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This is the second in Trollope’s ‘Barsetshire’ series of novels. The later novels in the series move away from Barchester itself but 'Barchester Towers' is very much a sequel to the first book ‘The Warden’, which is also available from . The old bishop dies, the archdeacon, Dr. Grantly fails to succeed him and a new bishop, Dr. Proudie is appointed. Dr. Grantly gains a worthy foe, not the new bishop but his wife, Mrs. Proudie, strict sabatarian and power behind the Episcopal throne together with the bishop’s chaplain, Mr. Slope. John Bold is also dead and Eleanor, now a wealthy young widow sets clerical hearts fluttering. The new bishop must deal with the wardenship of Hiram’s Hospital. Will it go to Mr. Harding? All is to play for. Then the old Dean dies and the stakes are raised. (Summary by Andy)...

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Literature

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Edith Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with this 1920 novel about Old New York society. Newland Archer is wealthy, well-bred, and engaged to the beautiful May Welland. But he finds himself drawn to May's cousin Ellen Olenska, who has been living in Europe and who has returned following a scandalous separation from her husband. (Introduction by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Romance, Literature

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Our Mutual Friend, the last novel completed by Charles Dickens, has many plots, twists and turns, from the murky river Thames to the gold and crystal on the tables of ‘Society’. A tale of murder, treachery, jealousy and love, takes us first to a rowing boat on the Thames, where the Hexhams have found a body in the water and are bringing it to shore. We attend the Boffins, a poor naïve couple, who unexpectedly have just become wealthy, after their employer dies and names them in his will. Silas Wegg becomes their ‘literary man’ and John Rokesmith, a mysterious man, becomes their secretary. We meet the Veneerings, new to society, who hold elaborate dinner parties for ‘dear friends’ they’ve never met. Bella and Lizzie, each from different walks of life, find love from unexpected quarters. The Lammles, a society couple, become match makers for their own ulterior motives. Two ne’er do well lawyers, Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene Wrayburn, find themselves caught up in intrigue, and learn how dangerous their work can be. Riderhood, a devious individual, finds himself in a dark plot with school teacher Bradley Headstone. Betty Higden, a loya...

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Literature

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When published in 1907, this novel about the lives of a wealthy mill owner, her socially progressive husband and friends caused a stir due to its treatment of drug abuse, mercy killing, divorce and second marriages. (Summary by Margaret)...

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Literature

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‘The Forsyte Saga’ is the story of a wealthy London family stretching from the eighteen-eighties until the nineteen-twenties. To Let is the third and final book in the saga (although Galsworthy later published two further trilogies which extend the story). We are now in 1920, about twenty years since Irene married Young Jolyon and gave birth to John and since Soames married Annette, who gave him a daughter, Fleur. The two sides of the family have not met since those times and John and Fleur do not even know of each other’s existence.All the old Forsytes are dead except for Timothy. Val and Holly have returned from South Africa and Val is training racehorses in Sussex. June has opened her gallery near Cork Street.Soames arranges to meet Fleur at June’s gallery and while there, and again later in a patisserie, they see Irene and Jon. Soames ignores them but Fleur and Jon are attracted to one another at a distance. As they leave, Fleur drops her handkerchief... (Summary by Andy Minter)...

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Literature, Romance

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“Thus I have acted; these were my thoughts; such was I.” Rousseau’s lengthy and sometimes anguished dossier on the Self is one of the most remarkable and courageous works of introspection ever undertaken. Some readers may be repelled by his tendency to revel in embarrassing accounts of humiliation and fiasco, as if he were striving too hard to achieve an ultimate nakedness, a nakedness of the soul perhaps. Others may recall the compulsive self-searching of the narrator of Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu, who also rather dwelt on the co-existence in the individual of the vile and the virtuous. The two opening volumes of the Confessions, presented in this inevitably censored edition of 1903, deal with the author’s childhood and callow adolescence. Here he is... (Summary by Martin Geeson)...

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Memoirs, Literature, Psychology

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Gwendoline Wynn, our heroine, is an orphan-heiress who lives on the river Wye. She will live with aunt until she comes of age and her money. Vivian Ryecroft, our hero and a captain in the Hussars, is on a leave of absence in Herefordshire, salmon fishing on the Wye. Gwen and Vivian have a chance, and brief, encounter on the Wye, and Vivian is enchanted. Will our hero and heroine find love? Will it last? [Summary by Ann Boulais]...

