From preface: In naming this second part of The Forsyte Chronicles "A Modern Comedy" the word Comedy is stretched, perhaps as far as the word Saga was stretched to cover the first part. And yet, what but a comedic view can be taken, what but...
The dehumanizing effects of heavy industrialization are given form and bitter indictment in this Dickens novel. Raised by a hard, pragmatic father concerned only with sterile principles, Tom and Louisa Gradgrind grow up with little imagination,...
Henry James’s admiration for “this masterly little novel” has been echoed throughout the twentieth century by readers of Pierre et Jean. It marked a turning point in the development of French fiction, situated as it is between traditional...
A gripping love story, in which the classic love triangle takes a very untraditional form. The plot is centered on an Estonian university student who falls in love with a young Baltic German woman. The Baltic Germans had lost their aristocratic...
Considered a masterpiece, this story was written in 1921, and is set in the China of 1911: the period of the old-democratic revolution. It concerns the tragedy of Ah Q, a farm laborer who suffers a lifetime of humiliation and persecution, dreams...