Heart of Darkness is based upon Joseph Conrad’s own experience in the Congo; “it is,” as he remarks in his 1916 author’s note to Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories, “experience pushed a little (
The Invisible Man stands out as possessing one of the most complicated heroes, or perhaps anti-heroes, in literature. Griffin is not a naïve dreamer such as Moreau’s Pendick or a hapless victim of cir
Herman Melville’s The Piazza Tales is the only collection of short fiction that he published in his lifetime, and it includes his two most famous short stories, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and “Benito C
The Middle English romance of Richard Coeur de Lion transforms the historical Richard I of England—a Frenchman by upbringing, who spent only four months of his reign in England, and who once joked tha
Edgar Huntly is a compelling tale of sleepwalking, murder, and frontier violence set in rural Pennsylvania in the 1780s. His memory and wits shaken by the scenes he has witnessed, ordinary republican
Published in the bicentenary year of Frederick Douglass’s birth in 2018 and in a Black Lives Matter era, this anniversary edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, pre
John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure has been described as the first erotic novel in English and is perhaps the greatest example of the genre. From the outset it was mired in disrepute. Clela
From the predatory same-sex desire in “Carmilla” to the ghostly hallucinations in “Green Tea,” the five supernatural stories in In a Glass Darkly reflect a profound and deeply disturbing uncertainty a
Frances E. W. Harper’s fourth novel follows the life of the beautiful Iola Leroy to tell the story of black families in slavery, during the Civil War, and after Emancipation. Iola Leroy adopts and ada
Composed in French in twelfth-century England, these twelve brief verse narratives center on the joys, sorrows, and complications of love affairs in a context that blends the courtly culture of tourna
The early seventeenth-century traveler Thomas Coryate’s five-month tour of Western Europe culminated in Coryats Crudities, one of the strangest travelogues published in early modern England. A charism
Fully named Discourse on the Method for Reasoning Well and for Seeking Truth in the Sciences, this work offers the most complete presentation and defense of Rene Descartes’ method of intellectual inqu
Geoffrey Chaucer’s most significant literary accomplishment may well be Troilus and Criseyde, a single, profoundly philosophical narrative of a tragic love affair. Set in ancient Troy and telling the
First published in 1666, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle’s Description of a New Blazing World is the first fictional portrayal of women and the new science. InBlazing World, Cavendish depicts
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 Friends tells the story of two famili
Percy Bysshe’s Shelley’s narrative poem Laon and Cythna is about a failed revolution—or is it?Laon and Cythna was quickly suppressed by Shelley’s publisher, who feared he would be prosecuted for its r
Published five years after William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s popular collectionLyrical Ballads, Wordsworth’s Poems, in Two Volumes shocked readers and drew scornful reviews.Poems was a
E. Pauline Johnson, also known as Tekahionwake, is remarkable as one of a very few early North American Indigenous poets and fiction writers. Most Indigenous writers of her time were men educated for
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, we find a forward-looking vision of a world respectful
The two narrativespublished together in The Tragedy ofPudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy of Those Extraordinary Twins areoverflowing with spectacular events. Twain shows us conjoined twins, babiesexchan
In 1898, The Strand Magazine, one of the most influential publications of the Victorianfin de siecle, deemed best-selling author and editor L.T. Meade a literary “celebrity” and “one of the most indus
Written circa 1894-95 but published posthumously in 1914, Frank Norris’s Vandover and the Brute presents an unflinching portrait of unconventional sexuality, moral dissolution, and physical degenerati
The Wooing of Our Lord occupies a seminal position in the history of English literature and the development of English religious devotion. Dating from the second quarter of the thirteenth century, it
Daniel Defoe’s fifth novel, Colonel Jack is the supposed autobiography of an English gentleman who begins life as a child of the London streets. He and his two brothers (both also named Jack) are brou
This edition recovers Elizabeth Oakes Smith’s successful 1842 novel The Western Captive; or, The Times of Tecumseh with many of Oakes’s Smith’s other writings about Native Americans, including short s
Godwin’s Mandeville, published in 1817, was described as his best novel by Shelley, who sent a copy to Byron, and it was recognized by its admirers as a work of unique psychological power. As Shelley
The second of Shaw's “unpleasant” plays, written in 1893, published in 1898, but not performed until 1905,The Philanderer is subtitled “A Topical Comedy.” The eclectic range of topical subjects addres
Inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s own experience as a member of the famous Brook Farm Community, which the author describes in his preface as the “most romantic episode” in his life, The Blithedale Ro
Salome is Oscar Wilde’s most experimental--and controversial--play. In its own time, the play, written in French, was described by a reviewer as “an arrangement in blood and ferocity, morbid, bizarre,
The story of a young soldier, Henry Fleming, who flees a Civil War battle, The Red Badge of Courage has been celebrated for its depiction of both the physical action of battle and the protagonist’s in
The writer Frances Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans, complemented by Auguste Hervieu's satiric illustrations, took the transatlantic world by storm in 1832. An unusual combination of reali
Notes from the Underground is recounted from the perspective of a narrator who describes himself as sick, spiteful, and unattractive; he styles himself "the Underground Man." His thoughts and his mood
Rosanna Mullins Leprohon's The Manor House of De Villerai: A Tale of Canada Under the French Dominion is a literary milestone—it is the first Canadian historical novel, in English or French, to rewrit
In this work, Mill reflects on the struggle between liberty and authority and defends the view that “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized communi
When it first appeared in 1767, The Female American was called a "sort of second Robinson Crusoe; full of wonders." Indeed, The Female American is an adventure novel about an English protagonist shipw
The Merchant of Venice is best known for its complex and ambiguous portrait of the Jewish moneylender Shylocka??and of European anti-Semitism. Fascinating in its engagement with prejudice, the play is