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Literature, Romance

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volunteers bring you 8 recordings of To Autumn by John Keats. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 21st, 2010. To Autumn is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's 1819 odes. He composed To Autumn after a walk near Winchester one autumnal evening. The work marks the end of his poetic career as he needed to earn money and could no longer devote himself to the lifestyle of a poet. A little over a year following the publication of To Autumn, Keats died in Rome. To Autumn has been regarded by critics as one of the most perfect short poems in the English language and it is one of the most anthologised English lyric poems....

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Instruction, Literature, Nature, Poetry

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This classic tale tells of an orphan, Pip, who through a series of strange circumstances first finds a trade as a blacksmith's apprentice and then learns that he has great expectations of a future inheritance from an anonymous benefactor. He soon learns to live the profligate life of a gentleman as he gradually sheds his associations with the gentle souls of his past, Joe (the blacksmith) and Biddy (a level-headed young lady). He throws his money at improving the prospects of his roommate and friend Herbert and his heart at an ice princess whose heart will never respond. But then an escaped convict from his distant past comes calling, and all Pip's hopes dissolve. (Summary by Mark F. Smith)...

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Fiction, Literature

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Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) was an American author of the naturalist school, known for dealing with the gritty reality of life. Sister Carrie (1900) is his first novel and tells the story of a young country girl who moves to the big city (Chicago) where she starts realizing her own American Dream by first becoming a mistress to powerful men and later as a famous actress. Dreiser and his wife significantly altered the original manuscript to make it more palatable to the prevailing sensibilities of the day, but even this toned down version caused a minor scandal, and Dreiser had difficulty finding a publisher for it. This was due to the blurred division line between good and bad in the plot. Although Dreiser's moralizing narrator does assert that, despite the fame and the money she has amassed, Carrie will not be able to achieve peace of mind in her life, the apparent lack of poetic justice -- the notion that immorality should pay in the end, even if only up to a point -- was a concept the reading public were altogether unused to at the time. (summary from wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Literature

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The Forsyte Saga' is the story of a wealthy London family stretching from the eighteen-eighties until the nineteen-twenties. In Chancery is the second book in the saga. Five years have passed since Irene left Soames and the death of Bosinney. Old Jolyon meets Irene and is enchanted by her. At his death he leaves her a legacy sufficient for her to live an independent life in Paris. Soames who is desperate for a son, attempts to effect a rapprochement but is rejected by her. Meanwhile Young Jolyon, now a widower,who is Irene’s trustee falls in love with her. Soames suspects Young Jolyon and Irene of adultery and sues for divorce. His action is successful. Young Jolyon and Irene marry. She bears him a son, John. Soames remarries. His wife Annette bears him a daughter, Fleur. (Summary by Andy Minter)...

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Literature, Romance

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The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan's Magazine in 1880-1881 and then as a book in 1881. It is the story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who affronts her destiny and finds it overwhelming. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. Like many of James's novels, it is set mostly in Europe, notably England and Italy.Generally regarded as the masterpiece of his early phase of writing, this novel reflects James's absorbing interest in the differences between the New World and the Old. It also treats in a profound way the themes of personal freedom, responsibility, betrayal, and sexuality. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Literature

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The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan's Magazine in 1880-1881 and then as a book in 1881. It is the story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who affronts her destiny and finds it overwhelming. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. Like many of James's novels, it is set mostly in Europe, notably England and Italy. Generally regarded as the masterpiece of his early phase of writing, this novel reflects James's absorbing interest in the differences between the New World and the Old. It also treats in a profound way the themes of personal freedom, responsibility, betrayal, and sexuality. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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Uri Nissan Gnessin was a Russian Jewish writer, generally considered a pioneer of modern Hebrew literature. His first book was published in 1904. In 1906 he co-founded the Hebrew-language publishing house Nisyonot (Attempts), and after moving to London in 1907, he co-edited (with Hayim Yosef Brenner) Ha'Meorer , a Hebrew periodical. Later he emigrated to Palestine but returned to Russia, then moved to Warsaw, where he died in 1913 of a heart attack. Gnessin wrote in a unique style of prose notable for its expressionistic language form. The story Etsel is about a young man suffering severe heart disease, unable to love or accept the love of several women around him. (Summary by Wikipedia and Omri Lernau)...

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Literature

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Published in 1914, this novel tells the story of Harmony Wells, an innocent and beautiful American in Austria to study violin. Harmony has talent and she dreams of a career in music. After her friends run out of money and return to the States, Harmony stays on in hopes of earning enough money to continue her lessons. Along the way, she meets Peter Byrne, an American doctor in Vienna following his dream to study surgery. Peter is already watching over an orphan boy in a local hospital and now he takes it upon himself to protect young Harmony from the unsavory side of life in the big city. With life pressing in, Peter and Harmony each must decide how much to sacrifice for the sake of their dreams - and for each other. (Summary by MaryAnn)...

