Harriet E. Wilson is the first female African American to publish a novel in North America. Her first and only work, “Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black” was first published in 1859. Considered lost until 1982 when it was rediscovered by scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., the novel is largely autobiographical, tracking the life of a free black women in the Antebellum North. At the age of three, the protagonist Frado is abandoned by her ...
Set in the Limberlost Swamp area of Indiana, “Freckles” is American writer and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter’s 1904 novel about the titular character, a one-handed adult orphan who takes a job guarding timber in the swamp. Freckles has lived all his life in a Chicago orphanage and has been missing his right hand as long as he can remember. Now an adult, he is hired on by the Grand Rapids lumber company to guard their valuable timber in the Lim ...
Written in the style of traditional Arthurian legends, “Otto of the Silver Hand” is a scathing tale of the realities behind the chivalric ideal. During the course of his studies of medieval society, in preparation to write a magnificent series on King Arthur’s Court, Howard Pyle shockingly discovered a mentality of cruelty and vengefulness among the legendary knights, which he brings to light in this work. However, these criticisms cannot oversh ...
First published in 1921, “Rilla of Ingleside” is the sixth book written in the “Anne of Green Gables” saga by Lucy Maud Montgomery. While it was published sixth, “Rilla of Ingleside” is the eighth book chronologically in the series and focuses on Anne’s youngest daughter, fifteen-year-old Bertha Marilla “Rilla” Blythe. Set against the back drop of the First World War, Rilla begins the book carefree with little interest or concern for anything ot ...
Written in Greek in the 3rd century BC, “Jason and the Golden Fleece” or “The Argonautica” is the epic of Apollonius of Rhodes. It is the only surviving Hellenistic epic and recounts the timeless tale of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece. Based upon sources such as Homer and Pindar and written during the age of the famous Library of Alexandria, Apollonius was the first to include in his retelling of the alread ...
First published in 1796, “The Monk” is the popular and controversial Gothic novel by Matthew G. Lewis, the English novelist and dramatist. Written when Lewis was only nineteen, it is the tale of a monk who is tempted by carnal desire and led down a ruinous path of ungodliness. Ambrosio, a pious, well-respected monk in Spain, is lustfully tempted by his pupil, Matilda, a woman who has disguised herself as a young boy and initiate monk. Having fir ...
James Hogg 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 Confessions of a ...
Charles W. Chesnutt was an author, essayist, and political activist whose works addressed the complex issues of racial and social identity at the turn of the century. Chesnutt’s early works explored political issues somewhat indirectly, with the intention of changing the attitudes of Caucasians slowly and carefully. However, “The Marrow of Tradition” marked a turning point in Chesnutt’s career, with its direct and overt treatment of racism and p ...
Immensely popular throughout France and Europe upon its first publication in 1721, “Persian Letters” exemplifies the spirit of eighteenth-century libertinism and Enlightenment. Written by Charles de Montesquieu, this epistolary novel is told through a collection of letters and recounts the observations and experiences of two Persian noblemen traveling through France. The various writers of the letters are astute observers and this satirical stor ...
