"Northanger Abbey" was one of the first novels that Jane Austen wrote, however it was not published until 1818, after her death. It is the story of Catherine Morland who travels to Bath to stay with a family friend for several weeks. While there she meets the Tilney siblings who live at the estate from which the book takes its title, Northanger Abbey. Catherine's naivete gets her into all sorts of trouble when she goes to stay with the ...
Despite a decreasing popularity throughout his career, Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) has become one of the most notable and respected English novelists of the Victorian Era. His penetrating novels on political, social and gender issues of his day have placed him among such nineteenth century literary icons as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Trollope penned 47 novels in his career, in addition to various short stories, travel books ...
H. R. Haggard's «King Solomon's Mines» is quite simply one of the greatest adventure novels ever written. Originally published in 1885, «King Solomon's Mines» quickly became one of the best selling and most popular novels of the late 19th century. «King Solomon's Mines» is the story of elephant-hunter Allan Quatermain and his quest for a fabled treasure in the wilds of Africa. ...
Originally published in 1859, «Adam Bede» is the first novel by George Eliot. The story concerns a love triangle that develops between Adam Bede, a young carpenter, who is competing for the affection of the beautiful young Hetty Sorrel with Captain Arthur Donnithorne, a young squire. When Hetty discovers herself to be pregnant, a series of bad decisions results in tragic conse quences. A classic of 19th century literature, «Adam Bede» is a popul ...
Zane Grey (1872-1939) was a prolific and popular author of novels about the wild west of the United States. For nearly three decades in the early part of the 20th century, Grey published a novel almost every year, many of which became bestsellers. His stories examined the hostility between cattlemen and sheepherders, the variegated Western vistas, cattle drives, gunslingers, range wars, the impact of the railroad and the wire on the way of life. ...
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos produced «Les Liaisons Dangereuses» in an effort to «write a work which departed from the ordinary, which made a noise, and which would remain on this earth after his death.» He did just that. First published in 1782 in four volumes, «Les Liaisons Dangereuses» was an immediate success, and has since inspired a large number of literary commentaries, plays, and films. The novel is an epistolary piece, written as letters ...
Hannah Webster Foster (1758-1840) was an American novelist who published her best-selling novel, «The Coquette», anonymously in 1797. It wasn't until 1866, after multiple reprints of the novel, and 26 years after the author's death, that her name appeared on the work. The novel is a fictionalized account of a Connecticut socialite named Eliza Wharton, whose death nine years prior had been highly publicized. Wharton was a 37 yr-old woma ...
D. H. Lawrence's 1915 novel «The Rainbow» is the story of three generations of the Brangwens family. While tame by today's standards, «The Rainbow», for its frank treatment of human sexuality, caused Lawence to be prosecuted on an obscenity charge in England when it was first published. Through richly personal characterizations, «The Rainbow» deals profoundly with the very nature of human relations as it explores the sexuality of Ursul ...
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English short story writer, dramatist, essayist, and the most popular novelist to come out of the Victorian era. Many of his novels, with their frequent concern for social reform, were first published in magazines in serialized form under the pseudonym, Boz. Unlike authors who completed entire novels before serialization, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialized. The continuing popularit ...