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Literature

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The Old Curiosity Shop tells the story of Little Nell, a beautiful and virtuous young girl who lives with her grandfather in his shop of curiosities. Her grandfather loves her dearly, and Nell does not complain, but she lives a lonely existence without friends of her own age. Her only friend is Kit, an honest young lad who works at the shop, and whom she is teaching to write. Unbeknownst to Nell, her grandfather is obsessed with their precarious financial position and is attempting to make Nell a good inheritance by winning at cards. He keeps these nocturnal activities a secret, but borrows heavily from the evil Quilp, a dwarf, in order to raise new capital. In the end, he gambles away what little money they own, and Quilp seizes the opportunity to take possession of the shop and make Nell's and her grandfather's lives a misery. Indeed, her grandfather suffers a breakdown, which leaves him bereft of his wits. Courageously, Nell decides to escape Quilp, and she and her grandfather run away to the country to live as beggars, travelling into the Midlands of England. There, then, follow the multifarious adventures of Nell and her grandf...

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Literature

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Isabella Matilda Davis Brittingham was a significant early American Bahá'í and was posthumously designated by Shoghi Effendi as one of the 19 Disciples of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Heralds of the Covenant. She was born in 1852, the daughter of Benjamin Davis, who was a grandson of John Morton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Her sister-in-law heard about the Bahá'í Faith in 1897 and in 1898 Isabella herself became a part of the nascent American Bahá'í community. In September 1901, Isabella went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where she met 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the leader of the Bahá'í Faith and son of the Founder, Bahá'u'lláh. She used the knowledge she gained there to write The Revelation of Baha-ullah in a Sequence of Four Lessons, which was published by the Bahai Publishing Society of Chicago in 1902. There were nine editions of this work, the last being in 1920. It was one of the earliest accurate accounts of the Bahá'í Faith published in the West. The main purpose of the book is to demonstrate the truth of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation through Biblical prophecy....

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Literature

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This Side of Paradise is the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1920, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is a wealthy and attractive Princeton University student who dabbles in literature and has a series of romances that eventually lead to his disillusionment. In his later novels, Fitzgerald would further develop the book's theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking. (Summary from wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Literature

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In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain creates an entertaining adventure of Middle America in the 1800's - afloat on a raft on the Mississippi River. Huck escapes his civilized life when he arranges his own murder and turns back into the backwoods, downriver yokel he started as, and in the process springing a slave, Jim, from bondage.Huck and Jim experience life as a series of tableaus as the river sweeps them through small towns on their way South. At each stop, Huck engages his talent for mixing fact with bald-faced lies to endlessly get himself out of situations... and of course, putting him into others!Much has been written about the statement Twain is making about slavery in this book, but it's really secondary to the story. The facts of how black people were treated in this period give Huck and Jim their license for life on the run. Modern listeners will be intrigued by the unencumbered life of the pair; they make do with coffee, fish from the river, and little else (but of course, when they do need something extra, they don't mind helping themselves to it without recourse to money!)Huck and Jim have run-ins with de...

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Literature, Adventure, Humor, Travel, Teen/Young adult, Children

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The Regent' is, if not a sequel to 'The Card', then a 'Further Adventures of' the eponymous hero of that novel. Denry Machin is now forty-three and begins to feel that he is getting old, that making money and a happy home life are not enough and that he has lost his touch as the entrepreneur and entertainer of the 'Five Towns'. In fact, as he says to himself 'What I want is change - and a lot of it too!'. A chance meeting at the local theatre leads to his going to London and then... (Summary by A.J.M.)...

Excerpt Details
Literature, Fiction, Humor

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This fragment of a novel was written by Jane Austen in 1804 and remained untitled and unpublished until her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh printed it in his A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1871. The title is from him. Mr Watson is a widowed clergyman with two sons and four daughters. The youngest daughter, Emma, has been brought up by a wealthy aunt and is consequently better educated and more refined than her sisters. But when her aunt contracts a foolish second marriage, Emma is obliged to return to her father's house. There she is chagrined by the crude and reckless husband-hunting of two of her twenty-something sisters. (Summary from Gesine and Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Literature, Fiction

