In the classical tale “The Satyricon”, Petronius Arbiter makes a strong, yet humorous, statement about the social life of ancient Rome. Rather than telling the story of Encolpius and his companions heroically, which was the typical approach of other writings of classical antiquity, Petronius chose to show the true life and vernacular of the Roman lower and middle class through satire and comedy. Narrator Encolpius, a former gladiator, goes on ad ...
Consisting of three novels and two interludes, “The Forsyte Saga” chronicles several generations of an upper middle class British family at the beginning of the twentieth century. Full of social satire, “The Man of Property” commences this fictional history and introduces the first generation of Forsytes, prominently featuring Soames and his wife Irene. Keenly aware of their nouveau riche standing and highly desirous of material possessions, Soa ...
First published in 1928, “Quicksand” is the first novel by American author Nella Larsen. It is the semi-autobiographical tale of a young, mixed race woman who struggles to find her place in the world. Like her main character, Helga Crane, Larsen was the daughter of a Danish white mother and a West Indian black father who disappeared from her life as a baby. Larsen and the fictional Crane never feel that they belong in either the white world or t ...
First published in 1903, “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” is the charming and classic children’s novel beloved the world over. Written by the American author and educator Kate Douglas Wiggin, it is the story of young and poor Rebecca Rowena Randall, who goes to live with her spinster aunts in the town of Riverboro when she is ten years-old. Rebecca’s father had died three years before and the family farm had become heavily indebted. In order to ease ...
First serialized in 1907 and then published as a book in 1908, Mary Roberts Rinehart’s “The Circular Staircase” is the popular mystery story about the dowager Rachel Innes as she reveals and prevents a series of strange crimes at the home she has rented for the summer. “The Circular Staircase” was Rinehart’s first bestseller and was the originator of the popular “had I but known” genre of mystery writing, where the main character narrates the ta ...
First published in England in 1791 and the United States in 1794, Susanna Rowson’s “Charlotte Temple” was America’s first best-selling novel. The story is an example of the seduction novel genre, which was wildly popular in early American literature and focuses on the dangers to young ladies of being seduced by unscrupulous men. In Rowson’s novel, the main character is Charlotte Temple, a lovely and naive young British girl who falls for the ove ...
Historically recognized as the man who wrote the dictionary, Dr. Johnson amplified his literary fame with the 1759 publication of “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia”. This novel was wildly popular upon its release, despite the fact that Johnson completed the work in the evenings of a single week, donning it his “little story book”. The story is of a royal brother and sister who have been kept in a luxurious, fertile valley, where thei ...
First published in 1907, “Ozma of Oz” is the third book in L. Frank Baum’s Oz series. Dorothy’s story is continued with her beloved companions and given further life with inventive new characters, including a talking yellow hen named Billina; Tiktok, a mechanical man; and the Hungry Tiger, whose conscience prevents him from being the fearsome man-eating tiger he sometimes wishes to be. The tale begins with Dorothy being tossed from a steamship d ...
First published in 1907, “The Iron Heel” is Jack London’s dystopian novel about the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. Displaying the socialist views that were held by London himself and that were prevalent at the beginning of the 20th century, “The Iron Heel” tells the story of events far in the future when a small, wealthy class squeezes out the middle class and effectively rules with brutality for three centuries until a revo ...
