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Featuring prominent figures in education, religion, science, and war, Eminent Victorians is a fascinating collection of Victorian biographies. Beginning with a discussion of the achievements of Cardinal Manning, Strachey provides insight on the Cardinal's rise to power and follows the creation of the Oxford Movement, which began the development of the Anglo-Catholic church. Sparing no detail, Manning's feud with the influential theologian John Henry...
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Sodom and Gomorrah (1921/22) is the fourth volume of Marcel Proust's seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time. Being the last volume that had Proust's direct involvement, Sodom and Gomorrah is a story of love, jealousy and family from a master of Modernist literature. Praised by Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Chabon, and Graham Greene, In Search of Lost Time explores the nature of memory and time while illuminating the history of homosexuality...
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Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) is a collection of poems by T.S. Eliot. Published following the successful appearance of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Prufrock and Other Observations established Eliot's reputation as a leading English poet and pioneering literary Modernist.
Opening with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the collection begins with an invocation of Dante, whom...
64) Arms and the Man
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One of George Bernard Shaw's most performed and studied plays, "Arms and the Man" is a classic example of Shaw's comedic wit. First produced in 1894, the play is set during the Serbo-Bulgarian war and tells the story of Raina Petkoff, a young Bulgarian woman, who is engaged to Sergius, a soldier away at war whom she idolizes. While both her father and fiancé are away fighting, Raina, at home with her mother, has a very innocent and romantic idea...
65) Don Juan
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First published in 1819, "Don Juan" is often acknowledged as one of Lord Byron's greatest poetic works. An epic poem, comprised of seventeen cantos that Byron continued to work on and expand until his death, "Don Juan" follows the adventures of the famous Spanish libertine and reflects upon many of the romantic and personal experiences that are universal to all mankind. From a forbidden love affair in Spain, to exile in Italy, from being shipwrecked...
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At a young age, author Jerome K. Jerome found a hobby that he was extremely skilled at, and very passionate about-idleness. He was thrilled at the amount of time he could waste doing nothing, frustrating those around him. However, when Jerome falls ill and is ordered to bedrest, this hobby is tested. Then, he learns that doing nothing is only fun when you have other commitments. This relatable sentiment is explored in the title essay of Idle Thoughts...
67) The Prince
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With a mix of both respectable and immoral advice, The Prince is a frank analysis on political power. Separated into four sections, The Prince is both a guide to obtain power and an explanation on the aspects that affect it. The first section discusses the types of principalities. According to Machiavelli, there are four different types-hereditary, mixed, new and ecclesiastical. While defining each type, Machiavelli also discusses the implications...
68) John Barleycorn
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Wrestling with the disease of alcoholism for most of his life, Jack London tells all in his autobiography John Barleycorn. Beginning with a discussion of the prohibition movement and its effects, London explores the ways that alcohol affects daily life in the Victorian era. Because there were not many forms of affordable entertainment or reliable communication, bars were the perfect spot for social activity. People were able to sit and drink, enjoying...
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One of the great Norwegian playwright's most mysterious, symbolic, and lyrical dramas, The Master Builder concerns one Halvard Solness, an architect who in his youth had been ruthlessly ambitious, but now, in his later years, not only feels threatened by younger architects, but also fears the decay of his own creativity. In the course of the play, Solness becomes involved with a woman named Hilda Wangel, who is his muse and inspiration. Ironically,...
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When Julius Caesar arrives in Egypt and finds Cleopatra in hiding, he encourages her to return to the palace and embrace her role as queen. Shaw depicts an unlikely pair that bond over a common goal.
As Roman forces invade Egypt, Julius Caesar stumbles across a young Cleopatra hiding amongst the statues. He initially conceals his identity, as the queen expresses concern over Caesar and his impending army. When he convinces her to return to the...
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Margaret Ogilvy (1897) is a biography by J. M. Barrie. Although he is more widely known as a popular storyteller whose Peter Pan books are filled with the wit and wonder of history's greatest fairytales, Barrie was also a gifted memoirist and biographer. Margaret Ogilvy is the story of his mother and their life as a family in Scotland. Written in tribute to her influence on his life as a professional writer, Margaret Ogilvy was a bestselling book...
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The People of the Abyss (1903) is a work of nonfiction by American writer Jack London. Written after the author spent three months living in London's poverty-stricken East End, The People of the Abyss bears witness to the difficulties faced by hundreds and thousands of people every day in one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Inspired by Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives,...
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Featuring twelve simple yet profound essays, Jerome K. Jerome's Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow is a humorous and clever collection. Each essay is crafted around a timeless and relatable issue, such as the unfortunately common inability to make decisions. On the Art of Making Up One's Mind observes this to be a common practice. Beginning with the story of a young woman who cannot decide what color of garment to buy, this essay takes notice of the...
74) Spring and all
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Spring and All (1923) is a book of poems by William Carlos Williams. Predominately known as a poet, Williams frequently pushed the limits of prose style throughout his works, often comprised of a seamless blend of both forms of writing. In Spring and All, the closest thing to a manifesto he wrote, Williams addresses the nature of his modern poetics which not only pursues a particularly American idiom, but attempts to capture the relationship between...
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Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887) is a book by American investigative journalist Nellie Bly. For her first assignment for Joseph Pulitzer's famed New York World newspaper, Bly went undercover as a patient at a notorious insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. Spending ten days there, she recorded the abuses and neglect she witnessed, turning her research into a sensational two-part story for the New York World later published as Ten Days in a Mad-House....
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When Jerome K Jerome and his friend decide to attend the Oberammergau Passion Play, an Easter pageant that is performed in Oberlin, Germany once every decade, they turn the trip into a vacation. From London to Germany, the pair plan a cross-continent trip, excited to sight-see and experience different cultures. However, the friends run into conflict before they even take off, unsure what to pack. While they sort through contradicting advice from others,...
77) The Book of Life
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Upton Sinclair's The Book of Life is a contains well founded advice and consists of two parts. The first part, Book of the Mind, covers spiritual topics such as faith, morality, and the subconscious. With intense conversations on the definition of each as well as their relationship and codependence on each other, Sinclair answers tough life questions and provides many thought-provoking ideas. While the first part of Sinclair's work concerns the intangibles...
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Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-1818) is a book length poem by British Romantic Lord Byron. Published in cantos, the narrative poem is arranged in four parts, each following the journey of Harold, a character based on Byron himself. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage established Byron's reputation as a leading poet of his era, laying the foundation for many of the elements of Romantic poetry-melancholy, sublime and beautiful landscapes, and a wandering hero-that...
79) Indian Home Rule
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Indian Home Rule (1909) is a book by Mahatma Gandhi. Originally written in Gujarati, while the author was traveling from London to South Africa, Indian Home Rule or Hind Swaraj is a groundbreaking text that laid out some of Gandhi's core beliefs as an activist and political thinker. Banned in 1910 by the British government in India as a seditious text, Indian Home Rule remains essential to Gandhi's legacy in his native country and around the world....
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The Spirit of Rome (1906) is a memoir by Vernon Lee. Published at the height of her career as a leading proponent of Aestheticism and scholar of the Italian Renaissance, The Spirit of Rome is a captivating meditation on the author's experiences in Rome. Raised in the city, she returns as an adult to find it as mysterious and magical as before, a place where any day could offer a chance to lose or discover oneself in history, art, or unrivalled beauty....