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Our Mutual Friend (written in the years 1864–65) is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining psychological insight with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, money, money, money, and what money can make of life but is also about human values. In the opening chapters a body is found in the Thames and identified as John Harmon, a young man recently returned to London to receive his inheritance. Were he alive, his father's will would require him to marry Bella Wilfer, a beautiful, mercenary girl whom he had never met. Instead, the money passes to the working-class Boffins, and the effects spread into various corners of London society. (Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Literature

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The House of the Seven Gables is a gloomy New England mansion, haunted from its foundation by fraudulent dealings, accusations of witchcraft, and sudden death. The current resident, the dignified but desperately poor Hepzibah Pyncheon, opens a shop in a side room to support her brother Clifford, who is about to leave prison after serving twenty-five years for murder. She refuses all assistance from her unpleasant wealthy cousin Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon. A distant relative, the pretty young Phoebe, turns up and quickly becomes invaluable, charming customers and rousing Clifford from depression. A delicate romance grows between Phoebe and the mysterious lodger Holgrave, who is writing a history of the Pyncheon family. -- The House of the Seven Gables is set mainly in the mid-19th century, with glimpses into the history of the house, which was built in the late 17th century. The primary interest of this book is in the subtle and involved descriptions of character and motive. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature, Fiction

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Manasseh da Costa, protagonist of this hilarious novel, is a schnorrer (beggar) who lives on the charitable contributions of the Jews of late 18th-century London. Manasseh is far from being a humble panhandler for, as every schnorrer knows, supporting the poor is a commandment from God (a mitzvah) not just a favour. And as the descendant of Portuguese Jews who had lived in England for many generations, Manasseh is the social superior of those newly arrived from Eastern Europe (Tedesco)—even his wealthy ‘patron’ Joseph Grobstock. The book concludes as the ever-audacious Manasseh strikes a blow for tolerance and understanding—while helping himself along the way. (Summary by Adrian Praetzellis)...

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Religion, Literature, Humor

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The Forsyte Saga' is the story of a wealthy London family stretching from the eighteen-eighties until the nineteen-twenties. The Man of Property is the first book in the saga. The 'man of property' of the title is Soames Forsyte, a partner in the family law firm. He is married to Irene but the marriage is not happy and during the book she falls in love with another man. Another branch of the family is headed by 'Old Jolyon,' estranged from his bohemian artist son 'Young Jolyon' and the story tells of their rapprochement and of Young Jolyon's daughter June who is engaged to an architect Philip Bosinney. For those familiar with the Forsytes, this book takes us up to the night when Soames exercises his 'rights' and to the death of Bosinney. (Summary by Andy Minter)...

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Literature, Historical Fiction

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One of James’s early novels, The American plunges right in to one of the writer’s most enduring subjects, that of the innocent, or at least inexperienced, American abroad, seeking to come to terms with the social customs and conventions of an old European aristocracy (think of Daisy Miller, Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove and others). The aptly named Christopher Newman, having made a small fortune from business in California, has come to the Old World for the first time, determined to enlarge his experience by learning all he can of it. In Paris he meets an old acquaintance, Tom Tristram, who (though he himself has little interest in educating himself about Europe) shows him around, and introduces him to the young widow Claire de Cintre, whose family – the aristocratic de Bellegardes – distrust his American brashness and commercialism. Claire, nonetheless, agrees to marry him, thus pulling Newman, rather more deeply than he is prepared for, into a society that closely guards its secrets, and forcing him to face new and quite unexpected questions. (Introduction by Nicholas Clifford)...

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Fiction, Literature

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The plot centers on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled by the Methodist church. Having escaped her father by marrying the respectable and attractive Henry, she attempts in vain to help Willy, son of a drunken and bankrupt business associate of her father's....

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Literature, Fiction, Romance, Satire, Teen/Young adult

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Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished St. Petersburg student who formulates and executes a plan to kill a hated, unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money, thereby solving his financial problems and at the same time, he argues, ridding the world of evil. Crime and Punishment is considered by many as the first of Dostoevsky's cycle of great novels, which would culminate with his last completed work, The Brothers Karamazov, shortly before his death. (Summary from Wikipedia)

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Excerpt Details
Fiction, Literature

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The novel tells the story of Agnes Grey, the daughter of a minister, whose family comes to financial ruin. Desperate to earn the money to care for herself, she takes one of the few jobs allowed to respectable women in the early Victorian era – the role of governess to the children of the wealthy. In working with two different families (the Bloomfields and the Murrays), she comes to learn about the troubles that face a young woman who must try to rein in unruly, spoiled children for a living, and about the ability of wealth and status to destroy social values. After her father's death, Agnes opens a small school with her mother and finds happiness with a man who loves her for herself. They have three children at the end of the novel, Edward, Agnes and Mary (Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Literature

