Topics in Literature
Showing 313–336 of 367 results
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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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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…
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Wisdom of the Mythtellers – Second Edition
Mythtelling: the ideas and emotions of the Earth expressed through stories—stories distilled from millennia of treading warily in nature, rather than undertaking to rearrange her…
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Valperga
Originally published in 1823, Valperga is probably Mary Shelley’s most neglected novel. Set in 14th-century Italy, it represents a merging of historical romance and the…
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The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless
Prolific even by eighteenth-century standards, Eliza Haywood was the author of more than eighty titles, including short fiction, novels, periodicals, plays, poetry, and a political…
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Great Expectations
Originally published in serial form from December 1860 to August 1861, Great Expectations is the ‘autobiography’ of Pip, as he transformed from apprentice village blacksmith…