Emile Zola was one of the most important, though controversial, French novelists of the late nineteenth century, and founder of the Realist movement. In 1871 Zola began to write his most notable series of novels, the “Rougon-Macquart Novels”, that relate the history of a fictional family under the Second Empire. As a strict naturalist, Zola was greatly concerned with science, especially the problems of evolution and heredity vs. environment. How ...
First serialized in “The Century Magazine” in 1885 and 1886, Henry James’s “The Bostonians” is the story of Basil Ransom and his cousin Olive Chancellor and their competition for the allegiance and affection of the talented and beautiful Verena Tarrant. Basil, a conservative lawyer and Civil War veteran, has gone to Boston to visit his cousin Olive, an outspoken and independent feminist who is very active in the cause. Olive takes her cousin to ...
First published in 1920, D. H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love” is the sequel to his 1915 novel “The Rainbow” and is widely considered one of his best works and one of the most important English novels of the twentieth century. “Women in Love” continues to follow the Brangwen family, focusing on the lives and loves of sisters Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen. Living in the Midlands of England during the 1910’s, Ursula is a teacher and Gudrun is an artist. T ...
First published in 1902, “The Wings of the Dove” is considered to be one of Henry James’s great masterpieces. It is the story of Milly Theale, a wealthy American heiress, who has traveled to London and tries to conceal that she is facing a serious illness, and the young couple she spends time with there, Kate and Merton. Milly is in love with Merton, but does not tell him this, while Kate and Merton are secretly engaged to be married to each oth ...
First published in 1880, “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ” by Lew Wallace is considered one of the most important and influential Christian novels of the nineteenth-century. The novel follows much of the life of Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince from Jerusalem living in the time of Christ. Wallace intertwines the lives of Judah and Jesus of Nazareth, beginning the novel with the events of the Nativity and later following the downfall and ensuing hard ...
Originally published in serial form from 1855 to 1857, “Little Dorrit” is characteristic of Charles Dickens’ later works. The story is a condemnation of British society, particularly of the system of debtor’s prisons, an issue that was of particular importance to Dickens as his father had been imprisoned for his debts when Dickens was a young man. Through the memorable characters of Little Amy Dorrit and her father William Dorrit, as well as the ...
Chretien de Troyes was a French poet in the late 12th century whose work represents some of the best examples of Arthurian legend from medieval times. Contained in this volume are the author’s four completed Arthurian romances. The first of these stories is that of “Erec and Enide”, which recounts the story of Erec, one of King Arthur’s knights, and the conflict between love and knighthood he experiences in his marriage to Enide. The second roma ...
Considered one of the most important and widely read novels ever written in the Italian language, “The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi)” is Alessandro Manzoni’s 1827 historical novel, which details the terribly oppressive rule of the Spanish over Italy in the early 1600s. At the center of the novel is the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, whose marriage is forbidden by the local baron, who wishes to wed the lovely Lucia himself. Forced to ...
First published in 1869, this deliberately written work follows the ambitions and whims of the young Frederic Moreau as he travels from his provincial hometown to the enticing metropolis of Paris. Though he survived the Revolution of 1848, Moreau is still prone to all the mistakes and petty concerns of a young man of the middle class: he develops an infatuation for a married woman, Madame Arnoux, and falls in and out of love with her throughout ...
