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
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
With many millions of books sold globally, Colleen McCullough was arguably Australia's most popular novelist. Best known for The Thorn Birds, she penned more than two dozen books, including the Masters of Rome. Antony and Cleopatra is the seventh and purposely last novel in Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. Mark Antony, a famous warrior and legendary lover, expected that he would be... Read More
Colleen McCullough is an internationally acclaimed Australian writer whose novels have been sold in twenty territories. In 1963, McCullough moved for four years to the United Kingdom. At the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, she met the chairman of the neurology department at Yale University who offered her a research associate job at Yale. She spent 10 years researching and teaching in t... Read More
Rafael Sabatini was an Italian-English writer of romance and adventure novels. After a brief stint in the business world, Sabatini went to work as a writer. He wrote short stories in the 1890s, and his first novel came out in 1902. His most famous works have been translated into the classic swashbuckling films Captain Blood and Scaramouche. However, these books represent a small fraction of Sab... Read More
When talking about Rafael Sabatini, most people think of high adventure, sword-fighting and damsels in distress. Sabatini's writing, usually functioning in a historic setting, explores political intrigue, religion, and the place of chivalry and honour, while entertaining with clever dialogue, deftly drawn characters and action sequences as vivid and thrilling as modern movies. In all, he produc... Read More
Mary Balogh is a Welsh-Canadian novelist writing historical romance. She was born and raised in Swansea, Wales, daughter of Mildred "Double", a homemaker, and Arthur Jenkins, a signwriter and painter. She moved to Canada on a two-year teaching contract in 1967 after leaving university. As an adult, Balogh discovered the world of the Regency romance as written by Georgette Heyer. The vast majori... Read More
Mary Balogh is a Welsh-Canadian novelist writing historical romance. She was born in 1944 in Swansea, Wales, UK. After graduating from university, moved to Saskatchewan, Canada, to teach high school English, on a two-year teaching contract in 1967. Then Comes Seduction is the second novel in Huxtable Family Quintet. Katherine Huxtable knows that Jasper Finley, Baron Montford, is a rake, but he'... Read More
Mary Jenkins, better known by her pen name Mary Balogh, was born and raised in Swansea, Wales, daughter of Mildred "Double", a homemaker, and Arthur Jenkins, a signwriter and painter. She moved to Canada on a two-year teaching contract in 1967 after leaving university. Mary Balogh started writing in the evenings as a hobby. Her first book, A Regency Love Story, was published in 1985 as A Masked... Read More
Mary Balogh is a Welsh-Canadian novelist writing historical romance. She was born and raised in Swansea, Wales, daughter of Mildred "Double", a homemaker, and Arthur Jenkins, a signwriter and painter. She moved to Canada on a two-year teaching contract in 1967 after leaving university. As an adult, Balogh discovered the world of the Regency romance as written by Georgette Heyer. The vast majori... Read More
Mary Jenkins, better known by her pen name Mary Balogh, was born and raised in Swansea, Wales, daughter of Mildred "Double", a homemaker, and Arthur Jenkins, a signwriter and painter. She moved to Canada on a two-year teaching contract in 1967 after leaving university. Mary Balogh started writing in the evenings as a hobby. Her first book, A Regency Love Story, was published in 1985 as A Masked... Read More
Richard Doddridge Blackmore, known as R. D. Blackmore, was one of the most famous English novelists of the second half of the nineteenth century. Educated at Blundell’s School, Tiverton, and at Exeter College, Oxford, Blackmore was called to the bar but withdrew because of ill health. He married in 1852 and was a schoolteacher from 1855 to 1857. Then, upon receiving a legacy, he bought a proper... Read More
Frederick Forsyth is a British author of best-selling thriller novels noted for their journalistic style and their fast-paced plots based on international political affairs and personalities. Forsyth attended the University of Granada, Spain, and served in the Royal Air Force before becoming a journalist. He was a reporter for the British newspaper the Eastern Daily Press from 1958 to 1961 and... Read More
Daphne Du Maurier, also known as ‘Lady Browning’, was a British writer and playwright born on 13th May 1907 in London. She belonged to a creative family where her father and mother both were actors, her uncle was a magazine editor and her grandfather was a writer. This became the base for her literary talent as she started writing when she was very young. As a child, she knew how to stay in the... Read More
Daphne was born into a creative and successful family. Her grandfather was the brilliant artist and writer George du Maurier and her father was Gerald du Maurier, the most famous actor-manager and matinee idol of his day. Her mother, Muriel Beaumont, was also an actress. In 1932 Daphne du Maurier married Frederick Browning, a military man, and they had three children. She lived at Menabilly, th... Read More
British author Daphne du Maurier published her first novel in 1931. From that point on, she produced a variety of novels, short stories, and non-fiction books. This lesson will look at her life and works. It will also define Gothic literature. Author Frank Baker believed that du Maurier had plagiarised his novel The Birds in her short story "The Birds. Du Maurier had been working as a reader fo... Read More
Daphne du Maurier is one of the most successful and prolific authors of the 20th century, with a writing career that spanned more than 40 years. During World War II, though, Browning was stationed in France and du Maurier focused on her second love: Menabilly. She leased the house while Browning was still in France, in spite of the fact that it was almost completely dilapidated. Soon after her... Read More
John Galsworthy, one of the greatest British writers, was a representative of the literary tradition, which has regarded the novel as a lawful instrument of social propaganda. The Forsyte Saga is a history of three generations of the Forsyte family from the eighties of the 19th century up to the twenties of the 20th century. The Man of Property shows two successive generations of a rich upper-m... Read More