Charles Dickens was the most popular novelist of his time and remains one of the best-known English authors. Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. His works have never gone out of print, and have been adapted continually for the screen. A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Rev... Read More
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was... Read More
Charles John Huffam Dickens, an English writer and social critic, was born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he became the most popular novelist of his time and remains one of the best-known English authors. Dickens wrote his ninth novel Bleak House at that perfect hinge in his car... Read More
Charles Dickens, in full Charles John Huffam Dickens, English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian era. His many volumes include such works as A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend. One of Charles Dickens’s most fascinating novels, Great Expectations follows the orphan Pip as he leaves behind a childhood of misery and poverty after an a... Read More
Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. He was extremely popular and widely read, both at home and abroad. Ivanhoe was the first of Scott's novels to adopt a purely English subject and was also his first attempt to combine history and romance, which late... Read More
Sir Walter Scott was born in 1771 in Edinburgh. His love of traditional Scottish oral storytelling led him to gather ballads and stories, leading to the development of a body of literature which gave previously disregarded traditional stories a platform, and Scottish culture an international stage. Although primarily remembered for his extensive literary works and his political engagement, Scot... Read More
Quentin Durward, the novel of adventure and romance by Sir Walter Scott, published in 1823. The novel was a popular success and solidified Scott’s reputation as a stirring writer. The novel is set in 15th-century France, where the title character saves the life of Louis XI. Quentin Durward was composed in a remarkably short space of time. After carrying out some preparatory research towards the... Read More
Jane Austen, for some, is simply the supreme English novelist, on any list. Some will say: she is the greatest. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Of... Read More
Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Persuasion was the last novel Jane Austen completed, and it didn’t appear in print until 1818 after she had passed away. It’s also shorter than most of her other novels, and some critics think that, because she wrote t... Read More
Walter Scott noted Austen's "resistance to the trashy sensationalism of much of modern fiction - 'the ephemeral productions which supply the regular demand of watering places and circulating libraries'". Yet her rejection of these genres is complex, as evidenced by Northanger Abbey and Emma. Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, in 1803. However... Read More
Erich Maria Remarque was a German novelist who created many works about the horrors of war. During World War I, Remarque was conscripted into the German Army at the age of 18. On 31 July, he was wounded by shrapnel in the left leg, right arm and neck, and was repatriated to an army hospital in Germany where he spent the rest of the war. With All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque emerged as a... Read More
Herbert George Wells was an English writer, born at Atlas House, 162 High Street in Bromley, Kent, on 21 September 1866. He was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, satire, biography, and autobiography, and even including two books on recreational war games. Nowadays H.G. Wells is mostly remembered for his innovative science fiction n... Read More
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, known as Marcel Proust, was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel In Search of Lost Time; earlier rendered as Remembrance of Things Past. In Search of Lost Time follows the narrator's recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood during the late 19th century to early 20th century aristocratic France,... Read More
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, known as Marcel Proust, was a French novelist, critic, and essayist. Proust was involved in writing and publishing from an early age. In addition to the literary magazines with which he was associated, and in which he published while at school, from 1890 to 1891 he published a regular society column in the journal Le Mensuel. Marcel Proust is best kn... Read More
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was an American author, who won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception." Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustic... Read More
John Steinbeck's first posthumously published work, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights is a reinterpretation of the Arthurian legend, based on the Winchester Manuscript text of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. This book by Sir Thomas Malory was the first book that John Steinbeck ever loved. In the latter half of the 1950s, having already won lasting fame as the author of Of Mic... Read More
John Ernst Steinbeck was an American author. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception." During his writing career, he authored 27 books, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. Ironically he is more popular with critics abroad than in his own... Read More
John Ernst Steinbeck was an American author, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception" in 1962. Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice... Read More
John Steinbeck was born in 1902 in Salinas, California. His first writing success came in 1935 with Tortilla Flat, a collection of humorous stories. But Steinbeck’s writing is less about humour and more about social issues. John Steinbeck’s timeless novella Of Mice and Men was published in 1937 to considerable acclaim, and the reading public’s appreciation of the text has hardly diminished sinc... Read More
John Ernst Steinbeck was an American author. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath. His books depict a realistic and tender image of his childhood and life, primarily in Monterrey, California. John Steinbeck's art and career follow a typically American arc of the mid-twentieth century. The early hard-scrabble years of unadulterated talent givin... Read More