Topics in Literature
Showing 313–336 of 372 resultsSorted by latest
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Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen’s first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, is a witty satire of the sentimental novel, a popular genre in Britain throughout the 1790s and…
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David Copperfield
In a preface to this novel, Dickens described David Copperfield as his “favorite child,” and the story has remained among the favorites of Dickens’ readers,…
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The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano was a key work of nineteenth-century slave narrative autobiography. Written and published by Equiano, a former…
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Plays on the Passions
Baillie’s eminently readable dramas stand at the crossroads of the Scottish Enlightenment and early Romanticism, and compellingly engage with questions of women’s rights. Her exploration…
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Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
William Godwin’s memoir of his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, marks a transition in Godwin’s philosophical development from extreme rationalism to the recognition of the moral importance…
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The Time Machine
Wells was interested in the implications of evolutionary theory on the future of human beings at the biological, sociological, and cultural levels, and The Time…
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The Tragedy of Mariam
First published in 1613, The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry is probably the first play in English known to have been authored…
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Lord Jim
One of Joseph Conrad’s greatest novels, Lord Jim brilliantly combines adventure and analysis. Haunted by the memory of a moment of lost nerve during a…
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Aleta Dey
Francis Marion Beynon’s autobiographical novel Aleta Dey is increasingly recognised as a small classic of early twentieth-century fiction. Beynon was a journalist and feminist much…
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Caleb Williams
William Godwin was one of the most popular novelists of the Romantic era; P.B. Shelley praised him, Byron drew heavily on his narrative style, and…
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Evelina
The reputation of Frances Burney (1752-1840) was largely established with her first novel, Evelina. Published anonymously in 1778, it is an epistolary account of a…
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East Lynne
Lady Isabel Carlyle, a beautiful and refined young woman, leaves her hard-working but neglectful lawyer-husband and her infant children to elope with an aristocratic suitor.…
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Paper Bodies
Margaret Cavendish was one of the most subversive and entertaining writers of the seventeenth century. She invented new genres, challenged gender roles, and critiqued the…
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Mary Robinson: Selected Poems
Mary Robinson’s work has begun again to assume a central place in discussions of Romanticism. A writer of the 1790’s—a decade which saw the birth…
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Jude the Obscure
When Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure appeared in 1895, it immediately caused scandal and controversy. Its frank treatment of Jude’s sexual relationships with Arabella and…
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Ormond
Brown is often called the first American novelist. Originally published in 1799, Ormond was inspired by enlightenment philosophers and Gothic writers. The novel engages with…
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The Moonstone
Intrigue, investigations, thievery, drugs and murder all make an appearance in Collins’s classic who-done-it, The Moonstone. Published in serial form in 1868, it was inspired…
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The Adventures of Eovaai
Haywood’s novel is the story of the beautiful Princess Eovaai. Groomed for the throne by her father, who teaches her Lockean notions of liberty, she…
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Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah
In Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, Elizabeth Hamilton engages directly with the major issues of her day, from colonialism and the “New…
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The Rover – Second Edition
Increasingly Aphra Behn—the first woman professional writer—is also regarded as one of the most important writers of the 17th century. The Rover, her most famous…
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Secresy – Second Edition
Secresy was Eliza Fenwick’s only work for adults—a fact that may help to explain why this extraordinary novel has been so thoroughly overlooked. On one…
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Coming Soon
The Victim of Prejudice – Second Edition
Mary Hays was an outspoken Radical intellectual in the turbulent decade of the 1790’s. She argued vehemently for the need to recognise the moral and…