First published in 1912, G. K. Chesterton’s “Manalive” is the fascinating and incredible story of Innocent Smith, a man who can be described as a “holy fool”. Innocent arrives at Beacon House, a London boarding establishment, and breathes new life into the residents with his games and antics. All in one day he creates the “High Court of Beacon”, decides to elope with one of the residents, and convinces another lodger to declare his love for the ...
First published in 1903, “The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days” by American author Andy Adams is the fascinating and captivating tale of an 1882 cattle drive of 3,000 head of cattle up the Great Western Trail from the Rio Grande to just south of the Canadian border in Montana. While written as a fictional narrative, “The Log of a Cowboy” is rich with authentic detail of the old west, due largely to the fact that the author Adam ...
The first novel of English magistrate Henry Fielding, “Joseph Andrews” was written in 1742 as a complete extension of the author’s pamphlet “Shamela”. The latter contains an impressively coarse parody of “Pamela”, the Samuel Richardson novel that rewards a servant girl with marriage for protecting her virtue. Shamela, however, utilizes a coy and artificial modesty to procure for herself a husband of wealth. Fielding went on to write “Joseph Andr ...
“The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade” is the 1857 novel by Herman Melville, his ninth and final work. It tells the interlocking stories of a group of travelers aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi River making their way towards New Orleans. Emulating the style of Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales”, the novel centers on its title character, the Confidence-Man, a mysterious figure who sneaks aboard the steamboat and successively tests the confidence ...
H. Rider Haggard’s “She” was wildly popular when first published in England in 1887. The novel follows Leo Vancey and Horace Holly on an expedition to Africa as they encounter many serious and dangerous trials, including shipwreck, sickness, and hostile natives, before discovering a legendary lost city in a system of underground caverns. It is here that they meet Ayesha, or She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, a white queen who is wise, beautiful, terrible i ...
Written in just fifty-two days in 1839, “The Charterhouse of Parma” has since become known as one of Stendhal’s finest works. Evidence of haste is infrequently apparent in this remarkable story, which follows the eventful life of the young Italian nobleman Fabrizio del Dongo. From his childhood in the family castle by Lake Como to the battlefields of Waterloo, Fabrizio proves himself charmingly headstrong and painfully naive. Upon returning inju ...
First serialized in the “Christian Union”, and then published as a novel in 1884, “Ramona”, by Helen Hunt Jackson, is the fictional story of its title character, a part Scottish and part Indian orphan girl who endures great discrimination while growing up in the late 19th century. Immensely popular when it first appeared, “Ramona” is set in Southern California shortly after the Mexican-American War and is well known for its depiction of Mexican ...
“The Rise of Silas Lapham” is William Dean Howells’ 1885 novel which tells the story of its title character, who inherits his father’s paint business and subsequently makes a great deal of money. Silas moves his family from their home in rural Vermont to Boston in order to try and improve his social position. The consequences of his ambitions for his family are both humorous and tragic. He attempts to see his younger and lovelier daughter marrie ...
