Author Archives
-
Analysis of Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
As Anne Brontë worked on her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, she had in mind the terrible ravages alcohol had inflicted on her brother, Branwell. When her sister Charlotte took exception to her portrayal due to its uncomfortable… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Benjamin Disraeli’s Tancred
With Coningsby, or the New Generation (1844), and Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845), Benjamin Disraeli’s Tancred, or the New Crusade made up his most successful and famous trilogy of works. All deal with individuals caught in the conflict of… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Sir Walter Scott’s The Talisman
Sir Walter Scott introduces The Talisman, second in his group of books comprising his Tales of the Crusade, explaining how he selected the topic for his novel. The Talisman, as indicated by the title, focuses on a charm or amulet… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities
Among the great Charles Dickens’s final novels, A Tale of Two Cities well represents his maturity as a novelist. Like his previous works, this novel investigates man’s capacity for inhumanity. However, its emphasis on the cause for the abuses men… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil, or the Two Nations
The two nations to which Benjamin Disraeli referred in his Sybil, or the Two Nations did not relate to governments. It referred rather to the wealthy class and the working class, the rich and the poor. His interest in the… Read More ›
-
Suffrage Movement
Almost since its inception, fiction has focused on social problems, including the rights of women. By its nature, art reflects its era, and much fiction proved to be political, supporting the rights of women and other marginalized groups, either overtly… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A study of man’s duality, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde vies with his Treasure Island (1883) for his most popular work. He wrote the piece while recovering from a hemorrhage, a nightmare having… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm
While Olive Schreiner was born and lived for years in South Africa, she remains important to the British writing tradition as the first colonial novelist held important by British readers. She brought a manuscript with her when, at age 26,… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Anthony Trollope’s The Small House at Allington
The fifth novel in Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire sequence, The Small House at Allington introduced Lily Dale, the protagonist who would become his readers’ favorite. It is a sad tale, for which Trollope makes no excuse, although he acts more tenderly… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Anthony Trollope’s Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite
First published as a serial in Macmillan’s Magazine between May and December 1870, Anthony Trollope’s Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite differs from much of his fiction. Rather than constructing a large number of “portraits” as he normally did, Trollope sought… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story
In Elizabeth Inchbald’s traditional story of forbidden love, a Catholic priest named Dorriforth loves his Protestant ward, Miss Milner, a character who in her youth had been indulged “to the extreme of folly.” Inchbald’s career as an actress informs the… Read More ›
-
Analysis of George Eliot’s Silas Marner
Generations of readers continue to enjoy the appealing story of an old miser who regains his humanity through the love of a lost child in George Eliot’s Silas Marner. In typical Eliot fashion, the novel reveals the tensions in a… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published the second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, to little fanfare. A Study in Scarlet, Doyle’s first novel to feature the superdetective and his friend and chronicler, Dr. Watson, appeared in 1887. However, the… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Suffragist Beatrice Harraden’s Ships That Pass in the Night
Suffragist Beatrice Harraden had written short stories and one novel before publishing Ships That Pass in the Night, but that work brought her fame as a writer. An example of sentimental fiction, it depicts the doomed love of two patients… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Henry Rider Haggard’s She: A History of Adventure
Like Henry Rider Haggard’s other romance novels set in Africa, including King Solomon’s Mines (1885) and Allan Quatermain (1887), She: A History of Adventure is based in part on Haggard’s experience in that country. As assistant to Sir Henry Bulwer,… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey
Published only a few weeks before Laurence Sterne’s death, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Mr. Yorick featured a parson character made famous in Sterne’s first novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, the title later shortened… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Mary Brunton’s Self Control
Had her short life not ended tragically by death in childbirth, Mary Brunton might have greatly expanded her volume of work, which influenced writers as important as Jane Austen. Austen praised Brunton’s first novel, Self Control, wondering in print whether… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Mary Delarivière Manley’s The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians
The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians proved to be Mary Delarivière Manley’s first success, following the unimpressive productions of two of her dramas. Her story proved popular enough to follow with a sequel, also in 1705. A… Read More ›
-
Analysis of George Meredith’s Sandra Belloni
George Meredith first published his third novel, Sandra Belloni, under the title Emilia in England. The title character is a singer, discovered while singing in the woods by the three Pole daughters—Arabella, Cornelia, Adela—and their brother Wilfrid, an army officer… Read More ›
-
Analysis of Jane Austen’s Sanditon
Begun in 1817, when Jane Austen had become ill with what researchers believe to be Addison’s disease, Sanditon remains incomplete. It promised to resemble Austen’s previous novels in its focus on the relationships of the fashionable. However, it also promised… Read More ›
You must be logged in to post a comment.