Published as volume seven in Snow’s 11-volume series Strangers and Brothers, the events of this story actually place it immediately after the action of the introductory novel of the series. The year is 1927 as the story opens, with the… Read More ›
literary analysis
Analysis of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange
An innovative and violent three-part novel that formed the basis for an equally provocative 1971 film adaptation of the same name, A Clockwork Orange portrays a dystopian near-future world. Alex, a teenager who leads a small gang on violent forays… Read More ›
Analysis of Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day
Using a third-person omniscient point of view, this four-part novel follows the four siblings of the Das family of Old Delhi. The eldest son is Raja; now living in Hyderabad and married to a Muslim woman, Benazir, he has become… Read More ›
Analysis of Anthony Powell’s A Buyer’s Market
The second of twelve volumes in Powell’s roman-fleuve entitled A Dance to the Music of Time, this novel continues the first-person point of view narration of Nicholas Jenkins, a writer, as he enters the social whirl of debutante parties in… Read More ›
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 ›
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 Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy
A Robin Hood figure, the factual individual named Rob Roy, formed the basis for Sir Walter Scott’s historical fiction Rob Roy. The real Rob Roy (literally “Red Robert,” for his red hair) was a drover who became an outlaw, leading… Read More ›
Analysis of Sir Walter Scott’s Quentin Durward
Sir Walter Scott’s Quentin Durward was one of three novels Scott issued in 1823. The first edition was printed in 10,000 copies, the sheets carried in bales by steamship to London on May 16, 1823, where binders worked the night… Read More ›
Analysis of Charlotte Brontë’s The Professor
Although written in 1846, Charlotte Brontë’s first novel, The Professor, would not be published until after her 1855 death. Clearly autobiographical, it served as a model for her later, more fully developed version of her experiences in Brussels as a… Read More ›
Analysis of James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, long acknowledged as the best of the many works by James Hogg (1770–1835), focuses on the religious and political conflict in Scotland at the end of the 18th century. The first portion,… Read More ›
Analysis of Anthony Trollope’s The Prime Minister
The Prime Minister took its place as Anthony Trollope’s fifth book in the Palliser sequence. It first appeared as a serial between November 1875 and June 1876, before its issue in four volumes. While many of Trollope’s contemporaries, including Henry… Read More ›
Analysis of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady
Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady appeared first as installments in The Atlantic Monthly (1880–81), where readers recognized in its protagonist, Isabel Archer, a more mature version of the title character from his earlier novella, Daisy Miller (1879). Like… Read More ›
Analysis of Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Redux
Anthony Trollope published the fourth entry in his Palliser series, Phineas Redux, first as a serial in The Graphic between July 1873 and January 1874. It appeared seven years after its predecessor, Phineas Finn, which introduced the adventurous protagonist named… Read More ›
Analysis of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist
Likely Charles Dickens’s best-known novel, Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy’s Progress, first appeared in serial form in Bentley’s Miscellany between February 1837 and April 1839. The author’s third novel, it would later become the most dramatized of any fictional… Read More ›
Analysis of Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop
As one of Charles Dickens’s early works, The Old Curiosity Shop, first published in the periodical Master Humphrey’s Clock from April 1840 to February 1841, was a favorite among his contemporary readers. That favorable reception changed over time, as readers… Read More ›
Analysis of George Gissing’s The Odd Women
As did most novels by George Gissing, The Odd Women focused on working-class poor in an uncaring society. The novel opens with six happy sisters, living with their widower physician father. He believes that women should not have to worry… Read More ›
Analysis of Joseph Conrad’s The Nigger of the Narcissus
In what critics label Joseph Conrad’s first accomplished work, he produces a text at once revered and criticized. Conrad asked W. E. Henley, poet and editor of The New Review, to publish the novel in his magazine. Conrad hoped that… Read More ›
Analysis of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae
Robert Louis Stevenson found himself attracted to the subject matter of his novel The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale due to his interest in the years following Jacobite Scotland’s 1745 rebellion. He also drew inspiration from Captain Marryat, commenting,… Read More ›
Analysis of George Meredith’s Lord Ormont and His Aminta
When George Meredith wrote Lord Ormont and His Aminta, he focused on a theme he would use again: incompatibility in marriage. Many critics considered it a slight work; some felt Meredith wrote it during a break after the far more… Read More ›
Analysis of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy
In one of history’s best-beloved novels for children, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Frances Hodgson Burnett emphasizes the importance of love over material wealth. Before the birth of the little lord, Cedric Errol, his aristocratic father, Captain Cedric, marries beneath himself, angering… Read More ›
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