Topics in Literature
Showing 169–192 of 371 resultsSorted by latest
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Candide
The philosophical problem of evil—that a supposedly good God could allow terrible human suffering—troubled the minds of eighteenth-century thinkers as it troubles us today. Voltaire’s…
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The Man in the Moone
Arguably the first work of science fiction in English, Francis Godwin’s The Man in the Moone was published in 1638, pseudonymously and posthumously. The novel,…
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The Basset Table
The Basset Table follows the fortunes of Lady Reveller, who runs a table where her friends play the card game basset, and her struggle to…
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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Anne Brontë’s second and last novel was widely and contentiously reviewed upon its 1848 publication, in part because its subject matter domestic violence, alcoholism, women’s…
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Autobiographical Sketches
Annie Wood Besant (1847-1933) was a problematic and notorious figure in Victorian England, questioning and then breaking from the Anglican Church to become an atheist,…
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Michael Field: The Poet
“Michael Field” was the literary pseudonym of two women, Katharine Bradley (1846-1914) and her niece Edith Cooper (1862-1913). The women were poets, playwrights, diarist, and…
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The Island of Doctor Moreau
A classic of science fiction and a dark meditation on Darwinian thought in the late Victorian period, The Island of Doctor Moreau explores the possibility…
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin
With its gripping plot and pungent dialogue, Uncle Tom’s Cabin offers readers today a passionate portrait of a nation on the verge of disunion and…
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Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater remains its author’s most famous and frequently-read work and one of the period’s central statements about both the power and…
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The Last of the Mohicans
The Last of the Mohicans enjoyed tremendous popularity both in America and abroad, offering its readers not only a variation on the immensely popular traditional…
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Reuben and Rachel
Susanna Haswell Rowson, a popular and prolific writer, actress, and educator in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, had a truly transatlantic life and…
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The Diary of a Nobody
The Diary of a Nobody, the spoof diary of Charles Pooter, a London clerk, first appeared as a book in 1892 and has never been…
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The Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan
In 1810, the orientalist scholar Charles Stewart translated and published an extraordinary travel narrative written by a Persian-speaking Indian poet and scholar named Mirza Abu…
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The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson
In 1754 the British adventurer, compiler, and novelist Edward Kimber published The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson. Rooted in a tale…
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Euphemia
Charlotte Lennox’s Euphemia, published in 1790 at the end of her professional career, is an extraordinary account of pre-Revolutionary America from a woman’s perspective. Constructed…
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Lydia Sigourney
Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791–1865) was the most widely read and respected pre-Civil War American woman poet in the English-speaking world. In a half-century career, Sigourney…
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Prisons and Prisoners
Prisons and Prisoners is the autobiography of aristocratic suffragette Constance Lytton. In it, she details her militant actions in the struggle to gain the vote…
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The History of Pompey the Little
Pompey the Little, the canine narrator of this story, is a uniquely observant and witty guide to eighteenth-century culture, both high and low. In the…
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Nightwalkers
This anthology makes available for the first time a selection of narratives by and about prostitutes in the eighteenth century. These memoirs, some written by…
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The Coming Race
The Coming Race is the crowning achievement of the genre of hollow earth fiction, in which a hero makes a perilous journey underground and discovers…
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A Sunless Heart
In A Sunless Heart, Edith Johnstone establishes a feverish atmosphere for her novel’s story of emotional and physical hardship and the power of bonds between…
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Working-Class Women Poets in Victorian Britain
Though working-class women in the nineteenth century included many accomplished and prolific poets, their work has often been neglected by critics and readers in favour…
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Ramona
Ramona has often been compared to Uncle Tom’s Cabin for its influence on American social policy, and this is the only edition available that presents…
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Sophia
The first novel to be written for serial publication by a major female author, Sophia follows the story of two siblings, the virtuous and well-read…