Description Published in 1923, Jean Toomer’s Cane was widely heralded as one of the first masterpieces of the Harlem Renaissance, and its author as “a bright morning star” of the movement. Toomer himself, however, was reluctant to embrace an explicitly racialized identity, preferring to define himself as simply an American writer. Inspired in part by Sherwood Anderson’s short story cycle Winesburg, Ohio, Toomer conceived Cane as a mosaic of intricately connected vignettes, poems, stories,
Description Daniel Deronda, published in 1876, was George Eliot’s last novel. It deals with two major characters whose lives intersect: One is a spoiled young woman named Gwendolen Harleth who makes an unwise marriage to escape impending poverty; the other is the titular character, Daniel Deronda, a wealthy young man who feels a mission to help the suffering. During her childhood Gwendolen’s family was well-off. She lived in comfort and was indulged and pampered. But the family’s fortune is
Description In The Servile State, British-French writer and historian Hilaire Belloc makes a provocative case that capitalism will inevitably move toward the reestablishment of slavery. The thesis in this book forms the backbone of Belloc’s life-long effort as an advocate for reform to the existing socioeconomic system in the direction of what he terms as “distributism.” As a critic of both socialism and capitalism, and a fervent Catholic, Belloc lays out a history of Europe where, over
Description In 1841, Solomon Northup was a free black man, married with three children and living in upstate New York, when he was tricked into going to Washington DC. There, he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery, eventually ending up on a plantation in the Red River area of Louisiana. For twelve years he experienced and witnessed the arbitrary beatings and whippings, around-the-clock back-breaking work, and countless other degradations that came with being enslaved in the antebellum
Description The sisters Olga, Masha, and Irina live with their brother Andrey in a provincial Russian town, and plan to return to Moscow, where they grew up, as soon as they’re able. Olga doesn’t want to continue working at the school where she’s a teacher and occasional headmaster; Masha is disillusioned in her marriage; Irina hopes to find her true love; and Andrey shows promise of becoming a professor. Also stationed in their town is a battery of soldiers that provide them with a social
Description In this conclusion to the Psammead Trilogy, Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane are reunited with the cantankerous Sand-fairy. While the old creature can’t grant them wishes anymore, it points them towards an old Egyptian amulet that can grant their hearts’ desire—in this case the return of their parents and baby brother. While their amulet is only half of a whole, it still acts as a time portal which they use to visit locales like Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Atlantis, and even a utopian
Description The Nibelungenlied was Germany’s first heroic epic put into writing. Thomas Carlyle considered it “a precious national possession, recovered after six centuries of neglect, [which] takes undisputed place among the sacred books of German literature.” Due to a lack of interest in copying the manuscripts, the work was forgotten, only faintly remembered as an influence in other German writing. Today, a total of 36 manuscripts have been unearthed. Many of these are only poem fragments,
Description Selma Lagerlöf was a Swedish author, who, starting in 1891 with The Story of Gösta Berling , wrote a series of novels and short stories that soon garnered both national and international praise. This led to her winning the 1909 Nobel Prize for Literature “in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination, and spiritual perception that characterize her writings,” the first woman to do so. She happily wrote for both adults and children, but the same feeling of romantic
Description In the middle of the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian war, an enemy soldier escapes a cavalry charge by climbing up a drainpipe into Raina Petkoff’s room. Raina is the daughter of one Major and engaged to another, but she chooses to save the soldier’s life by concealing him. Arms and the Man, named after the opening lines of Virgil’s The Aeneid , is a play that humorously deals with the hypocrisy of humanity and the stupidity of war. It was among George Bernard Shaw’s first commercial
Description Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in North Carolina, but, in her words, didn’t realize it until her father died when she was six years old. Six years later, when her mistress died, she was bequeathed to the mistress’ granddaughter, thereby coming into the household of the mistress’ lecherous son. Several years later she escaped, only to have to hide for seven years in a cramped garret that did not allow her to stand or sit up. She was finally able to make her way north, where she was
