James Hogg (1770-1835) was a Scottish author known primarily for his poetry, short stories, ballads, songs and historical narratives. Raised by a tenant farmer in the Ettrick hills of Scotland, Hogg was mostly self-educated, teaching himself to read with only the Bible, and developing an early interest in literature through his mother's recitation of Scottish ballads, songs and fairy tales. Although his 1824 novel, «The Private Memoirs and ...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was an American sociologist, author, poet, and lecturer whose influential work and unorthodox lifestyle made her an icon for future generations of feminists. Much of her work criticized common perceptions of the role of women in marriage and society, and advocated educational, financial, and cultural equality for women. This edition features «Herland», a utopian novel about the exploration of an isolated, ent ...
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913), was a Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright. Tagore modernized Bengali art and literature by rejecting classical forms, and produced strongly poetic and spiritual works. He spoke largely to political and personal topics as he rejected the British Raj and supported independence. His 1916 novel, «The Home and the World», ill ...
Maria Edgeworth takes on issues of gender and race in her early editions of «Belinda», and although later editions tone down some controversial material to appease audiences, the alterations were most likely made by Edgeworth's father. Edgeworth's story centers around Belinda, a young woman who is navigating the complicated path of courtship and the limitations of domesticity. When Belinda is sent to live with the fashionable Lady Dela ...
Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) was an American novelist, historian and editor, who has been recognized as one of the first American novelists and an early proponent of the Gothic romance genre. Brown's works are a combination of his own Romantic imagination and the Enlightenment ideals of reason and realism, and are often characterized by elements of the sensational and violent. His work also reflects an interest in the early feminist m ...
George Eliot, the pen named used by Mary Anne Evans, wrote popular works that epitomized the settings and ideology of contemporary Victorian England. She was brought up in the Church of England, where she developed strong moral convictions that carried over into her fiction; she often presented stories of social outsiders and small-town persecution. When «Brother Jacob» was completed in 1864, it was published together with «The Lifted Veil» (185 ...
When a rich miser dies, his inheritance is to pass to his estranged son John Harmon, who must return from South Africa to claim it, on condition that he marries a woman he has never met, Miss Bella Wilfer. When John Harmon goes missing and is presumed dead, the fortune passes instead to the miser’s faithful employees Mr. and Mrs. Boffin. Rich with psychological and social insight into the effects of money on society, «Our Mutual Friend», the las ...
"Agnes Grey" is the story of its title character who takes up a position as a governess. Anne Bronte's first novel was based on her own experiences as a governess and depicts the loneliness and isolation of the position. Agnes Grey as governess of the Bloomfield and Murray households experiences hardship and humiliation as a result of the families' snobbery. «Agnes Grey is» as much an autobiographical account of Bronte's own ...
Literally meaning «heart», the Japanese word «kokoro» can be more distinctly translated as «the heart of things» or «feeling.» Natsume Soseki's 1914 novel, which was originally published in serial format in a Japanese newspaper, «Kokoro» deals with the transition from the Japanese Meiji society to the modern era. Divided into three parts «Sensei and I,» «My Parents and I,» and «Sensei and His Testament,» the novel explores the themes of lon ...
