First published serially in 1905, “The Jungle” is American journalist Upton Sinclair’s dramatization of the harsh working conditions for and exploitation of immigrant workers in industrial cities like Chicago during the early part of the 20th century. Sinclair spent seven weeks prior to publication working ‘in cognito’ in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards gathering information for the novel. The work is principally concerned with ...
Mark Twain’s first attempt at historical fiction, “The Prince and the Pauper”, was first published in 1881. It is a story set in the time of Prince Edward, of house Tudor, who at age nine would become King Edward VI. When young Prince Edward meets a Pauper, Tom Canty, who likes a lot like him, he convinces the two to switch clothes so that they can be mistaken for each other and end up switching places. While they play out their new roles, Princ ...
Originally published in serial format in “The Egoist” between 1914 and 1915, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” is the semi-autobiographical portrayal of James Joyce’s early upbringing as an Irish Catholic in late 19th century and early 20th century Dublin. The novel was originally planned as a 63-chapter autobiographical novel in a realistic style entitled “Stephen Hero” however Joyce reworked the novel into five condensed chapters, dis ...
One of the most loved science fiction novels of all time, H. G. Wells’s “The Time Machine” is a novel that crafts a vivid and haunting picture of an earth some 800,000 years into the future. First published in 1895, it was one of the first novels to deal with the concept of time travel and due to its popularity has come to be regarded as one of the most impactful works on the development of the science fiction genre. “The Time Machine” was writt ...
First published in 1864, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” is Jules Verne’s classic tale of adventure, one of the earliest examples of science fiction. When German professor Otto Liedenbrock finds a coded message in an original runic manuscript of Snorri Sturluson’s Icelandic saga, “Heimskringla,” he discovers what he believes to be a secret passage to the center of the Earth. Professor Liedenbrock, who has long hypothesized that there are vo ...
The title of this novel is a combination of two Sanskrit words, “siddha,” which is defined as “achieved,” and “artha” which is defined as “meaning” or “wealth.” The word serves as the name for the principal character, a man on a spiritual journey of self-discovery during the time of the first Buddha. Siddhartha is the son of a wealthy Brahmin family who decides to leave his home in the hopes of gaining spiritual illumination. Siddhartha is joine ...
First published in 1719, Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” is a pioneering work of realist fiction and one of the most popular adventure novels ever written. When it first appeared it was widely believed to be a true account of actual events. While it is thought to have been inspired by the real life story of Alexander Selkirk, a castaway who lived on an island in the Pacific for four years, the story is in fact completely fictional. At the begin ...
Set in the fictional industrial town of Milton in the North of England, “North and South” is Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1855 novel that contrasts the different ways of life in the two respective regions of England. In the North the emerging industrialized society is sharply contrasted with the aging gentry of the agrarian based South. The plot of “North and South” centers around the main character Margaret Hale, the daughter of a non-conformist ministe ...
A classic coming of age story, “Jane Eyre” is the tale of its title character, a poor orphaned girl who comes to live with her aunt at Gateshead Hall. While there she endures great emotional and physical abuse at the hands of her aunt and cousins. Jane subsequently ships off to Lowood, a Christian boarding school for poor and orphaned girls. The conditions at the school are quite brutal. The students are subjected to cold lodgings, poor food, in ...
