“Catch-22” is a satirical novel by American author Joseph Heller, the son of poor Jewish parents. Heller wanted to be a writer from an early age. His experiences as a bombardier during World War II inspired Catch-22. While sitting at home one morning in 1953, Heller thought of the lines, "It was love at first sight. The first time he saw the chaplain, fell madly in love with him." Within the ne... Read More
An American journalist, novelist, and short-story writer Ernest Hemingway was an iconic author in American literature. He participated in World War I as an ambulance driver until he was injured; then again during World War II. He served as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War; survived car accidents and plane crashes as well as mishaps on hunting and fishing expeditions. His debut n... Read More
American novelist and short-story writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 Ernest Hemingway’ was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he was leaving for the Italian Front in World War I. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms. In 1929, Ernest Hemingway’s classic A Farewell to Arms wa... Read More
American novelist and short-story writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 Ernest Hemingway’ was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he was leaving for the Italian Front in World War I. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. Hemingway's legacy to American literature is his style and also the extent of Hemingway's influence is seen in the tributes and echo... Read More
The secret of Hemingway's endurance as a storyteller is that he invites the active participation of the reader in the creation of the story. The short story In Another Country was first published in 1927. Many of the characters grapple with a loss of function, a loss of purpose, and a loss of faith. This story is about an ambulance corps member in Milan during World War I. Although unnamed, he... Read More
In striving to be as objective and honest as possible, Ernest Hemingway hit upon the device of describing a series of actions by using short, simple sentences from which all comment or emotional rhetoric has been eliminated. The resulting terse, concentrated prose is concrete and unemotional yet is often resonant and capable of conveying great irony through understatement. Hemingway's next-door... Read More
Ernest Hemingway's novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was originally published in 1940 and follows a young American guerrilla fighter. Throughout 1937 and 1938, Hemingway travelled between Spain and America promoting the Loyalist cause. He helped in the production of a short film about the effects of the war in Spain on its people, The Spanish Earth, and made many publicity and fund-raising appear... Read More
French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement Victor Marie Hugo was born in 1802 in Besançon in the eastern region of Franche-Comté. Hugo is considered to be one of the greatest and best-known French writers. He was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play Cromwell and drama Hernani. In 1831, Victor Hugo published his most famous novel, “The Hunchback of... Read More
The three Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne each published works during the Victorian era. Villette uses the biographical structure commonly seen in traditional Victorian literature but deviates somewhat due to its autobiographical nature. Many of the events that happen to the protagonist of the story mirror the events in the author's life. Like Lucy, Charlotte Brontë experienced family... Read More
Wuthering Heights is now a classic of English literature, but back in the Victorian era it was controversial because of its unusually stark depiction of mental and physical cruelty, and it challenged strict Victorian ideals regarding religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes and gender inequality. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights was first published in London in 1847 by Thomas Cautley Newby... Read More
The highest paid author during the 1930s William Somerset Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle after both of his parents died before he was ten. For five years he studied medicine at the medical school of St Thomas's Hospital in Lambeth. The initial run of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full-time. During the First World War, he ser... Read More
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion has varied about his works, but he has regularly been rated as second only to Shakespeare among British dramatists; analysts recognise his extensive influe... Read More
“There were three sorts of people. Those who ran, those who stayed, and those who were built in”. The Spire is a 1964 novel by the English author William Golding. William Golding was born in his grandmother's house, 47 Mount Wise, Newquay, Cornwall. Golding's mother, who was Cornish and whom he considered "a superstitious celt", used to tell him old Cornish fairy tales from her own childhood. I... Read More
English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain. Considered a Victorian realist, Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of those living in Victorian England. Also, Hardy wrote a number of significant war poems that relate to both the Boer Wars and World War I, including "Drummer Ho... Read More
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891. The “fine and handsome” daughter of a poor country peddler, with evidently little more than her brimming emotions and her “large innocent eyes” to distinguish her from the other gi... Read More
English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances. The Woodlanders is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1887. The Woodlanders marks the beginnings of controversy for Hardy's novels. At th... Read More
As Alexander Theroux once said that Hardy was "committed to the deep expression of ironic chaos and strange apathy, even hostility, toward man." Thomas Hardy was one of Britain’s greatest authors. Hardy's work was admired by many younger writers, including D. H. Lawrence, John Cowper Powys, and Virginia Woolf. One of Thomas Hardy’s most powerful works, The Return of the Native centres famously... Read More
Charles Dickens was the most popular novelist of his time and remains one of the best-known English authors. His works have never gone out of print, and have been adapted continually for the screen. Barnaby Rudge was the fifth of Dickens' novels to be published. It had originally been planned to appear as his first, but changes of publisher led to many delays, and it first appeared in serial fo... Read More
Charles Dickens enjoyed popularity during his lifetime than had any previous author. Much in his work could appeal to the simple and the sophisticated, to the poor and to the queen. His long career saw fluctuations in the reception and sales of individual novels, but none of them was negligible or uncharacteristic or disregarded, and, though he is now admired for aspects and phases of his work... Read More
An English writer and social critic Charles Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. A Tale of Two Cities has been cited as one of the best-selling novels of all time. It has been stated to have sold 200 million copies since its first publication, though this figure has been dismissed as "pure fict... Read More