Category: Novels

  • Claude André Theuriet – A Woodland Queen (la Reine Du Bois)

    (France, 1833—1907) This story was the author’s own favorite among his works of fiction, and was crowned by the French Academy in 1890. MONSIEUR CLAUDE—ODOUART DE BUXIÈRES had died intestate, and his estate and comfortable property had reverted to a distant relative, Julien de Buxières. The deceased had been a man of unbridled freedom of […]

  • Daniel Pierce Thompson – The Green Mountain Boys (1840)

    (United States, 1795-1868) In this Vermont classic, which covers the periods of the controversy with New York, and the Revolution, certain incidents historically separated by one or more years are woven together for the sake of unity of design. The author; as he says in the preface to the first edition, obtained much of his […]

  • Lyof Nicolaievitch Tolstoi – Anna Karennina (1878)

    This story, admitted to be the greatest of the author’s works, first appeared during the years 1875-1876, in a Moscow magazine. It was well received by the conservative element of society, but severely criticized by the party which advocated greater freedom in the matters of marriage relations and divorce. The critics objected to it on […]

  • Bayard Taylor – John Godfrey’s Fortunes (1864)

    (United States, 1825–1878) This novel was begin on March 14, 1864, while Mr. Taylor was temporarily staying at 150 East Fourteenth Street, New York City, but the greater part was composed in the library of his Cedarcroft residence, near Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and here it was finished August 11th following, If was published by G. […]

  • Anne Isabella Thackeray – The Village On The Cliff (1865)

    (MRS. RICHMOND RITCHIE) (England, 1838) Mrs. Ritchie’s ” Village ” is on the coast of Normandy, where most of the story’s action takes place, although there are scenes in London and rural England also. The time is the period of the writing. The novel has a special interest in that the author is a daughter […]

  • William Makepeace Thackeray – Catherine: A Story (1840)

    (England, 1811–1863) This unvarnished tale of scoundrelism appeared first as a serial in Fraser’s Magazine, in 1839-1840. It was written by Thackeray under the pseudonym of Ikey Solomons, Jun., although most of his productions bore the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh until he issued Vanity Fair in 1847 under his own name. The object of […]

  • Memoirs Of Barry Lyndon (1844)

    This story appeared first in Fraser’s Magazine during 1844, and purported to be by “Fitz-Boodle,” who had previously contributed his Confessions and Professions. It was written in ironical vein, with the intention to burlesque Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, Pelham. The composition of Barry Lyndon seems to have given Thackeray not a little trouble. In August, 1844, he […]

  • William Makepeace Thackeray – Pendennis (1848)

    This story was Thackeray’s first great success. Many of the characters were drawn from life, and reappear often in succeeding stories. MR. JOHN PENDENNIS was a little, quiet old gentleman, extremely mild and genteel, who had amassed a very modest competency by combining the vocations of apothecary and surgeon in a humble little shop graced […]

  • William Makepeace Thackeray – Vanity Fair (1848)

    This novel is the best known of Thackeray’s works, and it has given him a reputation as a cynic which he hardly deserves. A common criticism of the story is that the good people in it are all fools, and the clever people all knaves; and the criticism is not wholly unfounded. It is a […]

  • William Makepeace Thackeray – The History Of Henry Esmond (1852)

    The period of this novel is the reign of Queen Anne, when the Pretender, the son of James II of England, was trying to gain possession of the throne. The story has a sequel in The Virginians. THEN Thomas Esmond married his elderly cousin, Isabel, and presently came into his uncle’s titles and estates as […]