English Studies

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  John Halifax, Gentleman

  This 1856 novel, one of the most beloved of the Victorian period, follows the life, from childhood to death, of an orphaned boy who grows…

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  Shakespeare’s Heroines

  First published in 1832, Shakespeare’s Heroines is a unique hybrid of Shakespeare criticism, women’s rights activism, and conduct literature. Jameson’s collection of readings of female…

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  The Governess

  Published in 1749, the story of Mrs. Teachum and the nine pupils who make up her “little female academy” is widely recognized as the first…

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  Mrs Warren’s Profession

  One of Bernard Shaw’s early plays of social protest, Mrs Warren’s Profession places the protagonist’s decision to become a prostitute in the context of the…

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  The House of Mirth

  One of Edith Wharton’s most accomplished social satires, this novel tells the story of the beautiful but impoverished New York socialite Lily Bart, whose refusal…

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  Adam Bede

  The seemingly peaceful country village of Hayslope is the setting for this ambitious first novel by one of the nineteenth century’s great novelists. With sympathy,…

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  Obi

  “Three-Fingered Jack,” the protagonist of this 1800 novel, is based on the escaped slave and Jamaican folk hero Jack Mansong, who was believed to have…

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  Moths

  First published in 1880, Moths addresses such Victorian taboos as adultery, domestic violence, and divorce in vivid and flamboyant prose. The beautiful young heroine, Vere…

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  The Imperialist

  Set in the fictional Ontario town of Elgin at the beginning of the twentieth century, this 1904 novel was in its own time addressed largely…

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  Kim

  Kim tells the story of Kimball O’Hara, an orphaned Irish boy growing up in late nineteenth-century India, and his quest for identity as he strives…

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  Oliver Twist

  Charles Dickens’s famous second novel recounts the story of a boy born in the workhouse and raised in an infant farm as he tries to…

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  The Way We Live Now

  The Way We Live Now—regarded by many as Anthony Trollope’s greatest novel—encompasses in its broad scope much of the business, political, social, and literary life…

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  Memoirs of a Coxcomb

  Published in 1751, John Cleland’s second novel (after the notorious Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) is a witty and complex portrait of aristocratic British…

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  Romola

  The most exotic of George Eliot’s works, Romola recounts the story of the famous religious leader Savonarola in Florence at the time of Machiavelli and…

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  Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

  Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, first published in 1785, is still one of the most widely read and influential works of moral philosophy.…

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  The Broadview Anthology of Drama: Concise Edition

  The Broadview Anthology of Drama: Plays from the Western Theatre, concise edition is an overview of Western drama that offers chronological range and artistic variety…

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  Moll Flanders

  Born to a petty thief in London’s notorious Newgate prison and determined to make her way in a rapacious and materialistic society, Moll Flanders recounts…

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  Nature and Art

  Nature and Art commands a central place in the history of the English Jacobin novel. Published in 1796, the story explores the opposition between the…

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  Anne of Green Gables

  L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables is one of the best-known and most enduringly popular novels of the twentieth century. First published in 1908, it…

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  Guanya Pau

  The first book of long fiction by an African to be published in English, this novel tells the story of a young woman of the…

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  The Scarlet Letter – Second Edition

  Hawthorne’s story of the disgraced Hester Prynne (who must wear a scarlet “A” as the mark of her adultery), of her illegitimate child, Pearl, and…

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  Celestina

  Published here for the first time in a modern edition, Charlotte Smith’s third novel is both rivetingly plotted and unique for its time in its…

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  Illustrations of Political Economy

  Published in 1832, Illustrations of Political Economy established Harriet Martineau as both a successful and controversial author and a pioneer of nineteenth-century “social problem” writing.…

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  The Vagabond

  First published in 1799, George Walker’s The Vagabond was an immediate popular success. Offering a vitriolic critique of post-Bastille Jacobinism and sansculotte-style mob rule, its…