Sir William Gerald Golding, a British novelist, playwright, and poet, won a Nobel Prize in Literature and was awarded the Booker Prize for fiction in 1980 for his novel Rites of Passage. But he is best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. In September 1953, after many rejections from other publishers, Golding sent a manuscript to Faber & Faber. Monteith asked for some changes to the text... Read More
Charles John Huffam Dickens, an English writer and social critic, 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 an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms. A Christmas Carol, probably the most popul... 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
John Steinbeck, the author of such classics as Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden, remains firmly planted in the souls of his readers today. In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America. The idea was that he, pretty much depleted as a novelist, would travel alone, stay at campgrounds and reconnect himself with the country by... 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
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro is a Nobel Prize-winning British novelist, screenwriter, and short-story writer. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, but his family moved to the UK in 1960 when he was five. Never Let Me Go is a 2005 dystopian science fiction novel. The novel's title comes from a song on a cassette tape called Songs After Dark, by fictional singer Judy Bridgewater. Kathy bought the tape during a... Read More
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist and travel writer. A celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson attracted a more negative critical response for much of the 20th century, though his reputation has been largely restored. He is currently ranked as the 26th most translated author in the world. His first two books were travel accounts. Other non-fiction based on his personal experiences fol... Read More
Saki was a Scottish writer and journalist. He was born in Akyab, Burma in 1870. In 1872 while she was on a trip to England, his mother Mary was charged by a cow. She suffered a miscarriage, never recovered, and died in 1872 when Munro was only two years old. Munro adopted his pseudonym when writing for the Westminster Gazette. He later became a correspondent for newspapers and went on assignmen... Read More