Author Archives
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Analysis of Charlotte M. Yonge’s The Heir of Redclyffe
Supposedly, Charlotte M. Yonge was challenged by a friend to write a story about a hero with a flaw requiring reform who does not triumph through strength or talent, but rather proves his heroism through forbearance and forgiveness. She accepted… Read More ›
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Analysis of Sir Walter Scott’s The Heart of Midlothian
The second series in Sir Walter Scott’s Tales of My Landlord was to consist of one short tale and one novel, The Heart of Midlothian. The final product consisted only of the novel and was issued in four volumes, for… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Love Peacock’s Headlong Hall
Thomas Love Peacock published his first novel, Headlong Hall, anonymously, reflecting in it his dislike of progress and all of its “new-fangled” ideas. In what would become a regular approach for Peacock, Headlong Hall presents a satiric discussion in Platonic… Read More ›
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Analysis of Charles Reade’s Hard Cash
Upon beginning Charles Reade’s sequel to his novel Love Me Little, Love Me Long (1850), a reader might believe the book is purely romance. Mrs. Dodd and her children, Edward and Julia, keep one another company in the absence of… Read More ›
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Analysis of Samuel Lover’s Handy Andy
Samuel Lover was best known as a miniaturist painter and a dramatist, often performing his own written sketches and stories. Handy Andy remains his best-known novel, probably his only work to have remained palatable to later audiences. Lover writes ironically… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s The Hand of Ethelberta
First published as a serial in The Cornhill Magazine between July 1875 and May 1876, The Hand of Ethelberta represents Thomas Hardy’s sole published attempt at humor. Whether because his reading public did not expect him to write humor, or… Read More ›
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Analysis of R. S. Surtees’s Handley Cross
R. S. Surtees creates a satire of the hunting set in his novel Handley Cross. Surtees, an avid hunter, sportsman, and sportswriter, knew his topic well and adds to reader enjoyment by openly making fun of his own passion. He… Read More ›
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Analysis of Sir Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering
Sir Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering makes the most of coincidence and mistaken identity to shape an 18th-century Scottish adventure based on a Scottish ballad. Early in his career, Scott heard that a Galloway excise officer named Joseph Train had begun… Read More ›
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Analysis of G. A. Lawrence’s Guy Livingstone
G. A. Lawrence’s Guy Livingstone represents a briefly popular trend toward “manly” fiction. Its protagonist, as full of life and as hard as his surname suggests, embodies the masculine idea of strength unmitigated by any subtlety, particularly not in the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
Jonathan Swift likely began writing Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships five years before its publication. Later known simply as Gulliver’s Travels,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Charles Reade’s Griffith Gaunt
Charles Reade, a playwright as well as a novelist, became well known for his attacks against human injustice and his pleas for compassion through his fiction, of which Griffith Gaunt became a strong example. Reade’s fiction proved melodramatic and dealt… Read More ›
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Analysis of Robert S. Hichens’s The Green Carnation
When Robert S. Hichens published his roman à clef, or novel with a key, The Green Carnation, he joined others in mimicking the famous style of Oscar Wilde, arguably England’s best-known writer at the end of the 19th century. Wilde,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Emily Lawless’s Grania
Emily Lawless’s fourth novel, Grania: The Story of an Island, published in two volumes, was eagerly awaited by her readership. Like her third novel, Hurrish (1886), Grania focused on a poor Irish family and was intent on leading its readers… Read More ›
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Analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
The story of the events that led Mary Shelley to write her Frankenstein story is now almost as well known as the plot itself. The tale began to take shape in 1816 as a result of ghost-story-telling sessions held among… Read More ›
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Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage
First published in The Cornhill Magazine from January 1860 through April 1861, Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage was the fourth in his Barsetshire novels sequence. That sequence had opened in 1855 with The Warden and would conclude with The Last Chronicle… Read More ›
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Analysis of Robert Buchanan’s Foxglove Manor
When Robert Buchanan wrote Foxglove Manor, he had experienced years of poverty, worsened by the illness of his wife. Her death in 1881 followed the failure of his journal, Light, leaving him penniless and desperate for funds. In order to… Read More ›
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FORMALISM
Also known as rhetorical criticism and New Criticism, formalism constitutes one of the many lenses through which critics view and interpret literature. A formalist critic pays attention to the form of a literary work, including aspects such as plot, character,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Maurice Hewlett’s The Forest Lovers
The Forest Lovers was the first of several romance novels by Maurice Hewlett, who began writing of knights in medieval settings at a time when such books were at the height of popularity. He prepared readers for all the hallmarks… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy’s fourth novel, Far from the Madding Crowd, became his first commercially successful venture, allowing him to leave his vocation of architecture and write full time. First published as a serial in The Cornhill Magazine from January through December… Read More ›
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Analysis of Marmion Savage’s The Falcon Family
Marmion Savage’s first novel, The Falcon Family; or, Young Ireland, satirized parasitic socialites, traditionalists within the Church of England, and the Young Ireland Party, a group of extremists who campaigned for Ireland’s independence. Published anonymously, the novel proved popular, although… Read More ›
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