First published in 1904, “Nostromo” is widely considered one of Joseph Conrad’s best works. Set in the fictitious mining town of Sulaco, a port city in the imaginary South American country of Costaguana, it is the story of Senor Gould, an English expatriate who owns the silver-mining concession in the country. When the country becomes engulfed in increasing violence and chaos, Senor Gould charges Nostromo, his trusted head longshoreman, with the ...
First published serially between 1868 and 1869, “The Idiot” is Dostoevsky’s most deeply personal work, which he remarked was his own personal favorite. It follows the journey of the title character, Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, who is actually intelligent but is cynically referred to as an “idiot” by his fellow characters for his moralistic purity. Prince Myshkin is a young man from an ancient noble Russian family who is returning home after ...
Widely believed to be her masterpiece, Elizabeth Gaskell’s “Wives and Daughters” was originally published serially in “Cornhill Magazine” between August 1864 and January 1866. The work, which was nearly finished at the time of Gaskell’s death in 1865, was completed by Frederick Greenwood. The novel’s heroine is Molly Gibson, the only daughter of a widowed country doctor in a small town in England. Molly, lonely and motherless, is befriended by t ...
Charles Dickens’s first novel, “The Pickwick Papers” was originally published in serial form between March 1836 and October 1837. Drawing on Dickens’s experience as a journalist and reporter in London and the surrounding countryside, the novel is a series of loosely related comical adventures of the members of the Pickwick Club, founded by the novel’s main character, Mr. Samuel Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick is a wealthy and bored old gentleman who sugg ...
First published serially between 1864 and 1865, “Our Mutual Friend” is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens. The death of a wealthy miser, who is estranged from all except his trusted employees, Nicodemus and Henrietta Boffin, brings his son John Harmon back to London in order to claim his inheritance. The patrimony carries with it one condition, that he marries a woman he has never met, Miss Bella Wilfer. When a body is found floating in ...
Though only Dickens’ third novel, “Nicholas Nickleby” is a well-crafted and significant precursor to his other great works. The tale follows the fortunes of a young man, the son of an imprudent gentleman who leaves his family without resources. Fiercely devoted to his mother and sisters, as well as his true friends, Nicholas is occasionally emotional and even violent, yet always idealistic. He seeks the aid of his villainous uncle, Ralph Nickleb ...
First published in 1774, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” is the loosely autobiographical epistolary novel by German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This classically tragic story is one of unrequited love. During a stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim, Werther becomes enamored with the simple ways of the peasantry there. He meets and falls in love with the beautiful young Lotte, despite her engagement to Albert. The highly emotional Werthe ...
First published in 1876, “Daniel Deronda” was George Eliot’s final novel. Controversial in its time for its morally ambiguous characterizations and its sympathy for the proto-Zionist movement, the novel is regarded today as one of the great social satires of the Victorian era. The story begins with the meeting of Daniel Deronda and the beautiful but stubborn and selfish, Gwendolen Harleth, whom he witnesses loses all her money at a game of roule ...