Description Published in 1923, Jean Toomer’s Cane was widely heralded as one of the first masterpieces of the Harlem Renaissance, and its author as “a bright morning star” of the movement. Toomer himself, however, was reluctant to embrace an explicitly racialized identity, preferring to define himself as simply an American writer. Inspired in part by Sherwood Anderson’s short story cycle Winesburg, Ohio, Toomer conceived Cane as a mosaic of intricately connected vignettes, poems, stories,
Description Daniel Deronda, published in 1876, was George Eliot’s last novel. It deals with two major characters whose lives intersect: One is a spoiled young woman named Gwendolen Harleth who makes an unwise marriage to escape impending poverty; the other is the titular character, Daniel Deronda, a wealthy young man who feels a mission to help the suffering. During her childhood Gwendolen’s family was well-off. She lived in comfort and was indulged and pampered. But the family’s fortune is
Description In The Servile State, British-French writer and historian Hilaire Belloc makes a provocative case that capitalism will inevitably move toward the reestablishment of slavery. The thesis in this book forms the backbone of Belloc’s life-long effort as an advocate for reform to the existing socioeconomic system in the direction of what he terms as “distributism.” As a critic of both socialism and capitalism, and a fervent Catholic, Belloc lays out a history of Europe where, over
Description In 1841, Solomon Northup was a free black man, married with three children and living in upstate New York, when he was tricked into going to Washington DC. There, he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery, eventually ending up on a plantation in the Red River area of Louisiana. For twelve years he experienced and witnessed the arbitrary beatings and whippings, around-the-clock back-breaking work, and countless other degradations that came with being enslaved in the antebellum
Description The sisters Olga, Masha, and Irina live with their brother Andrey in a provincial Russian town, and plan to return to Moscow, where they grew up, as soon as they’re able. Olga doesn’t want to continue working at the school where she’s a teacher and occasional headmaster; Masha is disillusioned in her marriage; Irina hopes to find her true love; and Andrey shows promise of becoming a professor. Also stationed in their town is a battery of soldiers that provide them with a social
Description In this conclusion to the Psammead Trilogy, Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane are reunited with the cantankerous Sand-fairy. While the old creature can’t grant them wishes anymore, it points them towards an old Egyptian amulet that can grant their hearts’ desire—in this case the return of their parents and baby brother. While their amulet is only half of a whole, it still acts as a time portal which they use to visit locales like Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Atlantis, and even a utopian
Description The Nibelungenlied was Germany’s first heroic epic put into writing. Thomas Carlyle considered it “a precious national possession, recovered after six centuries of neglect, [which] takes undisputed place among the sacred books of German literature.” Due to a lack of interest in copying the manuscripts, the work was forgotten, only faintly remembered as an influence in other German writing. Today, a total of 36 manuscripts have been unearthed. Many of these are only poem fragments,
Description Selma Lagerlöf was a Swedish author, who, starting in 1891 with The Story of Gösta Berling , wrote a series of novels and short stories that soon garnered both national and international praise. This led to her winning the 1909 Nobel Prize for Literature “in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination, and spiritual perception that characterize her writings,” the first woman to do so. She happily wrote for both adults and children, but the same feeling of romantic
Description In the middle of the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian war, an enemy soldier escapes a cavalry charge by climbing up a drainpipe into Raina Petkoff’s room. Raina is the daughter of one Major and engaged to another, but she chooses to save the soldier’s life by concealing him. Arms and the Man, named after the opening lines of Virgil’s The Aeneid , is a play that humorously deals with the hypocrisy of humanity and the stupidity of war. It was among George Bernard Shaw’s first commercial
Description Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in North Carolina, but, in her words, didn’t realize it until her father died when she was six years old. Six years later, when her mistress died, she was bequeathed to the mistress’ granddaughter, thereby coming into the household of the mistress’ lecherous son. Several years later she escaped, only to have to hide for seven years in a cramped garret that did not allow her to stand or sit up. She was finally able to make her way north, where she was