Literary Criticism
Christmas Stories
Twenty stories originally published in the Christmas editions of the magazines “Household Words” and “All The Year Round”. Some of the stori…
The Jew of Malta
Christopher “Kit” Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564 – 30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. T…
Robert Browning
There is an old anecdote, probably apocryphal, which describes how a feminine admirer wrote to Browning asking him for the meaning of one of…
Gobseck
Gobseck delves into the life of a shrewd and calculating pawnbroker, Jean-Esther Gobseck, whose financial dealings reveal the darker side of…
Main Street
Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis of Minneapolis. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is…
Jenny
Jenny Winge is a Norwegian expatriate studying art in Rome, part of a Bohemian group of friends who explore the ancient City in an intoxicat…
Just Sweethearts
“Clearly he was one of those rare beings who can radiate energy standing still and convey the impression of impetuous force without motion, …
On the Sublime
This is a classical text on aesthetics and proper style in writing and rhetoric, including commentary on various ancient Greek works such as…
Companionable Books
Many books are dry and dusty, there is no juice in them; and many are soon exhausted, you would no more go back to them than to a squeezed o…
The Dark
The Dark is a novella about a desperate young man, a “terrorist and nihilist”, trying to avoid arrest by taking refuge in a brothel. The sto…
Where Angels Fear to Tread
On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and traveling companion Caroline Abbott, widowed Lilia Herriton falls in love with both Italy …
Prejudices
Mencken sharpens his pen and in a collection of short essays delivers acerbic opinions on issues and persons of the time. Among his targets…
Within a Budding Grove
In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past (French: À la recherche du temps perdu) is a semi-autobiographical novel in seve…
Sanctuary
Kate Orme, shocked by the discovery of her fiance's complicity in a tragedy, and by society's willingness to overlook such transgressions, n…
The Last of the Valerii
An unnamed American painter resident in Rome serves as narrator in this story, watching as his god-daughter Martha, becomes the wife of Prin…
The Custom of the Country
Edith Wharton was a novelist of manners of late 19th Century New York "Society", who spent much of her life in France. In this nov…
Pierre & Jean
This short novel’s titular characters are brothers. An old family friend dies, leaving without explanation his entire fortune to Jean, the y…
Crome Yellow
Fascinating and brilliant at many levels, Huxley's spoof of Lady Ottoline Morrell's famous bohemian gatherings is difficult to categorize. T…
Prelude
Prelude invites listeners into the evocative world of Katherine Mansfield's childhood in New Zealand, capturing the essence of youth and the…
A London Life
A devoted sister attempts to check her sibling's scandalous behavior in the world of British high society. A delightful comedy of Anglo-Ame…