British Literature
Showing 97–120 of 423 resultsSorted by latest
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Salome
Salome is Oscar Wilde’s most experimental—and controversial—play. In its own time, the play, written in French, was described by a reviewer as “an arrangement in…
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Domestic Manners of the Americans
Frances Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans, complemented by Auguste Hervieu’s satiric illustrations, took the transatlantic world by storm in 1832. An unusual combination of…
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The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is best known for its complex and ambiguous portrait of the Jewish moneylender Shylock—and of European anti-Semitism. Fascinating in its engagement…
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Peru and Peruvian Tales
Helen Maria Williams’s epic poem Peru, first published in 1784, movingly recounts the story of Francisco Pizarro’s brutal conquest and exploitation of the Incas and…
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The Winter’s Tale
Neither comedy nor tragedy, The Winter’s Tale contains elements of each genre, and defies easy classification. It experiments, like many of Shakespeare’s late plays, with…
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The Princess and the Goblin and Other Fairy Tales
George MacDonald’s Victorian fairy tales transformed the genre of fantasy. His work also shaped the next generation of both children’s literature and modernism: C.S. Lewis…
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Le Morte Darthur: Selections
Arguably no medieval English literary work has had as far and wide a reach as Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur; among the many adaptations…
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The Tunnel
The Tunnel is the fourth volume in Dorothy Richardson’s novel series Pilgrimage. The series, set in the years 1893-1912, chronicles the life of Miriam Henderson,…
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Pointed Roofs
The first chapter-volume of Dorothy Richardson’s thirteen-volume novel series Pilgrimage, Pointed Roofs is a coming of age story. The protagonist is Miriam Henderson, seventeen years…
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The Female American – Second Edition
When it first appeared in 1767, this novel was called a “sort of second Robinson Crusoe; full of wonders.” Indeed, The Female American is an…
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In Memoriam
Published in 1850, In Memoriam won its author the Poet Laureateship of Britain and received widespread attention from critics and reviewers, as well as from…
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Robinson Crusoe, Modernized Edition
Robinson Crusoe is one of the most famous literary characters in history, and his story has spawned hundreds of retellings. Inspired by the life of…
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Twelfth Night – ISE – Ed. Carnegie & Houlahan
Twelfth Night has seldom been off the stage since Shakespeare’s day. It has been performed for its romantic high comedy and its boisterous low comedy;…
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The Dead and Other Stories
That James Joyce’s “The Dead” forms an extraordinary conclusion to his collection Dubliners, there can be no doubt. But as many have pointed out, “The…
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The Octoroon
Regarded by Bernard Shaw as a master of the theatre, Dion Boucicault was arguably the most important figure in drama in North America and in…
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Henry V
Upon opening their expensive new book in 1623, buyers of the folio collection of William Shakespeare’s plays were promised The Life of Henry the Fift.…
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Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Selected Poetry
A century ago Tennyson had begun to be dismissed as a poet whose work embodied everything the modern world was looking to leave behind. He…
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Old English Poetry: An Anthology
R.M. Liuzza’s Broadview edition of Beowulf was published at almost exactly the same time as Seamus Heaney’s; in reviewing the two together in July 2000…
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Tamburlaine the Great
Tamburlaine the Great, Part One and Part Two are the first plays that Christopher Marlowe wrote for London’s then new freestanding, open-air public playhouses. They…
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The Siege of Jerusalem
The Siege of Jerusalem (c. 1370-90 CE) is a difficult text. By twenty-first-century standards, it is gruesomely violent and offensive. It tells the story of…
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The Age of Authors
Eighteenth-century critics differed about almost everything, but if there was one point on which they almost universally agreed, it was that they were living through…
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Samson Agonistes and Other Poems
In Samson Agonistes, Milton’s last great work, he addresses questions that pressed insistently on the imagination of all who were unhappy with the changes wrought…
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A Child of the Jago
“Learn to read and write, learn all you can, learn cunning, spare nobody and stop at nothing. … Do your devilmost … for the Jago’s…
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Conclusion of the Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph
In 1761, Frances Sheridan published her novel The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph, which became a popular and widely praised example of the sentimental novel.…