Topics in Literature
Showing 73–96 of 448 resultsSorted by latest
-
Manfred
The quintessential depiction of the Byronic hero is accompanied in this edition by a substantial selection of contextual materials, including Byron’s original draft of the…
-
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
This edition brings together Tolstoy’s 1886 masterpiece and several shorter works that connect with it in thought-provoking ways. The stories are accompanied by a fascinating…
-
The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman
The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman (1778) tells the story of a fictional midshipman abandoned in Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand, after a battle with Maori…
-
Civil Disobedience
In 1848, Henry David Thoreau twice delivered lectures in Concord, Massachusetts, on “the relationship of the individual to the state.” The essay now known as…
-
Billy Budd
“Is it the intention of law-makers that good men shall be hung ever?” asked Henry David Thoreau. The question has never been academic, but in…
-
The Half-Caste
Dinah Mulock Craik’s The Half-Caste concerns the coming-of-age of its title character, the mixed-race Zillah Le Poer, daughter of an English merchant and an Indian…
-
The Life of Mr Richard Savage
The Life of Mr Richard Savage was the first important book by a then-unknown Grub Street hack, Samuel Johnson. Richard Savage (1697—1743) was a poet,…
-
Pudd’nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins
The two narratives published together in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins are overflowing with spectacular events. Twain shows us…
-
Clotel
As nearly all of its reviewers pointed out, Clotel was an audience-minded performance, an effort to capitalize on the post—Uncle Tom’s Cabin “mania” for abolitionist…
-
Laon and Cythna
Laon and Cythna is one of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s most celebrated, and most controversial, literary works. At once philosophical treatise and love story, it follows…
-
The Garies and Their Friends
Unjustly overlooked in its own time, Frank J. Webb’s novel of pre-Civil War Philadelphia weaves together action, humor, and social commentary. The Garies and Their…
-
The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World
First published in 1666, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle’s Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World is the first fictional portrayal of women…
-
The Sorceress of the Strand and Other Stories
In 1898, The Strand Magazine, one of the most influential publications of the Victorian fin de siècle, deemed best-selling author and editor L.T. Meade a…
-
Colonel Jack
Long dismissed by critics as a novel of merely historical interest, Colonel Jack is one of Daniel Defoe’s most entertaining, revealing, and complex works. It…
-
Introduction to Indigenous Literary Criticism in Canada
Introduction to Indigenous Literary Criticism in Canada collects 26 seminal critical essays indispensable to our understanding of the rapidly growing field of Indigenous literatures. The…
-
Civilization and Its Discontents
In Civilization and Its Discontents Freud extends and clarifies his analysis of religion; analyzes human unhappiness in contemporary civilization; ratifies the critical importance of the…
-
Ann Veronica
H.G. Wells’s 1909 novel centres on the coming of age of the spirited Ann Veronica, who runs away from her sheltered suburban home to live…
-
Black Beauty
Continuously in print and translated into multiple languages since it was first published, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty is a classic work of children’s literature and…
-
Mandeville
William Godwin’s Mandeville was described as his best novel by Percy Shelley, who sent a copy to Lord Byron, and it was immediately recognized by…
-
On Perpetual Peace
Kant’s landmark essay “On Perpetual Peace” is as timely, relevant, and inspiring today as when it was first written over 200 years ago. In it…
-
The Western Captive and Other Indian Stories
This edition recovers Elizabeth Oakes Smith’s successful 1842 novel The Western Captive; or, The Times of Tecumseh and includes many of Oakes Smith’s other writings…
-
Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African
A contemporary critic described Ignatius Sancho as “what is very uncommon for men of his complexion, A man of letters.” A London shopkeeper, former butler,…
-
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Third Edition
First published in 1886 as a “shilling shocker,” Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde takes the basic struggle between good and evil and adds to the…
-
Beautiful Joe
One of the first animal viewpoint novels published in North America, Margaret Marshall Saunders’s Beautiful Joe tells the story of an abused dog and his…