First published serially in 1897, Henry James’s novel “What Maisie Knew” is the story of Beale and Ida Farange and their young daughter, Maisie. When Maisie is very young, Beale and Ida divorce and the court orders that the custody of Maisie be split between the two. Spending six months with each, Maisie finds herself in an unstable position as her immoral and frivolous parents use Maisie to intensify their animosity for each other. The novel fo ...
First published in 1899, this graphic depiction of urban American life centers around its title character, McTeague, a dentist practicing in San Francisco at the turn of the century. While at first content with his life and friendship with an ambitious man named Marcus, McTeague eventually courts and marries Trina, a frugal young woman who wins a large sum of money in a lottery. The greed of the majority of the characters in the novel creates a ...
“Shirley” is Charlotte Bronte’s second novel and is set against the backdrop of the Luddite uprising against the Yorkshire textile industry in England during the industrial depression that followed the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. First published in 1849, the novel is the story of mill operator Robert Moore, whose business is troubled by the economic climate; his distant cousin Caroline Helstone, for whom Robert has affections; rich heir ...
Hailed as the world’s first novel, “Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded” by Samuel Richardson is a gripping tale about a beautiful young maidservant in England during the middle of the 18th century. After her employer dies, the employer’s son begins making advances toward her. The virtuous girl tries to stave off his advances, but Mr. B’s desperation eventually causes him to kidnap her in a misguided attempt to try and make her understand how much he lov ...
First published in 1931, “Black No More” is a clever and important satirical novel by George S. Schuyler which was written during the creative time of the Harlem Renaissance. This humorous and insightful work explores what would happen if blackness could be erased and black people could choose to become white. The novel begins with the central character Max Disher, a young, intelligent and ambitious black man, finding himself lonely and rejected ...
Published in 1920, “The Wreath” is the first book in the “Kristin Lavransdatter” trilogy by the Nobel Prize winning Norwegian author Sigrid Undset. Beloved for its historical and cultural accuracy, the stories follow the life of the main character, Kristin Lavransdatter, a fictional Norwegian woman living in the 14th century in the Gudbrand Valley in Norway. In “The Wreath” readers are introduced to Kristin at a young age at her family’s prosper ...
“From Superman to Man”, self-published in 1917 by J. A. Rogers, was the author’s first book and a powerful attack on racism and the ignorance that fuels it. Born Joel Augustus Rogers in Jamaica around 1880, Rogers emigrated to the United States in 1906 and eventually settled in Harlem, New York during the exciting artistic and cultural time of the Harlem Renaissance. In “From Superman to Man”, a black Pullman porter and a white racist Southern p ...
“The Diaries and Adam and Eve” by Mark Twain was originally published as two separate stories and were later combined at Twain’s request. “Extracts from Adam’s Diary” was published as a stand-alone book in 1904. In 1905, “Eve’s Diary” was published in the Christmas issue of “Harper’s Bazaar” and then as a book in 1906. With his signature wit and charm, Twain tells the separate stories of humanity’s biblical ancestors from the perspective of each ...
