novel in the “Leatherstocking Tales” series, “The Last of the Mohicans” is set in the British province of New York during the French and Indian War. It concerns the rescue and transport to safety, of two sisters, Alice and Cora, dau ...
Mikhail Lermontov’s pioneering psychological novel, “A Hero of Our Time”, is probably his most impactful work, one which influenced the works of other great Russian authors such as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. The novel’s narrative is the story of Pechorin a young officer in the army whose story is told in five non-chronological parts. Drawing upon his own experiences in the military, Lermontov creates a fascinating anti-hero in Pechorin, a man who ...
What begins as the story of a middle-aged country gentleman absorbed with novels of chivalry deliberately evolves into a tale of purely imaginative knight-errantry in this highly influential work of the Spanish Golden Age. This first of modern novels was written in the experimental episodic form, allowing Don Quixote and his ‘squire’ Sancho Panza to go on quests that just as often as not land them in trouble or earn them the incredulity of those ...
First published in 1905, “A Little Princess” is one of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s most beloved stories. Expanded from an earlier serialized short story entitled “Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin’s”, it is the story of young girl named Sara who is enrolled by her father, Captain Richard Crewe, a wealthy English widower, at Miss Minchin’s boarding school for girls in London. Because of her father’s wealth Sara enjoys a life of luxury a ...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an American sociologist, author, poet, and lecturer whose influential work and unorthodox lifestyle made her an icon for future generations of feminists. Much of her work criticized common perceptions of the role of women in marriage and society, and advocated for educational, financial, and cultural equality amongst the sexes. Her advocacy is exhibited in her novella “Herland”, in which she describes a utopian socie ...
First published in 1909, “Anne of Avonlea” is Lucy M. Montgomery’s second installment in the much loved “Anne of Green Gables” book series. Following the life of Anne Shirley from age sixteen to eighteen this chapter in Anne’s life sees her having left Green Gables for the grown up world of Avonlea where she is to begin a job teaching school. Gilbert Blythe, who we are introduced to in the first book as Anne’s enemy, is now a good friend teachin ...
Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is the novel that introduced the fictional creature known as the vampire to millions. It is considered by many as the single most important work in the gothic vampire horror genre. “Dracula,” while not the first appearance of the vampire in literature, is certainly the work that is most readily identified with the vampire genre and has spawned countless imitations and references. The novel is set sometime in the late 19th ...