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'Two Sides to Every Question’: From a South Australian Standpoint is a meditation on poverty, wealth, and social aspiration set in the free settlement of Adelaide in pre-Federation Australia. The novel follows the lives of a cast of characters from different social classes as they negotiate the twists and turns in their respective fortunes. The newly-bereaved Alton family—an invalid widow and her two grown children, Tom and Nettie—sell their rural property and move to the slovenly back streets of the inner-city; they are determined to hold onto their dignity and values as they turn to earning a living for the first time. The wealthy Clinton family runs the stock supply business where Tom finds employment as a clerk. Tom’s boss, Robert Clinton, supplements his business income through trading mining shares. His financial success ensures his wife and daughters, Elsie and Lily, have access to the higher echelons of colonial society. Meanwhile, the Clintons' cousin, Arthur Delta, arrives from England to take a position in his uncle’s business. Arthur's mother has called on her brother's charity to help her family in their time of need. W...

Excerpt Details
Literature

Description Details
Amongst the great popular novelists of the nineteenth century who are still read today, Anthony Trollope stands alongside his contemporary, Charles Dickens. His two series of novels, the political (The Pallisers) and the clerical (The Barsetshire Chronicles) are the best known. This book is the first of the Barsetshire series and was also Trollope’s first really successful novel. In the mid nineteenth century there were a number of financial scandals in the Church of England including those of Rochester, where the endowments which should have supported the King’s School Canterbury had been diverted to the Dean and Chapter; and of the hospital of St Cross at Winchester where the Rev. Francis North, later the Earl of Guildford, had been appointed to the mastership of the hospital by his father the bishop. The revenues of the hospital were very considerable, the work involved minimal. The scandal soon broke. Trollope based ‘The Warden’ on the St Cross case, but in the novel the Warden is a kindly, devoted, priest, beloved by all that knew him and is racked by fear that he is accepting money to which he is not entitled. His antagonist i...

Excerpt Details
Literature

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman opens a window of history through which we can see a small part of the determined efforts made by women to elevate the circumstances of women in the early 20th century.Diantha Bell is a normal young woman desiring marriage and a home, but also a challenging career in a new territory which raises many eyebrows and sets malicious tongues wagging. Her effort to elevate housework and cooking to a regulated and even scientific business, for the relief of homemakers, is a depiction of the late 19th century movement to promote Domestic Science, or Home Economics, as a means of providing more healthful home life, as well as career paths for women.Diantha's business prospers as she shows her excellent gifts of administration, organization and homemaking. She grows an empire, and brings happiness and wholesomeness to every area of endeavor which she carefully attempts.The improvements in women's opportunities have not been available very long, indeed.This is a good reminder....

Excerpt Details
Literature, Fiction, Cookery

Description Details
The Turmoil is the first novel in the 'Growth' trilogy, which also includes The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and The Midlander (1923, retitled National Avenue in 1927). In 1942 Orson Welles directed a film version based on volume 2, also titled The Magnificent Ambersons. The trilogy traces the growth of the United States through the declining fortunes of three generations of the aristocratic Amberson family in a fictional Mid-Western town, between the end of the Civil War and the early part of the 20th century, a period of rapid industrialization and socio-economic change in America. The decline of the Ambersons is contrasted with the rising fortunes of industrial tycoons and other new-money families, which did not derive power from family names but by doing things. As George Amberson's friend says, don't you think being things is 'rahthuh bettuh' than doing things? (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Gesine)...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Literature

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It is the end of the 19th century. Like thousands of others, the Rudkus family has emigrated from Lithuania to America in search of a better life. As they settle into the Packingtown neighborhood of Chicago, they find their dreams are unlikely to be realized. In fact, just the opposite is quite likely to occur. Jurgis, the main character of the novel, has brought his father Antanas, his fiancée Ona, her stepmother Teta Elzbieta, Teta Elzbieta's brother Jonas and her six children, and Ona's cousin Marija Berczynskas along. The family, naïve to the ways of Chicago, quickly falls prey to con men and makes a series of bad decisions that lead them into wretched poverty and terrible living conditions. All are forced to find jobs in dismal working conditions for their very survival. Jurgis, broken and discouraged, eventually finds solace in the American Socialist movement. This novel was written during a period in American history when “Trusts” were formed by multiple corporations to establish monopolies that stifled competition and fixed prices. Unthinkable working conditions and unfair business practices were the norm. The Jungle’s autho...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Literature