Author Archives
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Analysis of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray first published his novel Vanity Fair as a serial between January 1847 and July 1848. He subtitled the book “A Novel Without a Hero,” signaling a new type of novel. Having suffered bitterly himself due to what… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree
Thomas Hardy at last attracted public notice as a novelist with his tale of pastoral simplicity, Under the Greenwood Tree, or the Mellstock Quire. It was his third novel. He had destroyed the first and written a second, Desperate Memories… Read More ›
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Analysis of G. A. Henty’s Under Drake’s Flag
G. A. Henty’s works today remain useful as examples of 19th-century children’s literature for boys of a chauvinistic bent. Overbearingly patriotic, the novels prove bombastic to modern readers. However, in Henty’s day, novels such as Under Drake’s Flag captured the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas
According to Sheridan Le Fanu, he had published a shorter form of his novel Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Haugh under the title “A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess”; reports as to where the story appeared… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s Two on a Tower
First appearing as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly between May and December of 1882, Thomas Hardy’s Two on a Tower has been considered an extreme example of Hardy’s employing enormous settings, in this case the universe, to minimalize the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw
One of Henry James’s shortest novels, The Turn of the Screw first appeared in Collier’s Weekly. When published in a volume titled The Two Magics, it appeared with another story titled Covering End. Although brief, it captured readers’ imagination and… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s The Trumpet-Major
Judged the most romantic book written by Thomas Hardy, The Trumpet-Major ran first as a serial in the publication Good Words from January to December in 1880. While the character referred to by the title does not find romance, several… Read More ›
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Analysis of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s The Astonishing History of Troy Town
Although works by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch faded from the public’s favor soon after his death in 1944, they had been extremely popular in the author’s day. When his publishers Messrs J. M. Dent chose to mark the centenary of “Q,”… Read More ›
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Analysis of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
Dr. Samuel Johnson once claimed that “nothing odd can last.” As an example, he cited Laurence Sterne’s novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, which had temporarily fallen from favor. Over two centuries later, that same novel may well… Read More ›
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Analysis of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island
First published as a serial in the magazine Young Folks between October 1881 and January 1882, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island would be labeled a masterpiece of storytelling by notables including author Henry James. Stevenson began the story in 1881… Read More ›
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Analysis of George Meredith’s The Tragic Comedians
George Meredith based his novel The Tragic Comedians on an account of a love affair that became famous in social circles of his day. In the opinion of later critics, his use of the true account stifled the ingenuity apparent… Read More ›
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Analysis of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones
One of fiction’s more irreverent and likable characters, the title character of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones has entertained readers and viewers of the multiple dramatic forms he later assumed for centuries. What has become familiar to 21st-century readers proved an… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s School Days
In Tom Brown’s School Days, Thomas Hughes established a long-lasting model for stories about the education of the young. The novel is highly autobiographical, demonstrating how much Hughes enjoyed and benefited from his years attending Rugby, made famous by the… Read More ›
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Analysis of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine
H. G. Wells had written the basis for his brief novel The Time Machine in a series of stories published in The Science Schools Journal in 1888. Labeled a dystopia by some critics, the story acts as a warning to… Read More ›
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Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
Lewis Carroll wrote the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and continued to alter forever children’s literature by omitting any moralizing from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, just as he had in the original Alice book…. Read More ›
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Analysis of Anthony Trollope’s The Three Clerks
By the time Anthony Trollope published his autobiographical The Three Clerks, he had established himself as a novelist who resisted the didactic fiction on which his mother, Frances Trollope, had made her name. He did not shy away from tales… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, originally subtitled A Pure Woman, is about Tess d’Urberville’s tragic dilemma between her seducer, Alec, and her named husband, Angel, both of whom intrude into her life. In epic form, Hardy describes Tess’s… Read More ›
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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 ›
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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 ›
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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 ›
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