A Word To The Wise: 89 books

The Elixir of Life is a fantastic tale by the French novelist and writer Honoré de Balzac in which he gives his own version of the legend of Don Juan that many other writers and poets dealt with, including the English Lord Byron. Balzacs appraisal of the legend is generally satirical as he presents...

Harry Sinclair Lewis (7th February, 1885 10th January, 1951) was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters." Whilst an accurate description of his writing...

Samuel Butler (4th December 1835 18th June 1902) had both a father and grandfather in the church and was being groomed by his father to be a priest. However, after a first at Cambridge, he decided he wanted to be an artist. His father could not and would not consider such a thing and by mutual consent...

To Be Read at Dusk is a very short story by the celebrated Victorian novelist Charles Dickens. Amid the Swiss mountainous region of Saint Bernard, the first-person narrator starts to eavesdrop on a nearby group of men. The sun is setting, giving way to strange thoughts and memories. The group is composed...

An Accursed Race by the renowned Victorian novelist and writer Elizabeth Gaskell is rather a historical essay that deals with the tragic history of the Cagots. The latter were a European group of people who lived around Western France and Northern Spain and whose existence was marked by harsh discrimination...

Sketches of Young Gentlemen is a collection of texts that was first published anonymously by the renowned Victorian novelist Charles Dickens. It came at a time when Dickens was only an enthusiastic young writer right after the phenomenal success of The Pickwick Papers and Sketches by Boz. Dedicated to...

In this volume we examine the poetry of Katherine Mansfield. She was born on 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand the middle child of five. A gifted Cello, at one point she thought she might take it up professionally the young Katherines first writings were published in...

Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid (1883) is a long short story by Thomas Hardy. It follows the life of Margery, a lower-class woman who is young, delicate and beautiful. She is engaged to James Hayward who works in a kiln. When one day Margery goes out to visit her grandmothers house, she encounters...

HH Munro, better known by his pen name of Saki has scarcely been out of print since he was first published It has to be admitted that a taste for Saki is something of an addiction. And, like all addictions, once acquired, it is hard to shake off. In the years since his tragically early death in the trenches...

The protagonist in Gustave Flauberts A Simple Soul is a housemaid named Félicité who devotes her entire existence to serving her mistress, Madame Aubain. Félicité is depicted as a simple, hardworking woman of great character and endless loving power. Despite her very miserable youth, being harshly...

Honore De Balzacs The Atheists Mass is a work of fiction set in Paris which deals with the question of faith and atheism. It centers around the characters of the renowned French surgeon Desplein and his student Bianchon. Desplein is an atheist physician who has an extraordinary capability to diagnose...

Being one of Christopher Marlowes most celebrated plays, The Jew of Malta tells the story of the eponymous Barabas, a wealthy merchant who, as explained in the prologue, has amassed a great fortune through following Machiavellian teachings. His troubles start when he is informed that the fleet containing...

The Dawn of a Tomorrow is a novella by the English-American novelist and writer Frances Hodgson Burnett who is more known for her childrens classics. The story was first serialized in a magazine in the beginning of the twentieth century and was also adapted to the stage and performed numerous times....

Thomas Hardy (2nd June 1840 11th January 1928), celebrated poet and writer, was born in a modest thatched cottage near Dorchester in the West country, to a builder father. His mother came from a line of intelligent, lively and ambitious women so ensured her son had the best formal education available...