Category: Novels

  • Harriet Beecher Stowe – Minister’s Wooing (1859)

    Aside from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which Mrs. Stowe herself regarded rather as a series of visions than as a production of her own mind, The Minister’s Wooing is held to be her most artistic fiction. It appeared first as a serial in the Atlantic Monthly (1858-1859), and was issued in book form in 1859. Basipg […]

  • Harriet Beecher Stowe – Agnes Of Sorrento (1861)

    Mrs. Stowe’s own account of the origin of this tale accompanied its first appearance in the Atlantic Monthly, in May, 1861: “The author was spending some weeks with a party of choice and very dear friends in an excursion to southern Italy [in April and May, 1860]. At Salerno the whole company were detained by […]

  • Ruth Mcenery Stuart – Carlotta’s Intended (1894)

    This story treats of Italian life among the fruit-venders of New Orleans, its pivotal incident bringing into relief the discipline and power for vengeance of the Mafia. It was written just before the sensational execution in the prison, by a committee of reputable American citizens, of eleven Italian murderers who had been fraudulently acquitted of […]

  • Marie Joseph Eugene Sue – The Mysteries Of Paris (1842)

    (France, 1804—1857) On this novel rests principally the fame of its author. Imbued with the emotional socialistic literature of his time, he wrote this, the first French novel treating of the conditions of the working people. Primarily its object, as shown by many interpolated reflections, was to point out the social iniquity of present conditions […]

  • Marie Joseph Eugene Sue – The Wandering Jew (1845)

    The legend of the Wandering Jew is somewhat uncertain in its origin and its significance. It is to the effect that when Christ was on the way to Calvary, bearing His cross, He wished to rest before the house of a Jew named Ahasuerus, who drove Him away; that the Saviour then said to the […]

  • Robert Louis Stevenson – Prince Otto (1885)

    This novel was the forerunner of The Prisoner of Zenda school of novels of political adventure in imaginary kingdoms. It was dramatized soon after its publication, and the leading rôle was a favorite in the repertoire of the late Richard Mansfield up to the time of his death. ONCE on a time the map of […]

  • Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson – Treasure Island (1883)

    (Scotland, 1850-1894) It is generally understood that Stevenson designed this story for juvenile readers, and there can be no question of the enthusiasm with which the book has been received by the younger element, but there is no doubt that their elders press them hard in the same spirit. It is a frank telling of […]